No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
Reeves insists economic plan working as UK growth forecast lowered for 2026
Growth forecast is downgraded in 2026 - to 1.1% - in line with what independent economists expect. And unemployment is predicted to rise further this year too.
Gee, what a shock, with youth minimum wage rising much faster than general minimum wage (despite much higher youth unemployment) and tax increases on it too.
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
There is an ongoing inquiry into why she wasn't spotted earlier, although part of the answer is that it's fairly easy to kill if you are a healthcare provider in a position of trust.
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
But, but, Qatar provides only 2% of our gas !!!
Still a price worth paying according to Bart.
Dig deep everyone. You’re paying to keep Bibi out of stir.
Im on a 2 year energy fix....assuming they are still available should be a few hundred quid saving for 15 minutes work available today for the 80% on variable tariffs.
British gas listing no fixed tariffs today:
Of course, always possible that's just their website being broken, as per. I assume I'm supposed to be able to see a list of options somewhere on this screen...
Of the big name suppliers for my postcode there is still a 2yr fix from Sainsburys and a 15 month fix from EON. Guessing will be gone by the end of the week unless some dramatic improvement in the Gulf.
Just tried both, on their own websites. Both error out....
I suspect an automatic cut-out has triggered.
I took a look and froze mine for a year last week.
I note that the 12m fixed price on offer (Octopus) has ticked up by about 1.5% since then.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Gee, what a shock, with youth minimum wage rising much faster than general minimum wage (despite much higher youth unemployment) and tax increases on it too.
I wonder what's going wrong?
NB - in related news I am very pleased to be able to announce that my eldest is no longer a NEET & has got a job!
The contract is only for three months in the first instance but it’s in a Physics-related lab & the company is expanding so cross fingers they decide to take him on longer term.
Gee, what a shock, with youth minimum wage rising much faster than general minimum wage (despite much higher youth unemployment) and tax increases on it too.
I wonder what's going wrong?
NB - in related news I am very pleased to be able to announce that my eldest is no longer a NEET & has got a job!
The contract is only for three months in the first instance but it’s in a Physics-related lab & the company is expanding so cross fingers they decide to take him on longer term.
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
But, as we saw from the tweet from the open doors migration campaigner TUD slavishly posted she’s under attack on the left. Including some in her own party like Stella Creasy
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
But, as we saw from the tweet from the open doors migration campaigner TUD slavishly posted she’s under attack on the left. Including some in her own party like Stella Creasy
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
But, as we saw from the tweet from the open doors migration campaigner TUD slavishly posted she’s under attack on the left. Including some in her own party like Stella Creasy
Reeves would have been better off standing up and saying “ask me again in a month’s time”
Giving out forecasts on inflation in particular are immediately out of date given events in the ME.
I mean she's not announcing anything new and there will be another forecast in 6 months.
May as well just give the the statement and let it be ignored than trying to postpone until an unspecified date of greater clarity around the middle east.
If the Iran situation doesn't settle by then, it's obvious the fiscal and broader economic position will be worse.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
There are a couple of angles on that - a complex situation.
1 - For UK LNG imports are down by 35-40% since 2022. Though iirc 2022 included a larger than usual element of re-export since the mainland was not wel off for LNG import terminals then. 2 - At present I do not think we import much from the Gulf. Main supplier USA. 3 - For oil, main import suppliers are USA / Norway, so security of supply is Guld proof, but of course the price will follow the world price. 4 - The impact of a high oil price will impact the USA far more than Europe, since 60% or 70% or whatever of our transport fuel price is tax in Europe.
With that lot, I can't even try and guess the impact.
In my more cynical moments, I think that Trumpski may have started this voluntary war (to use the right term) to benefit the USA from higher oil prices, if that is true, just as the Venezuela war was for oil.
Would Mr Starmer reverse the balance of taxes to encourage Richard to stop closing down our existing oil fields?
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
Holy fuck. Maybe I am going to be Minister of Defense!
Their is a bit of (purple haired) head scratching going on in our local branch. Along with a perceptive yet plaintive query about how we find another 600+ Hannahs.
Around here, in Oxfordshire, the Greens are sitting very pretty in that regard. I could name half a dozen local Green councillors and activists who would make very plausible MP candidates. A whole bunch more than either Labour or the Conservatives, both of which have been absolutely denuded of talent in the last few years.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
I have 7 months
I signed up to an 18 month tarriff in late Jan *winner*
Reform were gaining support running in to LE 25 and over achieved expectations Reform are losing support running in to LE 26, i expect them to undershoot expectations
500 gains will be a disaster for them.
It would be mediocre result. They should be aiming for c1,000.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
The devil is in the detail. The story mentions, without emphasis, that the defence was informed, and doesn't say whether the judge did not allow the evidence to be adduced or if there was an application:
Nevertheless, the tribunal permitted him to continue giving expert evidence for the prosecution of Letby. The Crown Prosecution Service told the defence it would oppose any attempt to inform the jury of the GMC investigation, on the basis that the allegations had not reached a final adjudication.
There is an apparent error also: the tribunal (the GMC) has no power to compel or forbid any witness in a criminal trial. That's a matter for the judge.
Still an interesting story. There is no choice but to await the CCRC. Finally, a reminder that the original defence team can't explain itself, defend itself or disclose stuff without the client's permission as Letby has privilege. She appears (I don't know of course) not to have waived it. This whole discussion takes place with the original defence silenced.
Wait and see.
Whether Letby is innocent or guilty, i do not know. But I do know that there were enough serious issues with the trial, that a close serious investigation is needed.
(There's a fascinating John Grisham book on real life misarriages of justice. It is crazy the lengths people will go to to avoid admitting they made a mistake.)
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
I have 7 months
I signed up to an 18 month tarriff in late Jan *winner*
Siri, show me what an incredibly smug post looks like.
Siri: 'Does it have to mention you have just had solar panels and a large battery installed?'
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
It's the bloody 3rd of bloody March !!!!
Give it twelve days and my boiler will be resting in idesleness.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
It's the bloody 3rd of bloody March !!!!
Give it twelve days and my boiler will be resting in idesleness.
Mine is barely coming on in the morning, and staying off for the rest of the day
Reform were gaining support running in to LE 25 and over achieved expectations Reform are losing support running in to LE 26, i expect them to undershoot expectations
500 gains will be a disaster for them.
It would be mediocre result. They should be aiming for c1,000.
Even 1000 might not get them most wards won. Which will be as important for optics as NEV 500 wouldnt even get them top on NEV
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
But, but, Qatar provides only 2% of our gas !!!
Still a price worth paying according to Bart.
Dig deep everyone. You’re paying to keep Bibi out of stir.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
It's the bloody 3rd of bloody March !!!!
Give it twelve days and my boiler will be resting in idesleness.
Mine is barely coming on in the morning, and staying off for the rest of the day
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
But, as we saw from the tweet from the open doors migration campaigner TUD slavishly posted she’s under attack on the left. Including some in her own party like Stella Creasy
Triple mentions!
Any updates on an app to prevent you from seeing my posts? I think it's the only way to fix this compulsion you have with interacting with them.
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
I’m increasingly unsure that the sub judice rules do not serve the interests of justice well: People deserve to have their day in court & not be pilloried by the press, but this case is a classic example of where the sub judice rules made it impossible for those with qualms about the case to be heard.
The state spent about £10million prosecuting Letby & gave her £1.5million to defend herself, most of which was spent on barrrister prep & court time. How much of that was available to spend on finding & paying expert witnesses to counter the CPS narrative? Not much, one suspects, given the ruinous expense of good lawyers! Defence solicitors only have so much resource to spend finding expert witnesses in fields that they are (inevitably) not themselves experts in.
A justice system where those who are convinced that the defendant is guilty can rock up to the police making all kinds of claims with no basis in science whatsoever & are enthusiastically co-opted as prosecution expert witnesses but those who take the other view are silenced & not permitted to speak will inevitably lead to miscarriages of justice.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
There is an ongoing inquiry into why she wasn't spotted earlier, although part of the answer is that it's fairly easy to kill if you are a healthcare provider in a position of trust.
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
You may know this (and I don't) - is the inquiry working on the presumption of her guilt? Because if so, that could be problematic.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
It's the bloody 3rd of bloody March !!!!
The sun feels very warm on the skin this lunchtime. Felt like it was nearly summer to me.
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
There is an ongoing inquiry into why she wasn't spotted earlier, although part of the answer is that it's fairly easy to kill if you are a healthcare provider in a position of trust.
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
You may know this (and I don't) - is the inquiry working on the presumption of her guilt? Because if so, that could be problematic.
The terms of reference for the enquiry assume that the conviction is sound & that the problem to be investigated is how a high needs maternity ward failed to spot a serial killer operating in their midst:
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
It's the bloody 3rd of bloody March !!!!
Give it twelve days and my boiler will be resting in idesleness.
Mine is barely coming on in the morning, and staying off for the rest of the day
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
It's the bloody 3rd of bloody March !!!!
Give it twelve days and my boiler will be resting in idesleness.
Mine is barely coming on in the morning, and staying off for the rest of the day
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
But, as we saw from the tweet from the open doors migration campaigner TUD slavishly posted she’s under attack on the left. Including some in her own party like Stella Creasy
Triple mentions!
Any updates on an app to prevent you from seeing my posts? I think it's the only way to fix this compulsion you have with interacting with them.
A CSS-rewriting extension for your browser - "CSS Override" or "Cascadea" or similar - lets you do that by adding a line like this:
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
There is an ongoing inquiry into why she wasn't spotted earlier, although part of the answer is that it's fairly easy to kill if you are a healthcare provider in a position of trust.
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
You may know this (and I don't) - is the inquiry working on the presumption of her guilt? Because if so, that could be problematic.
The terms of reference for the enquiry assume that the conviction is sound & that the problem to be investigated is how a high needs maternity ward failed to spot a serial killer operating in their midst:
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
Presumably Ms Letby knows.
Maybe she doesn’t? Depends on her grip on reality.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
But, but, Qatar provides only 2% of our gas !!!
Still a price worth paying according to Bart.
Dig deep everyone. You’re paying to keep Bibi out of stir.
Renewable energy is somewhat less fungible. There's much less infrastructure for transporting electricity across the world than there is for fossil fuels.
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
There is an ongoing inquiry into why she wasn't spotted earlier, although part of the answer is that it's fairly easy to kill if you are a healthcare provider in a position of trust.
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
You may know this (and I don't) - is the inquiry working on the presumption of her guilt? Because if so, that could be problematic.
The investigation is into the failings of the Countess of Chester Hospital, and essentially assumes her guilt, because a number of the questions specifically reference concerns about her behaviour raised long prior to her conviction.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
But, but, Qatar provides only 2% of our gas !!!
Still a price worth paying according to Bart.
Dig deep everyone. You’re paying to keep Bibi out of stir.
Renewable energy is somewhat less fungible. There's much less infrastructure for transporting electricity across the world than there is for fossil fuels.
That's true, and that's why Spain and Portugal largely avoided Ukraine damage: their wind energy could not be exported, because they are largely cut off from the rest of the European energy grid. (Which did them no good at all a few years later.)
No, its ok, I've been assured on PB that she is definitely guilty and that a jury looked at the evidence and everything...
I will be amazed if there isn't some kind of appeal allowed. Too much has come out since.
Its an awful situation. If she killed no babies then you have an innocent woman in prison for crimes that never happened. And you have grieving parents who believe that their children were killed when the reality was that they died from poor care on a ward that should not have been looking after them.
OR
She is the devil incarnate, an evil murderer who has wrecked hundreds of lives.
And at the moment I don't believe anyone knows for sure which it is.
I don’t either. It could well be a mix - she is guilty, but the ward was shit as well. See the GK Chesterton short story where a murder hides his crime by causing a battle to happen there.
I just know that the idea, floated here, that “we shouldn’t prosecute her for further crimes, because they might fail to get a conviction, and that might cause the original conviction to fail. Which would really upset the parents” is simply wrong.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
If she is guilty, the mere fact she got away with so many crimes for so long suggests there was something very wrong on the ward.
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
There is an ongoing inquiry into why she wasn't spotted earlier, although part of the answer is that it's fairly easy to kill if you are a healthcare provider in a position of trust.
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
You may know this (and I don't) - is the inquiry working on the presumption of her guilt? Because if so, that could be problematic.
The terms of reference for the enquiry assume that the conviction is sound & that the problem to be investigated is how a high needs maternity ward failed to spot a serial killer operating in their midst:
The UK state turning out to have wasted tens of millions of £ in order to avoid owning up to the failures of a maternity unit would be symptomatic of something, certainly.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Reeves insists economic plan working as UK growth forecast lowered for 2026
Growth down. Unemployment up. Youth NEET up.
The plan is working.
WTAF is wrong with her !?
WTAF is wrong with her economic plan.
What's really striking is that even when she tries to talk up the figures, the actual growth is still dismal, and the borrowing still high. There's almost no prospect now of Labour delivering on the 2024 manifesto. What is happening now has the potential to blow even these plans off course.
I honestly have no idea how Labour has been seemingly so unprepared for the task at hand, and so unaware of the risk a prospective second Trump term represented. It's like they thought "not the Tories" would be enough, when they were headed into very choppy waters.
Most concerning of all there's seems to be a head-in-the-sand attitude to defence when essentially every indicator is flashing red. We seem to be so slow at taking action, when all kinds of dire scenarios could develop very quickly.
Now U.S. has closed two embassies in Mideast & told Americans in 14 countries to leave. But most airspace is shut down, there are no flights. Reading about people from around the world stranded.
Why are they only now telling Americans to leave? No planning, they weren’t expecting it to spiral.
I’m a broken record on this but Trump’s entire plan was clearly “kick them in the face, collect praise from Twitter, walk away.” From his perspective it’s always worked before. It seemingly never occurred to them that they may not be able to walk away.
This is what happens when you don't have any ground based air defence.
The UK is considering sending a major warship to Cyprus to help defend a Royal Air Force base from the threat of attack by Iranian drones and missiles, it is understood. Discussions are taking place about deploying a Type 45 destroyer. It is the only piece of equipment in the British arsenal with the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles. "We are looking hard at it,” a defence source said. A second source added: "Nothing is confirmed yet."..
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Sadly at the moment the price of all fuels move in lockstep with Gas. I wish the government would break the link.
There is no one in the inner circle who understands war.
What's more dangerous than incompetence is that you have two people - Miller & Hegseth - totally convinced they understand war.
Dan Caine elected to have no positive control when he took the role, he works for Tim Parlatore and Sean Parnell.
Other stakeholders (Hegseth included, obviously) are likely appealing to supernatural powers to pull them out of it.
The Islamic Republic of Iran & Kingdom of Saudi Arabia probably rely less on prophecy, superstition, gematria, omens, scripture, & the words & sayings of erratic clerics than we do.
The devil is in the detail. The story mentions, without emphasis, that the defence was informed, and doesn't say whether the judge did not allow the evidence to be adduced or if there was an application:
Nevertheless, the tribunal permitted him to continue giving expert evidence for the prosecution of Letby. The Crown Prosecution Service told the defence it would oppose any attempt to inform the jury of the GMC investigation, on the basis that the allegations had not reached a final adjudication.
There is an apparent error also: the tribunal (the GMC) has no power to compel or forbid any witness in a criminal trial. That's a matter for the judge.
Still an interesting story. There is no choice but to await the CCRC. Finally, a reminder that the original defence team can't explain itself, defend itself or disclose stuff without the client's permission as Letby has privilege. She appears (I don't know of course) not to have waived it. This whole discussion takes place with the original defence silenced.
Wait and see.
Later on, the article states:
The prosecuting barrister, Johnson, told the defence he would oppose the jury being told anything about the GMC investigation, on the grounds that it had not reached a final adjudication.
It seems her defence chose not to challenge his status as an expert witness. They would have had to convince the judge to halt the trial presumably, since the disclosure was so very, very late. That would have been a big ask.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Sadly at the moment the price of all fuels move in lockstep with Gas. I wish the government would break the link.
Fat chance with that gommerel Wallace in charge of Energy, grommit could do a better job.
This is what happens when you don't have any ground based air defence.
The UK is considering sending a major warship to Cyprus to help defend a Royal Air Force base from the threat of attack by Iranian drones and missiles, it is understood. Discussions are taking place about deploying a Type 45 destroyer. It is the only piece of equipment in the British arsenal with the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles. "We are looking hard at it,” a defence source said. A second source added: "Nothing is confirmed yet."..
Most of our T45s are in refit.
Embarrassing! You’d have thought that especially in Cyprus that you’d have some ground based air defence to protect their most important base in that region .
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
OBR chart showing how chancellor's plans imply spending cuts in many departments in election year. Plans are also for big tax rises in 2028 and 2029. I do wonder whether this is politically realistic...
The welfare bill will increase from £314 billion last year to £406 billion by the end of the Parliament.
Dig deep businesses and workers to pay for pensioners, benefits claimants and the removal of the 2 child cap all while your standard of living falls. Mugs
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Sadly at the moment the price of all fuels move in lockstep with Gas. I wish the government would break the link.
It's weird how this assumption has taken hold. Our contracts with renewables are fixed. They saved us in the region of £7 billion in 2022-23 (compared with the equivalent in gas generation). If WWIII has a similar impact this year, I reckon it will be in the region of £15 billion. Not much consolation against the £40 billion we spent on the energy support schemes...
(CfD generation has about trebled since 2022, but the strike prices are higher).
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Sadly at the moment the price of all fuels move in lockstep with Gas. I wish the government would break the link.
But you can't break the link, because that is simple economics.
If the price of gas rises then, all around the world, coal fired power stations become more competitive and demand for coal increases. And because coal production is relatively stable (or to put it another way, it's fairly price inelastic), then this means that the price for coal will quickly rise so it is essentially identical (or a KWh of generated electricity basis) to natural gas.
And even if you could completely break the link by (say) being 100% solar, then at times when natural gas (and therefore electricity) was expensive world wide, and therefore power was cheap only in your country, then people running energy intensive businesses (like steel minimills) would setup in your country to take advantage of the cheaper power, until your energy prices had normalised with everyone else. Of course, this second factor is *very* long-term.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
Won’t really help business that much
it will, as they're not going to be using the central heating so much.
NEW: Multi-drone attack collapsed roof at US embassy in Saudi Arabia and contaminated the inside with smoke, per State Dept. alert obtained by The Post. US personnel “continue to shelter in place"
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Sadly at the moment the price of all fuels move in lockstep with Gas. I wish the government would break the link.
It's weird how this assumption has taken hold. Our contracts with renewables are fixed. They saved us in the region of £7 billion in 2022-23 (compared with the equivalent in gas generation). If WWIII has a similar impact this year, I reckon it will be in the region of £15 billion. Not much consolation against the £40 billion we spent on the energy support schemes...
(CfD generation has about trebled since 2022, but the strike prices are higher).
It's great that we are now less reliant on imported gas than we were. But you can't buck the fact that demand for energy is price inelastic, and that therefore supply shocks will have a very significant impact on prices. (Also, you can't subsidise your way out of trouble. Because, globally, consumption has to drop to match reduced availability of energy.)
Scottish Energy is doing 5.7p/kwH for gas fixed for a year. Just switched from Octopus' tracker - which did average me 4.8p over the previous year but obviously that's ancient history for the forseeable future.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
Won’t really help business that much
it will, as they're not going to be using the central heating so much.
You reckon ?
Fine for offices but not great for high energy users like my old company
Now U.S. has closed two embassies in Mideast & told Americans in 14 countries to leave. But most airspace is shut down, there are no flights. Reading about people from around the world stranded.
Why are they only now telling Americans to leave? No planning, they weren’t expecting it to spiral.
I’m a broken record on this but Trump’s entire plan was clearly “kick them in the face, collect praise from Twitter, walk away.” From his perspective it’s always worked before. It seemingly never occurred to them that they may not be able to walk away.
If only there was some sort of precedent for a Special Military Operation encountering an enemy willing to shoot back.
The devil is in the detail. The story mentions, without emphasis, that the defence was informed, and doesn't say whether the judge did not allow the evidence to be adduced or if there was an application:
Nevertheless, the tribunal permitted him to continue giving expert evidence for the prosecution of Letby. The Crown Prosecution Service told the defence it would oppose any attempt to inform the jury of the GMC investigation, on the basis that the allegations had not reached a final adjudication.
There is an apparent error also: the tribunal (the GMC) has no power to compel or forbid any witness in a criminal trial. That's a matter for the judge.
Still an interesting story. There is no choice but to await the CCRC. Finally, a reminder that the original defence team can't explain itself, defend itself or disclose stuff without the client's permission as Letby has privilege. She appears (I don't know of course) not to have waived it. This whole discussion takes place with the original defence silenced.
Wait and see.
Whether Letby is innocent or guilty, i do not know. But I do know that there were enough serious issues with the trial, that a close serious investigation is needed.
(There's a fascinating John Grisham book on real life misarriages of justice. It is crazy the lengths people will go to to avoid admitting they made a mistake.)
Fair enough. That's why LL has a new defence set of lawyers and the CCRC exists. Close serious examination is always a possibility. It seems to be happening here.
The devil is in the detail. The story mentions, without emphasis, that the defence was informed, and doesn't say whether the judge did not allow the evidence to be adduced or if there was an application:
Nevertheless, the tribunal permitted him to continue giving expert evidence for the prosecution of Letby. The Crown Prosecution Service told the defence it would oppose any attempt to inform the jury of the GMC investigation, on the basis that the allegations had not reached a final adjudication.
There is an apparent error also: the tribunal (the GMC) has no power to compel or forbid any witness in a criminal trial. That's a matter for the judge.
Still an interesting story. There is no choice but to await the CCRC. Finally, a reminder that the original defence team can't explain itself, defend itself or disclose stuff without the client's permission as Letby has privilege. She appears (I don't know of course) not to have waived it. This whole discussion takes place with the original defence silenced.
Wait and see.
Later on, the article states:
The prosecuting barrister, Johnson, told the defence he would oppose the jury being told anything about the GMC investigation, on the grounds that it had not reached a final adjudication.
It seems her defence chose not to challenge his status as an expert witness. They would have had to convince the judge to halt the trial presumably, since the disclosure was so very, very late. That would have been a big ask.
I think that's not a matter easy to find out. An application to the judge about the admissibility of evidence or of a witness is dealt with in the absence of the jury and can't be reported. Such things happen in trials all the time, they are routine events. But it is essential the jury doesn't know.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 28m This is really bad now - UK natural gas a month ahead just hit 170p a therm - it’s more than DOUBLED in a day and is now approaching the level (which was sustained for months) which caused problems in 2022… needed the energy price guarantee etc…
Pray for sun and wind. At least we're approaching the spring/summer.
Ace
That makes it okay then 👍
Of course not, but it makes it less bad than if this were to kick off in November.
(cf Scargill's stupidity in launching the 1984/5 miners strike in the spring.)
What might be a groundlet for hope is that I'm pretty sure that Trump has less stomach for the consequences of an extended conflict than Putin.
I get that it’s just the glib ‘don’t worry it’s spring’ retort. It doesn’t make it okay. This war won’t be quick and we have problems looming
I didn't say "don't worry". Our exposure to fossil fuels is going to wreck our economy, once again.
In no small part because we've exposed ourselves to the wrong fossil fuels. 20 years ago this would be been pretty much a non-event as we could pretty much power the country on coal, which is eminently stockpileable, can be shipped round the world in bog standard bulk carriers, and is available from dozens of sources, many of them not middle eastern despots. At a pinch, there's even quite a lot of it left under our feet, some of which we could open cast mine quite quickly.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
The price of coal and the price of natural gas move in lockstep, because (fossil fuel) energy is highly fungible. If gas prices go up... then so do coal prices. (See my Substack.)
Sadly at the moment the price of all fuels move in lockstep with Gas. I wish the government would break the link.
Fat chance with that gommerel Wallace in charge of Energy, grommit could do a better job.
Spend money on subsidising energy bills or on renewables so the price drops? It's a quandary isn't it?
"Electricity Market Reform (REMA) Decoupling Mechanism: The government is focusing on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA), identifying "Contracts for Difference" as a key tool to decouple gas and electricity prices. Future-proofing Contracts: By fixing the price of renewable energy through these contracts (strike prices), consumers are protected from the high spot prices of gas, as cheaper renewables set the market price more frequently. Investment: The government is encouraging a "Green Power Pool" and other market reforms to ensure that as renewables increase, they directly lower consumer bills."
Well thanks for asking. I went to an old seafood market hoping for some dinner. It’s quite a famous market. But now it’s all closed down
Then I felt a bit uneasy - more food poisoning? - so I walked the 400 metres south to a really really really convenient medical facility. The Wuhan Centre for Disease Control, where up until 2019 they were famously storing bags for bizarre and dangerous experiments in “Wild West” conditions
That’s right. I went to the lab where it came from. The thing that recently killed 20 million people and upended all of humanity. Yes. I went there. Me. Went there. Me
This is what happens when you don't have any ground based air defence.
The UK is considering sending a major warship to Cyprus to help defend a Royal Air Force base from the threat of attack by Iranian drones and missiles, it is understood. Discussions are taking place about deploying a Type 45 destroyer. It is the only piece of equipment in the British arsenal with the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles. "We are looking hard at it,” a defence source said. A second source added: "Nothing is confirmed yet."..
Most of our T45s are in refit.
Embarrassing! You’d have thought that especially in Cyprus that you’d have some ground based air defence to protect their most important base in that region .
The UK mainland is no better off in terms if GBAD.
We rely on the small and rather fragile T45 fleet, and the RAF for air defence. And currently we have no airborne early warning capability at all (and never will have for our carriers).
A long range drone attack which didn't have to pass over half of Europe might be very awkward indeed to deal with.
That's a much more alarming capacity gap than our troubles with Ajax and the Challenger upgrade. Which get far more attention and funding.
Soaring gas prices are not going to be good for businesses that are not covered by the price cap. Schools will be feeling the strain very acutely. In particular, watch out for private schools closing unexpectedly if that stays high for long,
Indeed.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
Well, the fact it *is* nearly summer will undoubtedly help. We use three times as much gas in the winter as in the summer - can't think why. Solar power is also kicking into gear if the output from my panels is anything to go by.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
Won’t really help business that much
it will, as they're not going to be using the central heating so much.
You reckon ?
Fine for offices but not great for high energy users like my old company
Oh I see. I would tend to refer to that as industry, rather than business, hence why I was getting confused. Sorry.
Comments
If she isn't, there was something very wrong on the ward.
I cannot see how any scenario does not involve dreadful management and poor safeguarding processes.
Growth forecast is downgraded in 2026 - to 1.1% - in line with what independent economists expect. And unemployment is predicted to rise further this year too.
Gee, what a shock, with youth minimum wage rising much faster than general minimum wage (despite much higher youth unemployment) and tax increases on it too.
I wonder what's going wrong?
The Thirwall inquiry will be publishing around Easter, so not long.
Unemployment up.
Youth NEET up.
The plan is working.
WTAF is wrong with her !?
Giving out forecasts on inflation in particular are immediately out of date given events in the ME.
I note that the 12m fixed price on offer (Octopus) has ticked up by about 1.5% since then.
The contract is only for three months in the first instance but it’s in a Physics-related lab & the company is expanding so cross fingers they decide to take him on longer term.
Another day into the Third World War (so I’m told) and, as I’ve asked about Ukraine since March 2022, how does this end? What does an end look like?
Is it all going to just peter out and stop with little or nothing changed? Trump will have been told the consequences of American ground troops on Iranian soil but as we could all have told him, unless you are prepared to commit to regime change, hoping somehow it will happen is naive. Now, we all know money talks and perhaps enough paid to the right people will engineer the insurrection which replaces the theocracy with a more pragmatic military dictatorship. We’ll see.
Closer to home and, conflicting polls aside, Shabana Mahmood is an interesting figure and underrated. We know Labour has an authoritarian streak a mile wide and Mahmood is playing the Straw/Blunkett role of the uncompromising Home Secretary and that will draw some of the fire from Reform IF she is seen to be sufficiently tough and successful on immigration.
I suspect we are starting to see this with parties like Restore tacking to an even more ethno-nationalist line - basically you have to be white and Christian to be British or such piffle. That constituency exists but isn’t big enough to win an election.
The immediate future looks tough for both Labour and the Conservatives as insurgent parties take advantage of ongoing but unfocused anger at “how things are” but I suspect predictions of the demise of the “Uniparty” are rather exaggerated.
But worry it’s nearly summer seems to
Be the view.
I’ve 4 more months on my fix
May as well just give the the statement and let it be ignored than trying to postpone until an unspecified date of greater clarity around the middle east.
If the Iran situation doesn't settle by then, it's obvious the fiscal and broader economic position will be worse.
But life would be rather easier if we were not so highly dependent on gas for heating and power generation.
The conservatives need to concentrate on NEETS and the young
1 - For UK LNG imports are down by 35-40% since 2022. Though iirc 2022 included a larger than usual element of re-export since the mainland was not wel off for LNG import terminals then.
2 - At present I do not think we import much from the Gulf. Main supplier USA.
3 - For oil, main import suppliers are USA / Norway, so security of supply is Guld proof, but of course the price will follow the world price.
4 - The impact of a high oil price will impact the USA far more than Europe, since 60% or 70% or whatever of our transport fuel price is tax in Europe.
With that lot, I can't even try and guess the impact.
In my more cynical moments, I think that Trumpski may have started this voluntary war (to use the right term) to benefit the USA from higher oil prices, if that is true, just as the Venezuela war was for oil.
Would Mr Starmer reverse the balance of taxes to encourage Richard to stop closing down our existing oil fields?
*winner*
Ref 28.0%
Con 18.0%
Lab 17.9%
Grn 15.4%
LD 12.7%
SNP 2.6%
https://electionmaps.uk/polling/vi
(There's a fascinating John Grisham book on real life misarriages of justice. It is crazy the lengths people will go to to avoid admitting they made a mistake.)
Siri: 'Does it have to mention you have just had solar panels and a large battery installed?'
Greens have only EVER polled above 15 with 2 of those pollsters
If a country attack you... trade with that country might be affected.
OK. I wrote it down. Hopefully I won't forget it.
500 wouldnt even get them top on NEV
Mine goes off 5 minutes before it comes on.
Any updates on an app to prevent you from seeing my posts? I think it's the only way to fix this compulsion you have with interacting with them.
The state may claim that the defence is supposed to balance out the prosecution, but the direct court costs alone in this case were 2:1 in favour of the prosecution & that expenditure doesn’t include any of the cost incurred by the state building a case before they went to court. If you look at the block grants for Operation Hummingbird (the Letby investigation) listed here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-funding-special-grant-applications/special-grant-applications-2018-2022-accessible-version they come to about £8million.
The state spent about £10million prosecuting Letby & gave her £1.5million to defend herself, most of which was spent on barrrister prep & court time. How much of that was available to spend on finding & paying expert witnesses to counter the CPS narrative? Not much, one suspects, given the ruinous expense of good lawyers! Defence solicitors only have so much resource to spend finding expert witnesses in fields that they are (inevitably) not themselves experts in.
A justice system where those who are convinced that the defendant is guilty can rock up to the police making all kinds of claims with no basis in science whatsoever & are enthusiastically co-opted as prosecution expert witnesses but those who take the other view are silenced & not permitted to speak will inevitably lead to miscarriages of justice.
But because out politicians are idiots, we closed it all and knocked it all down in favour of a fuel we can't really store, which comes mainly from the most unstable regions of the world, and also decided to close down what domestic production we did have, as it's better for the environment to import it from dodgy places in the middle east or something.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thirlwall-inquiry-terms-of-reference/thirlwall-inquiry-terms-of-reference
li.Item:has(span.Author a[title="Theuniondivvie"]) { display: none !important; }I honestly have no idea how Labour has been seemingly so unprepared for the task at hand, and so unaware of the risk a prospective second Trump term represented. It's like they thought "not the Tories" would be enough, when they were headed into very choppy waters.
Most concerning of all there's seems to be a head-in-the-sand attitude to defence when essentially every indicator is flashing red. We seem to be so slow at taking action, when all kinds of dire scenarios could develop very quickly.
Now U.S. has closed two embassies in Mideast & told Americans in 14 countries to leave. But most airspace is shut down, there are no flights. Reading about people from around the world stranded.
Why are they only now telling Americans to leave? No planning, they weren’t expecting it to spiral.
@meidastouch.com
Wow. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem tells Americans they’re on their own.
https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com/post/3mg5tgkqcw227
@whstancil.bsky.social
I’m a broken record on this but Trump’s entire plan was clearly “kick them in the face, collect praise from Twitter, walk away.” From his perspective it’s always worked before. It seemingly never occurred to them that they may not be able to walk away.
The UK is considering sending a major warship to Cyprus to help defend a Royal Air Force base from the threat of attack by Iranian drones and missiles, it is understood.
Discussions are taking place about deploying a Type 45 destroyer. It is the only piece of equipment in the British arsenal with the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles.
"We are looking hard at it,” a defence source said.
A second source added: "Nothing is confirmed yet."..
Most of our T45s are in refit.
There is no one in the inner circle who understands war.
What's more dangerous than incompetence is that you have two people - Miller & Hegseth - totally convinced they understand war.
Dan Caine elected to have no positive control when he took the role, he works for Tim Parlatore and Sean Parnell.
Other stakeholders (Hegseth included, obviously) are likely appealing to supernatural powers to pull them out of it.
The Islamic Republic of Iran & Kingdom of Saudi Arabia probably rely less on prophecy, superstition, gematria, omens, scripture, & the words & sayings of erratic clerics than we do.
https://bsky.app/profile/uticaeric.bsky.social/post/3mg5vth5wis2f
The prosecuting barrister, Johnson, told the defence he would oppose the jury being told anything about the GMC investigation, on the grounds that it had not reached a final adjudication.
It seems her defence chose not to challenge his status as an expert witness. They would have had to convince the judge to halt the trial presumably, since the disclosure was so very, very late. That would have been a big ask.
That sound is TSEs credit card being accepted for £10k of purchases.
https://x.com/RachelReevesMP/status/2028773195998716075?s=20
Seems like Rachel from accounts has the some ghost writer as Starmer.
Won’t really help business that much
spending by 0.6 per cent of GDP by 2030-31.
https://x.com/PJTheEconomist/status/2028822343057891773?s=20
OBR: "reflects an assumption that net outflows by British national adults will be around 50,000 a year higher on average"
https://x.com/PJTheEconomist/status/2028819227495252164?s=20
Iran’s Pezeshkian says he is delegating powers to regional authorities
Feels to me like how they have delegated powers to military authorities who act without receiving orders
Dig deep businesses and workers to pay for pensioners, benefits claimants and the removal of the 2 child cap all while your standard of living falls. Mugs
(CfD generation has about trebled since 2022, but the strike prices are higher).
If the price of gas rises then, all around the world, coal fired power stations become more competitive and demand for coal increases. And because coal production is relatively stable (or to put it another way, it's fairly price inelastic), then this means that the price for coal will quickly rise so it is essentially identical (or a KWh of generated electricity basis) to natural gas.
And even if you could completely break the link by (say) being 100% solar, then at times when natural gas (and therefore electricity) was expensive world wide, and therefore power was cheap only in your country, then people running energy intensive businesses (like steel minimills) would setup in your country to take advantage of the cheaper power, until your energy prices had normalised with everyone else. Of course, this second factor is *very* long-term.
NEW: Multi-drone attack collapsed roof at US embassy in Saudi Arabia and contaminated the inside with smoke, per State Dept. alert obtained by The Post. US personnel “continue to shelter in place"
Fine for offices but not great for high energy users like my old company
It's a quandary isn't it?
"Electricity Market Reform (REMA)
Decoupling Mechanism: The government is focusing on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA), identifying "Contracts for Difference" as a key tool to decouple gas and electricity prices.
Future-proofing Contracts: By fixing the price of renewable energy through these contracts (strike prices), consumers are protected from the high spot prices of gas, as cheaper renewables set the market price more frequently.
Investment: The government is encouraging a "Green Power Pool" and other market reforms to ensure that as renewables increase, they directly lower consumer bills."
Well thanks for asking. I went to an old seafood market hoping for some dinner. It’s quite a famous market. But now it’s all closed down
Then I felt a bit uneasy - more food poisoning? - so I walked the 400 metres south to a really really really convenient medical facility. The Wuhan Centre for Disease Control, where up until 2019 they were famously storing bags for bizarre and dangerous experiments in “Wild West” conditions
That’s right. I went to the lab where it came from. The thing that recently killed 20 million people and upended all of humanity. Yes. I went there. Me. Went there. Me
Yes
Israeli airstrikes have hit Iran's Assembly of Experts building in Qom. (Faytuks)
The Assembly of Experts is a council of senior clerics tasked with electing Iran's new Supreme Leader.
We rely on the small and rather fragile T45 fleet, and the RAF for air defence. And currently we have no airborne early warning capability at all (and never will have for our carriers).
A long range drone attack which didn't have to pass over half of Europe might be very awkward indeed to deal with.
That's a much more alarming capacity gap than our troubles with Ajax and the Challenger upgrade.
Which get far more attention and funding.