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Who will be the next Foreign Secretary? – politicalbetting.com

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  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 57,196
    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Interesting header.

    With Sir Keir remaining an MP, I think foreign secretary could be back on. If not now, then in the future.

    Of the four great offices of state it is the most detached from everyday politics.

    And, for all his weaknesses as a leader, Sir Keir’s statecraft is widely recognised.

    I might just take the 16s if still available.

    If you want to prioritise your partner and kids, taking a job that requires you to be out of the country half the time is not optimal.

    So no bet.
    Really? My wife would happy if I was away half the time, and absolutely overjoyed if it was two-thirds of the time.

    So long, of course, if for that third of the time that I was around, then I was really around - with no conference calls, Slacks, etc.
    No slacks? I'm assuming this isn't your wife expressing a strong trouser preference, though if it is I share her distaste.
    Surely saying "no Slacks", which presumably would risk @rcs1000 making the header photo of shame list.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 29,052
    I don't recall what the policy on Hitler Rant Parodies is, but here is "Keir Starmer’s Downfall"
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,878


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    This is PB. Nobody puts Kemi in the corner.

    If Kemi wants to liken anyone to the Gestapo who are we to criticise?
    I'm more concerned with Kemi hanging out with these nutters

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/23/populist-and-rightwing-figures-take-aim-at-ed-miliband-and-uk-net-zero-policies-at-anti-woke-davos
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 46,638
    viewcode said:

    Taz said:

    Remember what Pat McFadden said:

    Every meeting I have is 'who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'.

    Reeves's parting idea:

    22% Charge on interest paid on cash held in non Cash ISAs

    Non Cash ISA portfolios made up of 100% cash-like assets will be non-qualifying investments

    Restrictions on transfers into cash ISAs


    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fiscal-events-2026-factsheets/isa-reform-2027-anti-circumvention-rules-factsheet

    I am devastated. The 0% I earn on cash in my S&S ISA will be taxed down to 0%.
    I’m getting a few percentage on my cash. The cash will be deployed. But this pushes you to be fully invested all the time and reinvest when you get income. Not a fan

    I don’t like it but I have to go along with it
    (narrator: yes, Viewcode got that reference as well. In the original German)
    Get your cash in an MMF Taz, you will get close to 4%
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 60,229
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    Heat pumps are shit though.

    Solar panels are ok but I dropped £12k on them, and it shaved a bit off my bill but not enough.
    Both of those statements show how poor your judgement is.

    My judgement is about 1,000 times better than yours and I'm a million times more successful than you.

    So fuck off and shut up.
    Get a grip casino. You can consider the merits of a technology in isolation without turning it into a culture war.

    Do air source heat pumps work? Absolutely. Are they worth ripping out an existing gas central heating system? Definitely not. I haven't ripped mine out and I am a big supporter of the technology - too expensive, not worth it.

    There will come a time though when it is worth it.
    It's not a culture war.

    I'm not convinced of the cost-benefit analysis.

    Change my mind.
    If you are choosing between an air conditioner and an air source heat pump, the question is a simple one: is the small additional investment worth the added functionality -it also heats your house!- and the lower running costs.

    My guess is that there are few places on planet Earth better suited for air source heat pumps for cooling and heating rooms. Why? Because the range of outside temperatures is relatively narrow compared to some places on Earth.

    With that said, air source heat pumps are not perfect. For making water really hot for baths and showers, there are better technologies. But you know what's really cheap? Immersion heaters.

    If you don't have any need or desire to cool as well as heat, then there's not a lot of point in getting a heat pump. You will save in long-term running costs, but that's at the expense of much higher initial costs. And for most people, that equation simply won't make sense.

    The real benefit comes from the fact you have heating and cooling combined, and that it heats rooms at a fraction of the cost of a traditional boiler.

    Need just heating: nothing beats a gas boiler.
    Need heating and cooling: you should get an air source heat pump
    I think you’re talking at cross purposes

    What do you use for domestic hot water?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 72,461

    France closes nuclear reactor as Europe buckles under the brutal heatwave

    France has been forced to shut down a nuclear reactor as a brutal European heatwave pushes temperatures towards a staggering 46C and leaves a trail of deaths, blackouts fears and transport disruption across the continent.

    Operators at the Golfech nuclear power station near Toulouse took one of the plant’s reactors offline after water temperatures in the Garonne River rose above safe operating limits.

    The reactor relies on the river to keep its cooling systems functioning, but the intense heat has left the water too warm for normal operations.


    https://londonlovesbusiness.com/france-closes-nuclear-reactor-as-europe-buckles-under-the-brutal-heatwave/

    That's a worry
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 46,638

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    Heat pumps are shit though.

    Solar panels are ok but I dropped £12k on them, and it shaved a bit off my bill but not enough.
    Both of those statements show how poor your judgement is.

    My judgement is about 1,000 times better than yours and I'm a million times more successful than you.

    So fuck off and shut up.
    Get a grip casino. You can consider the merits of a technology in isolation without turning it into a culture war.

    Do air source heat pumps work? Absolutely. Are they worth ripping out an existing gas central heating system? Definitely not. I haven't ripped mine out and I am a big supporter of the technology - too expensive, not worth it.

    There will come a time though when it is worth it.
    It's not a culture war.

    I'm not convinced of the cost-benefit analysis.

    Change my mind.
    If you are choosing between an air conditioner and an air source heat pump, the question is a simple one: is the small additional investment worth the added functionality -it also heats your house!- and the lower running costs.

    My guess is that there are few places on planet Earth better suited for air source heat pumps for cooling and heating rooms. Why? Because the range of outside temperatures is relatively narrow compared to some places on Earth.

    With that said, air source heat pumps are not perfect. For making water really hot for baths and showers, there are better technologies. But you know what's really cheap? Immersion heaters.

    If you don't have any need or desire to cool as well as heat, then there's not a lot of point in getting a heat pump. You will save in long-term running costs, but that's at the expense of much higher initial costs. And for most people, that equation simply won't make sense.

    The real benefit comes from the fact you have heating and cooling combined, and that it heats rooms at a fraction of the cost of a traditional boiler.

    Need just heating: nothing beats a gas boiler.
    Need heating and cooling: you should get an air source heat pump
    I think you’re talking at cross purposes

    What do you use for domestic hot water?
    boils a kettle
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 19,823
    .

    Peter.

    Will Peter peter out?
    Roger that!

    FF43
    - Creating smiles with every sip and every bite
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 40,246
    CatMan said:


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    This is PB. Nobody puts Kemi in the corner.

    If Kemi wants to liken anyone to the Gestapo who are we to criticise?
    I'm more concerned with Kemi hanging out with these nutters

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/23/populist-and-rightwing-figures-take-aim-at-ed-miliband-and-uk-net-zero-policies-at-anti-woke*-davos
    Out Faraging Farage. That's our girl!

    * The anti woke Davos crowd do appear as mad as a box of frogs mind.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 40,540
    edited 7:32PM
    BBC weather from August 2003 during hot weather. Anyone notice the difference?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhE_kIOyz4A
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    Andy_JS said:

    BBC weather from August 2003 during hot weather. Anyone notice the difference?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhE_kIOyz4A

    Yes.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 40,246

    Walking across Manchester city centre this afternoon left me with two reasons for needing a cold shower.

    Is Burnham back already?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 40,540
    edited 7:34PM

    This is so fucking weird.

    SNP MP in crossing-fingers row accused of faking Scottish accent

    Clips emerged showing Lara Bird — who was criticised for her behaviour while taking an oath to the King — speaking with a middle-class English accent


    An SNP politician who was already under fire for crossing her figures while swearing allegiance to the King has been accused of adopting a fake Scottish accent.

    Lara Bird faced a backlash after making the gesture, traditionally used by primary school-age children when they are lying, when being sworn in as an MP after her victory in the Arbroath & Broughty Ferry by-election last week.

    Now her accent has come under scrutiny after video clips emerged of her speaking with a clearly English, middle-class accent before she became a Scottish nationalist election candidate. The SNP’s opponents speculated that the abrupt change in her speaking voice was an attempt to curry favour with “anti-English” SNP supporters.

    In her first Commons appearance, Bird stated that her “first allegiance is, and always will be, the sovereign people of Scotland” and that she was swearing allegiance to the monarch “only so that I can serve the people” of her constituency.

    Although she was raised in Scotland, Bird’s parents separated and her mother’s side of the family is English. She is believed to have attended a private school in Dundee, but took a law degree at the University of Sheffield in 2018 before moving to London.


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-mp-accused-faking-scottish-accent-lara-bird-7mgrwd6j5

    She changes her accent whenever she feels like it. One comment I saw today from a SNP supporter called this "completely normal".
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 21,271
    edited 7:35PM
    malcolmg said:

    viewcode said:

    Taz said:

    Remember what Pat McFadden said:

    Every meeting I have is 'who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'.

    Reeves's parting idea:

    22% Charge on interest paid on cash held in non Cash ISAs

    Non Cash ISA portfolios made up of 100% cash-like assets will be non-qualifying investments

    Restrictions on transfers into cash ISAs


    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fiscal-events-2026-factsheets/isa-reform-2027-anti-circumvention-rules-factsheet

    I am devastated. The 0% I earn on cash in my S&S ISA will be taxed down to 0%.
    I’m getting a few percentage on my cash. The cash will be deployed. But this pushes you to be fully invested all the time and reinvest when you get income. Not a fan

    I don’t like it but I have to go along with it
    (narrator: yes, Viewcode got that reference as well. In the original German)
    Get your cash in an MMF Taz, you will get close to 4%
    What’s an MMF? (I mean, I know one meaning of MMF, it was a lot of fun and got me to 100%, so to speak. It got all of us to 100%. But there was no cash involved.)
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 64,610

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    Heat pumps are shit though.

    Solar panels are ok but I dropped £12k on them, and it shaved a bit off my bill but not enough.
    Both of those statements show how poor your judgement is.

    My judgement is about 1,000 times better than yours and I'm a million times more successful than you.

    So fuck off and shut up.
    Get a grip casino. You can consider the merits of a technology in isolation without turning it into a culture war.

    Do air source heat pumps work? Absolutely. Are they worth ripping out an existing gas central heating system? Definitely not. I haven't ripped mine out and I am a big supporter of the technology - too expensive, not worth it.

    There will come a time though when it is worth it.
    It's not a culture war.

    I'm not convinced of the cost-benefit analysis.

    Change my mind.
    If you are choosing between an air conditioner and an air source heat pump, the question is a simple one: is the small additional investment worth the added functionality -it also heats your house!- and the lower running costs.

    My guess is that there are few places on planet Earth better suited for air source heat pumps for cooling and heating rooms. Why? Because the range of outside temperatures is relatively narrow compared to some places on Earth.

    With that said, air source heat pumps are not perfect. For making water really hot for baths and showers, there are better technologies. But you know what's really cheap? Immersion heaters.

    If you don't have any need or desire to cool as well as heat, then there's not a lot of point in getting a heat pump. You will save in long-term running costs, but that's at the expense of much higher initial costs. And for most people, that equation simply won't make sense.

    The real benefit comes from the fact you have heating and cooling combined, and that it heats rooms at a fraction of the cost of a traditional boiler.

    Need just heating: nothing beats a gas boiler.
    Need heating and cooling: you should get an air source heat pump
    I think you’re talking at cross purposes

    What do you use for domestic hot water?
    Well, I've just moved to a rental, and they have an electric water heater and solar panels.

    But if I was building a home for myself I would -without a doubt- go air pump for heating and cooling, and add an immersion heater to the hot water tank to make sure it can get really hot.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 40,540
    MelonB said:

    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    Certainly expensive but the last govt gave grants to help those with money fit them.

    I just don’t like the look. I don’t want the back of my home to resemble the back of an industry unit in Cradley Heath.
    It did, but they aren't effective.

    Any tradesman or builder will tell you this - unless you spend a huge amount on your property- and this is why hardly any of your neighbours have any, even though many are steadily installing solar panels.
    I have one in my French barn, as do almost all of the neighbours. Pretty bog standard, because very few homes have mains gas.

    It does seem to be a particularly British problem. A bit like our inability to build high speed Rail lines (though we do share that with the Americans). I don't know if we have uniquely inefficient heat pumps or uniquely badly insulated houses (maybe the latter), but the barn has solid stone walls so is not mega-insulated.
    You have a French barn? I don't even have an English barn.
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,988
    edited 7:38PM

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 9,405
    edited 7:37PM
    Andy_JS said:

    This is so fucking weird.

    SNP MP in crossing-fingers row accused of faking Scottish accent

    Clips emerged showing Lara Bird — who was criticised for her behaviour while taking an oath to the King — speaking with a middle-class English accent


    An SNP politician who was already under fire for crossing her figures while swearing allegiance to the King has been accused of adopting a fake Scottish accent.

    Lara Bird faced a backlash after making the gesture, traditionally used by primary school-age children when they are lying, when being sworn in as an MP after her victory in the Arbroath & Broughty Ferry by-election last week.

    Now her accent has come under scrutiny after video clips emerged of her speaking with a clearly English, middle-class accent before she became a Scottish nationalist election candidate. The SNP’s opponents speculated that the abrupt change in her speaking voice was an attempt to curry favour with “anti-English” SNP supporters.

    In her first Commons appearance, Bird stated that her “first allegiance is, and always will be, the sovereign people of Scotland” and that she was swearing allegiance to the monarch “only so that I can serve the people” of her constituency.

    Although she was raised in Scotland, Bird’s parents separated and her mother’s side of the family is English. She is believed to have attended a private school in Dundee, but took a law degree at the University of Sheffield in 2018 before moving to London.


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-mp-accused-faking-scottish-accent-lara-bird-7mgrwd6j5

    She changes her accent whenever she feels like it. One comment I saw today from a SNP supporter called this "completely normal".
    Normal, maybe not. But widespread in some forms:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

    I, like many people, have a "telephone voice" for example. Black americans often "talk white" at work.
  • I for some reason thought it was a good idea to play cricket today
  • Burnham is quite good at the old social media stuff.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 64,610
    edited 7:45PM
    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    Your gas price cap number is out of date: it's currently 7.3p.

    Plus, there are two provisos you need to add to this:

    (1) With the heat pump you also get cooling in summer!
    (2) If you have solar panels -and in time everyone will have solar panels- then your electricity price will be *much* closer to that gas per KWh number.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 40,246

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    Heat pumps are shit though.

    Solar panels are ok but I dropped £12k on them, and it shaved a bit off my bill but not enough.
    Both of those statements show how poor your judgement is.

    My judgement is about 1,000 times better than yours and I'm a million times more successful than you.

    So fuck off and shut up.
    Get a grip casino. You can consider the merits of a technology in isolation without turning it into a culture war.

    Do air source heat pumps work? Absolutely. Are they worth ripping out an existing gas central heating system? Definitely not. I haven't ripped mine out and I am a big supporter of the technology - too expensive, not worth it.

    There will come a time though when it is worth it.
    It's not a culture war.

    I'm not convinced of the cost-benefit analysis.

    Change my mind.
    As heat source grows in popularity like Stamps and pipelines in the North Sea, the cost of distribution will fall on fewer and fewer customers until the cost and benefit of a system that runs on Electricity not Oil or Gas, will make them alternatives incrasingly more expensive.

    Peter.

    You have been warned and told multiple times.

    I'm not reading or engaging with any of your posts until you stop it.
    If you are as good as your word I will follow suit.

    Mexicanpete
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 51,038
    edited 7:44PM

    This is so fucking weird.

    SNP MP in crossing-fingers row accused of faking Scottish accent

    Clips emerged showing Lara Bird — who was criticised for her behaviour while taking an oath to the King — speaking with a middle-class English accent


    An SNP politician who was already under fire for crossing her figures while swearing allegiance to the King has been accused of adopting a fake Scottish accent.

    Lara Bird faced a backlash after making the gesture, traditionally used by primary school-age children when they are lying, when being sworn in as an MP after her victory in the Arbroath & Broughty Ferry by-election last week.

    Now her accent has come under scrutiny after video clips emerged of her speaking with a clearly English, middle-class accent before she became a Scottish nationalist election candidate. The SNP’s opponents speculated that the abrupt change in her speaking voice was an attempt to curry favour with “anti-English” SNP supporters.

    In her first Commons appearance, Bird stated that her “first allegiance is, and always will be, the sovereign people of Scotland” and that she was swearing allegiance to the monarch “only so that I can serve the people” of her constituency.

    Although she was raised in Scotland, Bird’s parents separated and her mother’s side of the family is English. She is believed to have attended a private school in Dundee, but took a law degree at the University of Sheffield in 2018 before moving to London.


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-mp-accused-faking-scottish-accent-lara-bird-7mgrwd6j5

    The Yoons are a bawhair away from accusing her of putting on a Scottish accent to avoid anti English racism from the EssEnnPee.

    Isn’t code switching a thing in England, or do you order your caviar in broad ecky thump Yorkshire when in Claridge’s?
    My Brother-in-Law has the oddest habit.

    He has liked 30 years in Cambridgeshire and in the pub talking to people he sounds like one of the Mitchell's from Eastenders. Then he'll turn to me and become Rab C Nesbitt!

    It isn't an act, he just seems to switch between the two.

    I've lived in Inverness for over 30 years and people here say I have a Glasgow accent.

    In Glasgow they say I sound Highland.

    Visited my son in Ibrox last month and the Asian guy in the shop across the road had a better Glasgow accent than mine.

    All this tells us is just how petty our politics has become.

    The papers priint tawdry snide gossip and our politicans provide them with more of it than they can use!

    Peter.
    I think it’s unconscious for a lot of people. My mother was born of peasant stock (just north of Arbroath & Broughty Ferry as it happens ) who all spoke broad Doric. She was the first in her family to go on to further education and became a teacher with pretty middle class speech, but she switched seamlessly back to the speak o’ the Mearns when with her family.
    My sister speaks Yorkshire with friends and family but has (had since retired now) a whole different (rather elevated classwise) voice for work - which was head of a high end girls private school. Me, I just gradually lost my accent over the years, neither trying to nor not to. It changed but was always just the one voice.
  • TresTres Posts: 3,705
    today I'm mostly getting confused by one of the Canadian players being named after a Belle and Sebastian single
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,988
    carnforth said:

    Andy_JS said:

    This is so fucking weird.

    SNP MP in crossing-fingers row accused of faking Scottish accent

    Clips emerged showing Lara Bird — who was criticised for her behaviour while taking an oath to the King — speaking with a middle-class English accent


    An SNP politician who was already under fire for crossing her figures while swearing allegiance to the King has been accused of adopting a fake Scottish accent.

    Lara Bird faced a backlash after making the gesture, traditionally used by primary school-age children when they are lying, when being sworn in as an MP after her victory in the Arbroath & Broughty Ferry by-election last week.

    Now her accent has come under scrutiny after video clips emerged of her speaking with a clearly English, middle-class accent before she became a Scottish nationalist election candidate. The SNP’s opponents speculated that the abrupt change in her speaking voice was an attempt to curry favour with “anti-English” SNP supporters.

    In her first Commons appearance, Bird stated that her “first allegiance is, and always will be, the sovereign people of Scotland” and that she was swearing allegiance to the monarch “only so that I can serve the people” of her constituency.

    Although she was raised in Scotland, Bird’s parents separated and her mother’s side of the family is English. She is believed to have attended a private school in Dundee, but took a law degree at the University of Sheffield in 2018 before moving to London.


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-mp-accused-faking-scottish-accent-lara-bird-7mgrwd6j5

    She changes her accent whenever she feels like it. One comment I saw today from a SNP supporter called this "completely normal".
    Normal, maybe not. But widespread in some forms:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

    I, like many people, have a "telephone voice" for example. Black americans often "talk white" at work.
    I'm an accent mimic, entirely unconsciously. I change how I speak substantially to match the accent if the person to whom I'm talking. This can have comedic outworkings, I can remember answering the phone to a farmer from the Staffs Moorlands whilst round at the house of some Oxford/RPish/middle class friends. They were in hysterics hearing me suddenly drop into a broad Moorlands dialect.

    The weird thing is I can't do it on demand at all - I'm rubbish at mimicking the accent of someone whose not present in the conversation!
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 7,985


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    This is PB. Nobody puts Kemi in the corner.

    If Kemi wants to liken anyone to the Gestapo who are we to criticise?
    .and everyone will think phillipson is a spitelful class warrior. Zero brain anyway.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 64,610
    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    As an aside... the COP for air source heat pumps in the UK (where it's not's very cold outside most of the year) is probably 4+ over the year.

    So, using the correct price level for natural gas, it's already cheaper than a gas fired combi boiler as far as fuel costs go. That said: given much higher capital costs, it's not worth it unless you want cooling too.
  • TazTaz Posts: 28,772

    malcolmg said:

    viewcode said:

    Taz said:

    Remember what Pat McFadden said:

    Every meeting I have is 'who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'.

    Reeves's parting idea:

    22% Charge on interest paid on cash held in non Cash ISAs

    Non Cash ISA portfolios made up of 100% cash-like assets will be non-qualifying investments

    Restrictions on transfers into cash ISAs


    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fiscal-events-2026-factsheets/isa-reform-2027-anti-circumvention-rules-factsheet

    I am devastated. The 0% I earn on cash in my S&S ISA will be taxed down to 0%.
    I’m getting a few percentage on my cash. The cash will be deployed. But this pushes you to be fully invested all the time and reinvest when you get income. Not a fan

    I don’t like it but I have to go along with it
    (narrator: yes, Viewcode got that reference as well. In the original German)
    Get your cash in an MMF Taz, you will get close to 4%
    What’s an MMF? (I mean, I know one meaning of MMF, it was a lot of fun and got me to 100%, so to speak. It got all of us to 100%. But there was no cash involved.)
    Money market fund

    Or the less than ideal threesome

    I do have money in a couple.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 51,038


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    If being against private schools is class war, then being for them is the same but fighting for the other side.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 5,269

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    Heat pumps are shit though.

    Solar panels are ok but I dropped £12k on them, and it shaved a bit off my bill but not enough.
    Both of those statements show how poor your judgement is.

    My judgement is about 1,000 times better than yours and I'm a million times more successful than you.

    So fuck off and shut up.
    Get a grip casino. You can consider the merits of a technology in isolation without turning it into a culture war.

    Do air source heat pumps work? Absolutely. Are they worth ripping out an existing gas central heating system? Definitely not. I haven't ripped mine out and I am a big supporter of the technology - too expensive, not worth it.

    There will come a time though when it is worth it.
    It's not a culture war.

    I'm not convinced of the cost-benefit analysis.

    Change my mind.
    As heat source grows in popularity like Stamps and pipelines in the North Sea, the cost of distribution will fall on fewer and fewer customers until the cost and benefit of a system that runs on Electricity not Oil or Gas, will make them alternatives incrasingly more expensive.

    Peter.

    You have been warned and told multiple times.

    I'm not reading or engaging with any of your posts until you stop it.
    You just did.

  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 7,991
    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 37,201
    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    As an aside... the COP for air source heat pumps in the UK (where it's not's very cold outside most of the year) is probably 4+ over the year.

    So, using the correct price level for natural gas, it's already cheaper than a gas fired combi boiler as far as fuel costs go. That said: given much higher capital costs, it's not worth it unless you want cooling too.
    Servicing costs higher for gas too. I would always want a gas boiler serviced every year for safety; ASHPs don't really need servicing, although the suppliers will try to encourage you. It's a glorified fridge after all.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 40,540
    edited 7:59PM
    Greedy or not greedy?

    "World's top tennis players to protest during Wimbledon over prize money

    Stars will limit their contractual media commitments at the tournament to 15 minutes to represent the 15% of Wimbledon revenue that goes to players."

    https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-top-tennis-players-to-protest-over-wimbledon-prize-money-13556864
  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 3,454
    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    rcs1000 said:

    eek said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Duplicate and in using vf

    Yeah it’s still doing that. Says error but posts anyway, often 404s when refreshing on vf.pb.com.

    Looks like the Vanilla/Cloudflare interface is screwed, perhaps a failed server in the pool that doesn’t show as actually failed.
    I'm thinking about dumping Vanilla, and just going full self hosted.
    Brave but it shouldn't be that difficult nowadays..
    When PB was first started, we used standard Wordpress comments.

    As the site got more popular, though, it became unusable. In particular, it was very slow, and the site was absolutely spammed with adverts for certain pharmaceuticals that I know no PBer would ever need.

    So, we changed first to Disqus (until the great threading disaster of 2011), and then Vanilla.

    Candidly, Vanilla is expensive, and fragile. It does not work well with Cloudflare, and we've been getting duplicated posts.

    And PB is now on a fairly high performance server in Finland. I suspect that it would be easily capable of handling comments on Wordpress. And I'm equally sure that spam management, etc is all much better.

    So... when I next get a day off, I will almost certainly transition us over.
    rcs1000 said:

    eek said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Duplicate and in using vf

    Yeah it’s still doing that. Says error but posts anyway, often 404s when refreshing on vf.pb.com.

    Looks like the Vanilla/Cloudflare interface is screwed, perhaps a failed server in the pool that doesn’t show as actually failed.
    I'm thinking about dumping Vanilla, and just going full self hosted.
    Brave but it shouldn't be that difficult nowadays..
    When PB was first started, we used standard Wordpress comments.

    As the site got more popular, though, it became unusable. In particular, it was very slow, and the site was absolutely spammed with adverts for certain pharmaceuticals that I know no PBer would ever need.

    So, we changed first to Disqus (until the great threading disaster of 2011), and then Vanilla.

    Candidly, Vanilla is expensive, and fragile. It does not work well with Cloudflare, and we've been getting duplicated posts.

    And PB is now on a fairly high performance server in Finland. I suspect that it would be easily capable of handling comments on Wordpress. And I'm equally sure that spam management, etc is all much better.

    So... when I next get a day off, I will almost certainly transition us over.
    What duplicates?

    Seriously, your efforts are much appreciated - if you need a call for funds just let us know*

    (*Malc's minted, I believe ;-) )
    given the mansion you built Ben , you are far far richer than me.
    Not any more Malc - have you never seen how it always goes on Grand Designs?
    Ben you will be pilloried on here soon for being a rich pensioner hogging a big house and not downsizing and paying gazillions in tax
    It's a very nice big house and there are pics online of him and Mrs P building it.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 40,540

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC weather from August 2003 during hot weather. Anyone notice the difference?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhE_kIOyz4A

    Yes.
    Why do both you and CorrectHorse always feel the need to reply to me with one word answers? I don't do the same thing to you.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 37,201
    Andy_JS said:

    MelonB said:

    Taz said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    Certainly expensive but the last govt gave grants to help those with money fit them.

    I just don’t like the look. I don’t want the back of my home to resemble the back of an industry unit in Cradley Heath.
    It did, but they aren't effective.

    Any tradesman or builder will tell you this - unless you spend a huge amount on your property- and this is why hardly any of your neighbours have any, even though many are steadily installing solar panels.
    I have one in my French barn, as do almost all of the neighbours. Pretty bog standard, because very few homes have mains gas.

    It does seem to be a particularly British problem. A bit like our inability to build high speed Rail lines (though we do share that with the Americans). I don't know if we have uniquely inefficient heat pumps or uniquely badly insulated houses (maybe the latter), but the barn has solid stone walls so is not mega-insulated.
    You have a French barn? I don't even have an English barn.
    You can get several French barns for one English barn, just saying. I am not sure of the precise exchange rate.

    Don't get me on to Dutch barns though.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 60,229
    Andy_JS said:

    Greedy or not greedy?

    "World's top tennis players to protest during Wimbledon over prize money

    Stars will limit their contractual media commitments at the tournament to 15 minutes to represent the 15% of Wimbledon revenue that goes to players."

    https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-top-tennis-players-to-protest-over-wimbledon-prize-money-13556864

    That number would look different if you factored their sponsorship deals into the revenue figure.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 22,134

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    It might be a late looking at the weather in Miami.

    https://x.com/MiguelDelaney/status/2069871807985832438
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 19,823
    .
    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    Your gas price cap number is out of date: it's currently 7.3p.

    Plus, there are two provisos you need to add to this:

    (1) With the heat pump you also get cooling in summer!
    (2) If you have solar panels -and in time everyone will have solar panels- then your electricity price will be *much* closer to that gas per KWh number.
    Another possible proviso, while condensing boilers might be rated at 90% plus thermal efficiency I believe their average actual efficiency in use is nearer 80%. Partly because the condensing effect reduces at about 45C and most people run their system hotter than this.

    Also over time electricity prices should come down relative to gas, although people reasonably do their calculation on today's prices
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 22,134

    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    As an aside... the COP for air source heat pumps in the UK (where it's not's very cold outside most of the year) is probably 4+ over the year.

    So, using the correct price level for natural gas, it's already cheaper than a gas fired combi boiler as far as fuel costs go. That said: given much higher capital costs, it's not worth it unless you want cooling too.
    Servicing costs higher for gas too. I would always want a gas boiler serviced every year for safety; ASHPs don't really need servicing, although the suppliers will try to encourage you. It's a glorified fridge after all.
    You’d probably want to service them to keep the manufacturer’s warranty though
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 28,160
    Andy_JS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC weather from August 2003 during hot weather. Anyone notice the difference?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhE_kIOyz4A

    Yes.
    Why do both you and CorrectHorse always feel the need to reply to me with one word answers? I don't do the same thing to you.
    Noted.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 22,134
    edited 8:10PM
    FF43 said:

    .

    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    Your gas price cap number is out of date: it's currently 7.3p.

    Plus, there are two provisos you need to add to this:

    (1) With the heat pump you also get cooling in summer!
    (2) If you have solar panels -and in time everyone will have solar panels- then your electricity price will be *much* closer to that gas per KWh number.
    Another possible proviso, while condensing boilers might be rated at 90% plus thermal efficiency I believe their average actual efficiency in use is nearer 80%. Partly because the condensing effect reduces at about 45C and most people run their system hotter than this.

    Also over time electricity prices should come down relative to gas, although people reasonably do their calculation on today's prices
    My house was built in 2018 (bog standard national house builder to bare minimum building regs) and I run the central heating at 50degC and it heats the house easily in winter. A heat pump could easily handle that.

    Normal double panel rads too.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 36,758
    viewcode said:

    Brixian59 said:

    A Tory spokesperson has called for an immediate plan to install Air Con in every house in the UK

    "we call for an immediate plan to install Air Con in every house in the UK together with an immediate ban on the installation of Solar Panels, Solar Panel Farms and Wind Turbines and the immediate resignation of Ed Milliband

    Kemi Badenoch shouted

    " Milliband must go, he must go now, he's shafted his brother, he's shafted Starmer, he's probably shafted his wife and you he's shafting all of you but not me, oh no.

    My youngest came home today soaking in sweat and in tears and I agree with him. It's not global warming it's net zero. Even an 8 year old can see if you build solar panels, they attract the sun, it gets hotter and his wind turbines blow the heat our way. It's got to stop.

    We need to burn more gas, grill for oil, dig for coal and remove the smokeless zones, soot and smoke stops the sun and we can all be cool again"

    Kemi Badenoch shouted

    " Milliband must go, he must go now, he's shafted his brother, he's shafted Starmer, he's probably shafted his wife and you he's shafting all of you but not me, oh no.

    I assume you can provide the extract and source of those words because if not that is a serious allegation to make

    Brixian59 said:

    A Tory spokesperson has called for an immediate plan to install Air Con in every house in the UK

    "we call for an immediate plan to install Air Con in every house in the UK together with an immediate ban on the installation of Solar Panels, Solar Panel Farms and Wind Turbines and the immediate resignation of Ed Milliband

    Kemi Badenoch shouted

    " Milliband must go, he must go now, he's shafted his brother, he's shafted Starmer, he's probably shafted his wife and you he's shafting all of you but not me, oh no.

    My youngest came home today soaking in sweat and in tears and I agree with him. It's not global warming it's net zero. Even an 8 year old can see if you build solar panels, they attract the sun, it gets hotter and his wind turbines blow the heat our way. It's got to stop.

    We need to burn more gas, grill for oil, dig for coal and remove the smokeless zones, soot and smoke stops the sun and we can all be cool again"

    Kemi Badenoch shouted

    " Milliband must go, he must go now, he's shafted his brother, he's shafted Starmer, he's probably shafted his wife and you he's shafting all of you but not me, oh no.

    I assume you can provide the extract and source of those words because if not that is a serious allegation to make
    It was satiric, @Big_G_NorthWales

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
    Satire that depends on having watched PMQs today.
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 7,991

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 72,461
    edited 8:17PM


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    She seems to be upsetting all the right people

    And gaining in popularity which is again upsetting some

    And just recall how Starmer behaved towards Boris in exactly the same way

    And the idea she played no part in Starmer's downfall is nonsense because without her humble address Starmer would have got away with Mandelson

    Politics is Politics

  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 36,758

    On topic.....

    Yvette Cooper will get one of the great offices of state. I'm told Shabana Mahmoud stays at Home Office. So Yvette stays as Foreign Secretary. Or Chancellor. But that still might be Ed Miliband.

    If Cooper stays, all above bets are losers.

    Trying to find a senior slot for Streeting. Tricky.

    Deputy PM will be Lucy Powell. Ange's nose out of joint.

    All views from somebody who resigned before Starmer's departure.

    Take it as you will.

    I don't know if any of what your source claimed will come to pass but it does at least sound plausible unlike many of the suggestions in the media and even on PB that have Burnham giving all the big jobs to stale, pale, male Starmerites.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 28,160
    edited 8:17PM
    Andy_JS said:

    Greedy or not greedy?

    "World's top tennis players to protest during Wimbledon over prize money

    Stars will limit their contractual media commitments at the tournament to 15 minutes to represent the 15% of Wimbledon revenue that goes to players."

    https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-top-tennis-players-to-protest-over-wimbledon-prize-money-13556864

    Tennis is a weird sport in that if you are in the top 10 you make millions per year or tens of millions if you can sustain that level, up there with nearly any sports people in the world. Top 50 for a few years and you'll be a comfortable millionaire but poorer than an average Premier League player (who maybe the 1000th best footballer).

    Outside the top 100 and you will do well to break even after travelling and paying for coaching. Outside the top 200 and your definitely losing money from the competition side so need to be rich, subsidised or do work on the side.

    So if the players are asking for more money for those Wimbledon players in the top 10, thats greedy. If they are asking for more money for those who lose in rounds 1,2 & 3 I think that is very fair.

    Hope that is enough words.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,933

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    Posties like to put their stamp on things
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 59,230


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Quite hard to argue with that to be honest. And, if she wants to attract more voters to her cause, she needs to learn a greater variety of stroke.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 79,739

    On topic.....

    Yvette Cooper will get one of the great offices of state. I'm told Shabana Mahmoud stays at Home Office. So Yvette stays as Foreign Secretary. Or Chancellor. But that still might be Ed Miliband.

    If Cooper stays, all above bets are losers.

    Trying to find a senior slot for Streeting. Tricky.

    Deputy PM will be Lucy Powell. Ange's nose out of joint.

    All views from somebody who resigned before Starmer's departure.

    Take it as you will.

    I don't know if any of what your source claimed will come to pass but it does at least sound plausible unlike many of the suggestions in the media and even on PB that have Burnham giving all the big jobs to stale, pale, male Starmerites.
    Senior role for Streeting?

    How about minister for paper clips?
  • TazTaz Posts: 28,772

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
    What a prick
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 4,936
    ydoethur said:

    On topic.....

    Yvette Cooper will get one of the great offices of state. I'm told Shabana Mahmoud stays at Home Office. So Yvette stays as Foreign Secretary. Or Chancellor. But that still might be Ed Miliband.

    If Cooper stays, all above bets are losers.

    Trying to find a senior slot for Streeting. Tricky.

    Deputy PM will be Lucy Powell. Ange's nose out of joint.

    All views from somebody who resigned before Starmer's departure.

    Take it as you will.

    I don't know if any of what your source claimed will come to pass but it does at least sound plausible unlike many of the suggestions in the media and even on PB that have Burnham giving all the big jobs to stale, pale, male Starmerites.
    Senior role for Streeting?

    How about minister for paper clips?
    Health Secretary would be funny.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 19,823


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Genuine mystery to me why people rate Badenoch. I can see how they might not notice her incompetence. They're not necessarily paying attention and Badenoch can probably cover up a lot through sheer bluster. But it's baffling to me how they can miss seeing her rudeness and bad behaviour. Most people are polite. No way would they tolerate this kind of aggression in a normal workplace or social situation.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 48,094
    Smart guy.


    I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.

    1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.

    2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.

    3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.

    4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.

    5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.

    6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.

    7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.

    The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.

    https://x.com/hunterbiden/status/2069797401078939851?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
  • boulayboulay Posts: 9,072

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
    Sneak in at night, leave the gate open. His dog gets mauled, problem solved.

    *I don’t condone hurting animals in real life.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 60,229
    edited 8:25PM
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 40,246
    edited 8:26PM


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    She seems to be upsetting all the right people

    And gaining in popularity which is again upsetting some

    And just recall how Starmer behaved towards Boris in exactly the same way

    And the idea she played no part in Starmer's downfall is nonsense because without her humble address Starmer would have got away with Mandelson

    Politics is Politics

    She played no part in Starmer's defenestration. Farage and more recently Burnham did that.

    The woman demonstrated no class at all in her kicking Starmer when he was down. I am relieved Starmer who was not up to the job has gone, but neither is she up to her job.

    Badenoch is incredibly fortunate she remains in post after the absolute thumping the Conservatives got in May. Perhaps she might want to dwell on, but for the grace of God, go I.

    An awful woman.

  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 4,936
    Every player rolling around on the ground in apparent agony during the World Cup should be stretchered off and taken into the bowels of the stadium for a mandatory 15 minute medical examination to make sure that they are ok to play on.
  • PeterCairnsPeterCairns Posts: 221

    Andy_JS said:

    Greedy or not greedy?

    "World's top tennis players to protest during Wimbledon over prize money

    Stars will limit their contractual media commitments at the tournament to 15 minutes to represent the 15% of Wimbledon revenue that goes to players."

    https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-top-tennis-players-to-protest-over-wimbledon-prize-money-13556864

    Tennis is a weird sport in that if you are in the top 10 you make millions per year or tens of millions if you can sustain that level, up there with nearly any sports people in the world. Top 50 for a few years and you'll be a comfortable millionaire but poorer than an average Premier League player (who maybe the 1000th best footballer).

    Outside the top 100 and you will do well to break even after travelling and paying for coaching. Outside the top 200 and your definitely losing money from the competition side so need to be rich, subsidised or do work on the side.

    So if the players are asking for more money for those Wimbledon players in the top 10, thats greedy. If they are asking for more money for those who lose in rounds 1,2 & 3 I think that is very fair.

    Hope that is enough words.
    Footballs not that different;

    Tier League Annual Salary Players.
    1 Premier League £3m+ 650
    2 Championship £500k 600-700
    3 League One £370k 550-650
    4 League Two £130k 500-600
    5 National League £60kk 450-550
    6 NL North/South £20k 900-1000
    7 Step 3 £8k 1,200-1,300
    8 Step 4 £4k 2,200-2,800
    9 Step 5 £2k 4,500-5,000

    Peter.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 9,405

    Smart guy.


    I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.

    1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.

    2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.

    3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.

    4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.

    5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.

    6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.

    7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.

    The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.

    https://x.com/hunterbiden/status/2069797401078939851?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    Either Hunter Biden is as soul-less as an AI, or that writing has been enhanced by one.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 3,257


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    She seems to be upsetting all the right people

    And gaining in popularity which is again upsetting some

    And just recall how Starmer behaved towards Boris in exactly the same way

    And the idea she played no part in Starmer's downfall is nonsense because without her humble address Starmer would have got away with Mandelson

    Politics is Politics

    She played no part in Starmer's defenestration. Farage and more recently Burnham did that.

    The woman demonstrated no class at all in her kicking Starmer when he was down. I am relieved Starmer who was not up to the job has gone, but neither is she.

    Badenoch is incredibly fortunate she remains in post after the absolute thumping the Conservatives got in May. Perhaps she might want to dwell on, but for the grace of God, go I.

    An awful woman.

    I'd lay most of the credit at Starmer's door, followed by Mandelson.
    He appointed Reeves and he set the mood, Burnham and Farage just capitalised on that.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 27,911
    edited 8:29PM
    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 72,461
    DavidL said:


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Quite hard to argue with that to be honest. And, if she wants to attract more voters to her cause, she needs to learn a greater variety of stroke.
    Starmer is still PM with 2 more PMQs to face [ he misses one at NATO] and Kemi was entitled to launch an attack on Reeves, Miliband and Philipson as they are in the mix for Burnham's cabinet

    The attacks were not directed so much at Starmer but especially at Reeves who was not present at Starmer's resignation speech but at Burnham's photo opportunity and frankly she looked devastated by the attack

    The time for Kemi to compliment Starmer will be his last PMQs, not today, and I expect her to do so
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 6,357
    edited 8:32PM
    Scottish interest likely to be across all of the last round of games, hoping that other third place teams get as few points as possible.

    Anyone rooting for a Qatari equaliser against Bosnia or are we still at the "don't worry, we'll beat Brazil" stage of the evening?
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 23,122
    FF43 said:


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Genuine mystery to me why people rate Badenoch. I can see how they might not notice her incompetence. They're not necessarily paying attention and Badenoch can probably cover up a lot through sheer bluster. But it's baffling to me how they can miss seeing her rudeness and bad behaviour. Most people are polite. No way would they tolerate this kind of aggression in a normal workplace or social situation.
    Two things, I reckon.

    Kemi is that way because she is our first big party leader to be a social media native. Unfortunately, rudeness is par for the course once you leave the cililised fragrant garden of PB. Out there, upsetting people is a good thing, just so long as it's the right people who get upset. Zack Polanski's remarks on Starmer were equally unclassy. The convention that a new MP praises their predecessor during their maiden speech (whatever they were like) is a good one.

    She gets away with it in part because other social media natives approve; they think this is what debate should be like. But also- there's as serious a lack of talent on the Conservative side as on the Labour side. They don't even have any high-profile Mayors that they could parachute into the Conservative leadership.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 79,739
    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    Stood up and applauded him on Cameron's signal.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 3,257
    boulay said:

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
    Sneak in at night, leave the gate open. His dog gets mauled, problem solved.

    *I don’t condone hurting animals in real life.
    A fellow postie leaves his dog loose in the garden when he's expecting post?
    Doesn't that mean you can refuse to deliver his post?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    edited 8:33PM
    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    At the end Dave and the Tories stood up and applauded Blair.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 6,097
    FF43 said:


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Genuine mystery to me why people rate Badenoch. I can see how they might not notice her incompetence. They're not necessarily paying attention and Badenoch can probably cover up a lot through sheer bluster. But it's baffling to me how they can miss seeing her rudeness and bad behaviour. Most people are polite. No way would they tolerate this kind of aggression in a normal workplace or social situation.
    Personally, I don't really rate her. But I do give her credit for getting better compared to day-one Kemi. Quite a lot of politicians never progress that far.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 72,461
    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    But the point being missed this was not his last PMQs as she launched a full on attack on Reeves, Philipson and Miliband which in Boris's day Starmer did the same to him and his cabinet

    Starmer's last PMQs is the one for tributes - today was not that day

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    This was Dave at Blair's last PMQs, compare the class oozing from him and the bile from Badenoch.

    Tory leader David Cameron: "Can I congratulate him on his achievement in leading his party for 13 years and this country for 10. He has considerable achievements ... we wish him and his family well and every success for whatever he does in the future." Mr Blair replied he had always found Mr Cameron "most proper, correct and courteous in his dealings with me".

    Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell: "You have been unfailingly courteous..."

    Northern Ireland first minister The Rev Ian Paisley: "I understand that he was downcast many a day, I understand that he was disappointed, understand he was angry, and I understand that perhaps he even lost his temper. But I want to say that he treated me with the greatest of courtesy. I had many things that I disagreed with him on but we faced them."


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/27/politics.tonyblair
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 7,991
    edited 8:37PM
    Taz said:

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
    What a prick
    He’s also managed to miss the fact that free running dog means parcel box at the gate

    I had to deliver a couple of bits to him today. I went through the rigmarole of his drive and gate. While lifting the gate (it’s a heavy five bar gate across the drive, not a pathway gate) I got my hand covered in whatever sort of bitumen they’d used to cover the gate

    Unfortunately I met him in the garden. I gave him his parcels. He asked how I was. I said fine, and walked away. He followed and wanted to know why I wouldn’t talk to him

    He shouted, trembling, at me that I was a very angry and entitled person. I shut the gate quite effectively while staring in his eyes. I then stared quite theatrically at the spaces either side of his gate

    “What are you looking at?”

    “Where are you going to put your parcel box?”

    He got really angry then, I laughed
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 28,160
    edited 8:41PM

    Andy_JS said:

    Greedy or not greedy?

    "World's top tennis players to protest during Wimbledon over prize money

    Stars will limit their contractual media commitments at the tournament to 15 minutes to represent the 15% of Wimbledon revenue that goes to players."

    https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-top-tennis-players-to-protest-over-wimbledon-prize-money-13556864

    Tennis is a weird sport in that if you are in the top 10 you make millions per year or tens of millions if you can sustain that level, up there with nearly any sports people in the world. Top 50 for a few years and you'll be a comfortable millionaire but poorer than an average Premier League player (who maybe the 1000th best footballer).

    Outside the top 100 and you will do well to break even after travelling and paying for coaching. Outside the top 200 and your definitely losing money from the competition side so need to be rich, subsidised or do work on the side.

    So if the players are asking for more money for those Wimbledon players in the top 10, thats greedy. If they are asking for more money for those who lose in rounds 1,2 & 3 I think that is very fair.

    Hope that is enough words.
    Footballs not that different;

    Tier League Annual Salary Players.
    1 Premier League £3m+ 650
    2 Championship £500k 600-700
    3 League One £370k 550-650
    4 League Two £130k 500-600
    5 National League £60kk 450-550
    6 NL North/South £20k 900-1000
    7 Step 3 £8k 1,200-1,300
    8 Step 4 £4k 2,200-2,800
    9 Step 5 £2k 4,500-5,000

    Peter.
    But a typical League one player is around the 10,000th best player in the world, not the top 100. And the clubs pay for all their travel, expenses and coaching so you wouldn't be losing money per year til NL North/South at the earliest.

    So no - they are completely different.

    Wages as a share of revenue are way, way higher than 15% as well. Over 100% in some clubs chasing glory.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 60,130
    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    Today wasn't Starmer's last PMQs.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 48,094

    FF43 said:


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Genuine mystery to me why people rate Badenoch. I can see how they might not notice her incompetence. They're not necessarily paying attention and Badenoch can probably cover up a lot through sheer bluster. But it's baffling to me how they can miss seeing her rudeness and bad behaviour. Most people are polite. No way would they tolerate this kind of aggression in a normal workplace or social situation.
    Two things, I reckon.

    Kemi is that way because she is our first big party leader to be a social media native. Unfortunately, rudeness is par for the course once you leave the cililised fragrant garden of PB. Out there, upsetting people is a good thing, just so long as it's the right people who get upset. Zack Polanski's remarks on Starmer were equally unclassy. The convention that a new MP praises their predecessor during their maiden speech (whatever they were like) is a good one.

    She gets away with it in part because other social media natives approve; they think this is what debate should be like. But also- there's as serious a lack of talent on the Conservative side as on the Labour side. They don't even have any high-profile Mayors that they could parachute into the Conservative leadership.
    I don’t think Kemi has yet called someone a wanker and told them to fuck off on social media or in public. Once she gets her teeth into PM Andy it may come of course.
  • eekeek Posts: 34,204

    This was Dave at Blair's last PMQs, compare the class oozing from him and the bile from Badenoch.

    Tory leader David Cameron: "Can I congratulate him on his achievement in leading his party for 13 years and this country for 10. He has considerable achievements ... we wish him and his family well and every success for whatever he does in the future." Mr Blair replied he had always found Mr Cameron "most proper, correct and courteous in his dealings with me".

    Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell: "You have been unfailingly courteous..."

    Northern Ireland first minister The Rev Ian Paisley: "I understand that he was downcast many a day, I understand that he was disappointed, understand he was angry, and I understand that perhaps he even lost his temper. But I want to say that he treated me with the greatest of courtesy. I had many things that I disagreed with him on but we faced them."


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/27/politics.tonyblair

    As @Stuartinromford points out Badenoch's attitude comes from Social media where you want a 15 second clip to get someones attention.

    How anyone is a politician in this world of 24/7 news (desperately seeking content to keep the dead air filled with something) and social media (trying to get a reaction to get more views) I will never know.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 60,229
    Al Carns thinks he’s Gordon Brown:

    https://x.com/alistaircarns/status/2069871743901278538

    This isn't a manifesto, but a set of five tests. Anyone asking to lead our country should be able to look down this list and say yes to all five.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 72,461

    This was Dave at Blair's last PMQs, compare the class oozing from him and the bile from Badenoch.

    Tory leader David Cameron: "Can I congratulate him on his achievement in leading his party for 13 years and this country for 10. He has considerable achievements ... we wish him and his family well and every success for whatever he does in the future." Mr Blair replied he had always found Mr Cameron "most proper, correct and courteous in his dealings with me".

    Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell: "You have been unfailingly courteous..."

    Northern Ireland first minister The Rev Ian Paisley: "I understand that he was downcast many a day, I understand that he was disappointed, understand he was angry, and I understand that perhaps he even lost his temper. But I want to say that he treated me with the greatest of courtesy. I had many things that I disagreed with him on but we faced them."


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/27/politics.tonyblair

    Today was not Starmer's last PMQs

    He has 2 more and I fully expect on his final one Kemi and the HOC will make their own tributes and he may even get a generous applause

    Indeed I hope he does
  • eekeek Posts: 34,204

    Taz said:

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
    What a prick
    He’s also managed to miss the fact that free running dog means parcel box at the gate

    I had to deliver a couple of bits to him today. I went through the rigmarole of his drive and gate. While lifting the gate (it’s a heavy five bar gate across the drive, not a pathway gate) I got my hand covered in whatever sort of bitumen they’d used to cover the gate

    Unfortunately I met him in the garden. I gave him his parcels. He asked how I was. I said fine, and walked away. He followed and wanted to know why I wouldn’t talk to him

    He shouted, trembling, at me that I was a very angry and entitled person. I shut the gate quite effectively while staring in his eyes. I then stared quite theatrically at the spaces either side of his gate

    “What are you looking at?”

    “Where are you going to put your parcel box?”

    He got really angry then, I laughed
    If he doesn't get a parcel box doesn't that mean he will have to pick up his post at the depot?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 25,625
    Bosnia goalscorer whips off his shirt, revealing that he's wearing a bra.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 3,257
    Pro_Rata said:

    Scottish interest likely to be across all of the last round of games, hoping that other third place teams get as few points as possible.

    Anyone rooting for a Qatari equaliser against Bosnia or are we still at the "don't worry, we'll beat Brazil" stage of the evening?

    My Guardian bracketology workings last night had them on 3 points with Iran and Senegal for the last 2 places.
    I am assuming convenient draws where applicable
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 90,219
    BACO

    Belarus has ceded to Ukraines threats and has cut off all radio and service provider systems which were being used by Russia to guide drones into Northern Ukraine.
    https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/2069830133968523483
  • DoctorGDoctorG Posts: 805
    Bosnia 3-1 up now

    Scotland could be down to 6th in the runners up spots, with 10 groups to play if Brazil win by 2 goals

    Not stacked with confidence here
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    eek said:

    This was Dave at Blair's last PMQs, compare the class oozing from him and the bile from Badenoch.

    Tory leader David Cameron: "Can I congratulate him on his achievement in leading his party for 13 years and this country for 10. He has considerable achievements ... we wish him and his family well and every success for whatever he does in the future." Mr Blair replied he had always found Mr Cameron "most proper, correct and courteous in his dealings with me".

    Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell: "You have been unfailingly courteous..."

    Northern Ireland first minister The Rev Ian Paisley: "I understand that he was downcast many a day, I understand that he was disappointed, understand he was angry, and I understand that perhaps he even lost his temper. But I want to say that he treated me with the greatest of courtesy. I had many things that I disagreed with him on but we faced them."


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/27/politics.tonyblair

    As @Stuartinromford points out Badenoch's attitude comes from Social media where you want a 15 second clip to get someones attention.

    How anyone is a politician in this world of 24/7 news (desperately seeking content to keep the dead air filled with something) and social media (trying to get a reaction to get more views) I will never know.
    Her other problem is that she's not good as she thinks she is.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 7,202
    edited 8:46PM

    Al Carns thinks he’s Gordon Brown:

    https://x.com/alistaircarns/status/2069871743901278538

    This isn't a manifesto, but a set of five tests. Anyone asking to lead our country should be able to look down this list and say yes to all five.

    He’s clever enough to realise he won’t be PM isn’t he? He’s positioning to be a part of the Burnham team and to give him cover on national security.

    As is Healey, I assume, who I think is a decent outside bet for foreign secretary.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 27,911

    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    At the end Dave and the Tories stood up and applauded Blair.
    Sickening. (yes, I know today wasn't Starmer's last, and I'm sure there will be some nice words for him then, but the Tories are far too soft on Labour with this sort of thing).
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    DoctorG said:

    Bosnia 3-1 up now

    Scotland could be down to 6th in the runners up spots, with 10 groups to play if Brazil win by 2 goals

    Not stacked with confidence here

    Me neither, I am worried also that we might be on for another Disgrace of Gijón.
  • eekeek Posts: 34,204

    Al Carns thinks he’s Gordon Brown:

    https://x.com/alistaircarns/status/2069871743901278538

    This isn't a manifesto, but a set of five tests. Anyone asking to lead our country should be able to look down this list and say yes to all five.

    If asked to provide the plan for those 5 tests I suspect he would be a withering wreck with 5 minutes of the interview beginning as I started asking for details rather than fine words..
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 40,246
    edited 8:48PM

    DavidL said:


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    Quite hard to argue with that to be honest. And, if she wants to attract more voters to her cause, she needs to learn a greater variety of stroke.
    Starmer is still PM with 2 more PMQs to face [ he misses one at NATO] and Kemi was entitled to launch an attack on Reeves, Miliband and Philipson as they are in the mix for Burnham's cabinet

    The attacks were not directed so much at Starmer but especially at Reeves who was not present at Starmer's resignation speech but at Burnham's photo opportunity and frankly she looked devastated by the attack

    The time for Kemi to compliment Starmer will be his last PMQs, not today, and I expect her to do so
    Badenoch fine tuning the performative cruelty.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 19,823
    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    It's on YouTube. Night and day between Badenoch and Cameron, who was actually quite classy. The other thing, PMQs actually consisted of questions and answers on specific topics back in the day.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 129,106
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    At the end Dave and the Tories stood up and applauded Blair.
    Sickening. (yes, I know today wasn't Starmer's last, and I'm sure there will be some nice words for him then, but the Tories are far too soft on Labour with this sort of thing).
    To. be fair to Labour there was plenty of banter/generosity of spirit from Labour during the no confidence debate in November 1990 the day when Thatcher announced she wasn't standing in the second round.

    Even Denis Skinner did a funny (suggesting Mrs T should become Governor of the European Central Bank.)
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 23,532


    Natasha Clark
    @NatashaC
    ·
    1h
    Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

    Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

    John Crace nails it:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

    "Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

    "The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."
    There’s time enough for pleasantries. That’s not his last PMQs as PM, for a start. And frankly he is a graceless tosspot himself, as he has showed on many occasions. And John Crace is not the target audience.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 36,758

    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    Today wasn't Starmer's last PMQs.
    I actually checked recess dates during PMQs because I thought Kemi's tone was off. I still think she could have expressed sympathy for Starmer personally before attacking his colleagues.
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 7,991
    eek said:

    Taz said:

    I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

    He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

    as a bit of banter, or for real?
    For real

    His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

    He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

    He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs
    What a prick
    He’s also managed to miss the fact that free running dog means parcel box at the gate

    I had to deliver a couple of bits to him today. I went through the rigmarole of his drive and gate. While lifting the gate (it’s a heavy five bar gate across the drive, not a pathway gate) I got my hand covered in whatever sort of bitumen they’d used to cover the gate

    Unfortunately I met him in the garden. I gave him his parcels. He asked how I was. I said fine, and walked away. He followed and wanted to know why I wouldn’t talk to him

    He shouted, trembling, at me that I was a very angry and entitled person. I shut the gate quite effectively while staring in his eyes. I then stared quite theatrically at the spaces either side of his gate

    “What are you looking at?”

    “Where are you going to put your parcel box?”

    He got really angry then, I laughed
    If he doesn't get a parcel box doesn't that mean he will have to pick up his post at the depot?
    Indeed

    His dog will be the first dog I’ve ever complained about. When he was banning me from walking through his side gate in raised aggressive tones ( I wouldn’t call it shouting) his lovely little, but fat, dog was rubbing its nose on my shin

    It requires a parcel box only because of its ignorant postman owner
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 10,175
    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    I think the whole house applauded him. It was uncanny.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 64,610

    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

    Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

    And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

    The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious
    Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.
    solar panels + heat pumps please
    AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

    Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.
    A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

    In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.
    I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

    (*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)
    They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

    Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

    The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

    This is why no-one buys one.
    That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.
    At today's energy price cap prices:

    Gas 5.74p/kwh
    Electric 24.67p/kwh

    Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
    Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
    24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

    Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

    So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

    There are a couple side notes to this.

    One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

    The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

    (in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .
    As an aside... the COP for air source heat pumps in the UK (where it's not's very cold outside most of the year) is probably 4+ over the year.

    So, using the correct price level for natural gas, it's already cheaper than a gas fired combi boiler as far as fuel costs go. That said: given much higher capital costs, it's not worth it unless you want cooling too.
    Servicing costs higher for gas too. I would always want a gas boiler serviced every year for safety; ASHPs don't really need servicing, although the suppliers will try to encourage you. It's a glorified fridge after all.
    You’d probably want to service them to keep the manufacturer’s warranty though
    There's less competition (today) in the servicing air heat pump market, so I'd also expect costs to be a little higher.

    Here in LA, we tend to service our air conditioning units every three years or so.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 36,758

    dixiedean said:

    Found a foolproof solution to the overbearing heat.
    Just travelled back to Newcastle.
    At least 10° cooler.

    29.6 in my living room right now. FFS!
    33°C here owing to insulation and hot air rising (more useful in winter). I have a fan directly behind me and my feet in cold water.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 72,461
    FF43 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

    It's on YouTube. Night and day between Badenoch and Cameron, who was actually quite classy. The other thing, PMQs actually consisted of questions and answers on specific topics back in the day.
    Maybe then Kemi should be compared on her performance and generosity on Starmer's final PMQs which is on the 15th July
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