Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
He will have done. He'll have learned that their profession to christian values is a complete nonsense.
The US isn’t a theocracy. They left all of that behind 250 years ago.
I mean I think the Pope is full of shit, but then again I am not a catholic. Vance is apparently a catholic and should probably follow the Pope’s teachings you would think
@TSE accused me of anti-Catholic bigotry for suggesting that Joe Biden might be influenced by the Pope’s teachings.
Playing your usual trick of misleading arguments.
An idiot can see the Pope's teachings haven't impacted Joe Biden's policies from abortion to same sex marriage.
But you feigned ignorance about not knowing about America's long history of anti-Catholic bigotry.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
It's not necessarily the main reason for voting labour but when it comes to liking or or loathing a leader it can be crucial. I may not be typical but I know quite a few who voted Labour who now would be reluctant to vote for a Starmer led Labour. Even on here I can think of four. BJO Me Nick P and Wulfrun....Add a few who will be glad that they don't now have to face that choice and the numbers add up.
Tories like Taz and Scampi and Sandpit are just Tories who have never given a shit about anyone other than themselves. Ever. So no change
Rog, you sound like Mexicanpete here deciding my politics. I voted Labour in every general election since 1987.
I also like Luke Akehurst, so I accept that’s a black mark on me.
I just don’t care about Gaza and doubt many in North Durham do
He will have done. He'll have learned that their profession to christian values is a complete nonsense.
The US isn’t a theocracy. They left all of that behind 250 years ago.
Exactly. Somebody should point that out. All this tawdry White Christian Nationalist stuff - totally at odds with Shining City and Huddled Masses and I Have A Dream and Ask Not and Pursuit Of Happiness and all the rest of it.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
He will have done. He'll have learned that their profession to christian values is a complete nonsense.
JD is surely the most arrogant politician on this earth. He has plenty of competition: his boss of course, then there's Putin, Erdogan, the Jupiterian Macron, our own Richard Tice. But JD takes it into another, ludicrous league. If you could distil pure 100° proof arrogance into a single vessel, triple filter it and serve at -5C with a tin of Beluga caviar, that would be JD Vance.
Yes. He no doubt thinks there was a far superior option for Pope. He sees him every morning in the mirror.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
There are certainly a lot of folk loudly proclaiming that no one gives a flying fuck about Gaza which I wouldn’t describe as standard not giving a flying fuck behaviour. Not sure how normal they are mind.
In any case Gaza played a big part in the collapse of the Labour Party vote which I imagine should affect bettors’ thinking about a possible Labour renaissance under Burnham.
Unless I hang out with a bunch of weirdos, which I don't believe I do, Gaza is an issue which engages plenty of normal type people. Although I'd say (as with most things) the level of interest fluctuates according to how much it's in the news.
To adapt Eliot’s phrase, humankind cannot bear too much reality and loses interest quickly when it’s someone else’s reality. At a basic level I imagine most folk would prefer their governments not to be complicit with the wrong side of those realities. Too much reality currently includes Sudan, Ukraine, Iran and Venezuela. Pretty sure the ‘no one gives a flying fuck’ lads don’t care much about any of them, except for Ukraine and in a moving little flags on pins about a map sense.
Ukraine has the very obvious difference that there a) two separate states involved, b) these divide neatly into good guys and bad guys, and c) the bad guys are also our enemies while the good guys are slightly more 'western'. None of these are true for the others that you mention in a way that is obviously graspable to the mildly interested. That's why that one gets more traction.
I have to break it to you that the UK formally recognises Palestine so there are 2 ‘states’ involved. I know that one of them is preternaturally weak and has no means to prevent tens of thousands of its civilians being slaughtered but nevertheless two states.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
To be accurate, what you should have said is that Gaza barely registers as a vote-determining issue with anyone like you, that is anyone who would not have given serious consideration to voting Labour before the events around Gaza kicked off in 2023. And that means that Burnham's success or failure will not be about whether people like you can be persuaded to vote for him.
Many had been giving such consideration to voting Labour, and despite what were otherwise the most favourable political circumstances Labour ended up with the support of only 34% of the electorate while support of the Greens and various left Independents more than doubled to about 8%. Gaza was instrumental in that. Since then the action or rather inaction of Starmer's government on Gaza has been one of the main reasons why Green support has risen into the teens and until recently was even polling higher than Labour on the odd occasion.
The Genocide deniers are all secretly wanking themselves off at little old women in the UK been arrested as terrorists for holding a placard.
Whilst claiming they are normal and those of us who think its a disgrace arent
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
If, last year, you had told people that Badenoch would get significantly more popular, while Reform slipped back, they would reasonably have assumed the Tories would be doing better. But they aren’t. Understanding why is critical to thinking through how British politics will play out over the next few years.
This is the same strategic problem the Tories have had since Reform emerged as a serious threat. It is extremely difficult to win those voters back, as they have soured on the Conservative brand and like Farage. Badenoch has done nothing to structurally improve the Tory position. There is no policy agenda beyond pledges to undo Labour taxes rises by cutting welfare. Reform could see a further deterioration in its position. But so far those who have switched away from the party seem either to be going further rightwards, by supporting Restore, or telling pollsters they won’t vote. Which is why the Tories have not seen any improvement in their numbers.
From the same piece:
Once you’ve filtered out the mad, dim, lazy and those who have already mentally moved on, there are maybe twenty MPs left who are any use.
The ratio is might be a bit on the low side, but even 1 in 3 MPs being any good beyond backbenchery would only give Kemi 40 cards to in her deck.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
To be accurate, what you should have said is that Gaza barely registers as a vote-determining issue with anyone like you, that is anyone who would not have given serious consideration to voting Labour before the events around Gaza kicked off in 2023. And that means that Burnham's success or failure will not be about whether people like you can be persuaded to vote for him.
Many had been giving such consideration to voting Labour, and despite what were otherwise the most favourable political circumstances Labour ended up with the support of only 34% of the electorate while support of the Greens and various left Independents more than doubled to about 8%. Gaza was instrumental in that. Since then the action or rather inaction of Starmer's government on Gaza has been one of the main reasons why Green support has risen into the teens and until recently was even polling higher than Labour on the odd occasion.
The Genocide deniers are all secretly wanking themselves off at little old women in the UK been arrested as terrorists for holding a placard.
Whilst claiming they are normal and those of us who think its a disgrace arent
Genocide deniers? We have gone from the Holocaust, which I think no-one would deny was a genocide, to Gaza, where I think its controversial. Firstly Israel was attacked, horrifically so. There are plenty of videos of the events if you are that way inclined. Horrible stuff. So they decided to go after the terrorists once and for all, and in doing so some 70000 people have been killed. I don't believe that that amounts to 70000 terrorists, so its certainly true that innocents have been killed. Life for an everyday Gazan citizen must have been pretty awful over the last few years. But is it a genocide? Some feel passionately that it is. Personally I don't. I think Israel has gone too far, and there must have been other ways. Its almost certainly linked to Netanyahu's own troubles.
As for the little old women being arrested as terrorists, well yes, they know what they are doing. They are supporting people who are happy to use sledgehammers against women.
You might view the proscription of Palestine Action as wrong. You might find it laughable that holder up a sign with 'I support Palestine' is legal where as one saying 'I support Palestine Action' is a terrorist offence. But do the curtesy of respecting others opinions.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I knew your love life was complex but I didn't realise you needed a manager to look after it...
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
Separately it reads to me that in towns with both a Halifax and a Lloyds they've already decided that it's the Halifax branch that is going. I hope they announced that to their staff before the press release came out.
Andy Burnham has told female Labour MPs there will be a woman in every meeting in an effort to change the “boys’ club” culture at No 10.
Oh how utterly fucking pathetic!
He should remind Labour MPs of what it said in the manifesto about Labour being four square behind the Equality Act and single sex spaces for women and tell some of his more idiot MPs to stop trying to undermine this and the rule of law. He could also, for good measure, as a former Health Secretary, tell the NHS to comply with the law instead of buggering about wasting public money losing court cases. While he's about it, he can come up with some proposals to deal with the Ockenden Report and the Amos Report on maternity care - other than to ignore it and the 30 or so previous reports saying the same thing, which seems to have been the policy of the last few governments. On the Amos Report, it is worth noting two things: (1) Dr Bill Kirkup, an expert in this area, resigned from the team because he felt that discussion of the normal birth ideology pushed by some midwives which might have been behind some of the tragedies had been removed at the last minute; and (2) Amos could not bring herself to use the word "woman" but insisted on using "birthing people" instead. If a report on maternity care cannot even describe properly the women who give birth, what bloody use is it likely to be?
Anyway, back to my garden, despite learning that I have a cracked rib caused by a fall - though since much of it has become sclerotic with cancer and part of my right lung has collapsed so there's not much for the ribs to do really - this may not mean much tho' probably explains the pain I've been in. And I also have some sort of torn or damaged ligament in my wrist.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
Separately it reads to me that in towns with both a Halifax and a Lloyds they've already decided that it's the Halifax branch that is going. I hope they announced that to their staff before the press release came out.
They've known about it for a while, no jobs losses, if they cannot be redeployed to a different branch they can WFH on the phone lines.
Parts of England Motorway pain/provision from best to worst. Top:
NW - Tonnes of motorways, absolutely flying to where you're going. East Mids - Both M1 and A1(Sometimes M) run through. I live here, and it's not too bad tbh. Yorks and Humber - Mostly fine, M1 & A1 do the job. Thank God the Darrington works have finished. East - Not too many motorways but like the SW does it really need them. Nothing like the bottleneck of Bristol either. West Mids - Lots of Motorways but somehow not quite enough. Forever roadworks, M42 ... ugh. HS2 has caused eternal roadworks here SW - M5 bottleneck. High chance of getting stuck nr Avonmouth to access most of the SW. Not sure about M4. SE/London - Plenty of Motorway but the obviously high pop density around London made this feel fucking awful last time I was down on the M25 (Something I don't wish to repeat too often). How many people are driving round London on a bloody Sunday night ?!? Doesn't happen elsewhere tbh. Great provision (Neccessarily) but there's a reason everyone gets the train here lol. NE - Forgotten child A1 needs dualling, enough said.
Scotland - DESERT
A few new motorways that would help relieve congestion and open up new opportunities would be: M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley. An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury. An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Makes it easier to avoid, Lloyds acquiring HBOS was the beginning of the end for my current account mortgage and the start of having to contact the grumpiest woman in Scotland for any account enquiries.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yup, if they could they'd close the Bank of Scotland brand too but it is a bit more complicated plus the North Britains would be angry.
Lloyds acquired the TSB, which has a better reputation than the Bank of Scotland. Although it’s becoming irrelevant, as most Scottish towns no longer have a bank at all.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
The decanting of people to the outskirts was done well before the recent growth in population in central Manchester.
In 1990 500 people lived within a mile of Piccadilly Gardens, now its 85,000 - the first figure is a census figure so 100% accurate.
Its been three stages.
Originally inner urban working class poor renting.
Then empty of inhabitants.
Now middle classes renters in big, shiny buildings.
That's great for middle class types who want to rent a flat in a big, shiny building in a city centre.
Not so good for the descendants of the former inner urban working class now living in places like Gorton and Denton.
And pretty irrelevant to those who want to own an average house in an average suburb / town and have an average life.
Those people left over 35 years ago more likely 40-50 years ago - apart from in your nostalgic mind it's they are utterly irrelevant to to story and render your entire argument utterly stupid...
So the people of Gorton and Denton are utterly irrelevant to the story ? They're a part of Manchester as much as the people in the city centre are.
We keep coming back to people renting flats (often foreign owned) in the centre of Manchester.
And a football team made successful with Arab money.
And what else ?
Why does the asking of questions receive anger as a response instead of answers ?
Go to the City Centre in the evening. It used to be druggies and the homeless. They're still there but it is heaving with shoppers, diners and revellers. Salford is even more stark. You were in danger of getting shot 20 years ago. The population of the City Centre has grown from under 500 to 85k in 35 years. If that isn't success then I have to ask what do you want? How would you measure success?
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
You can scan them in now, too.
I got a cheque that was too big to scan.
Value or size! If its size, could you not step back a bit? And if its value, stop bragging!
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
It's not necessarily the main reason for voting labour but when it comes to liking or or loathing a leader it can be crucial. I may not be typical but I know quite a few who voted Labour who now would be reluctant to vote for a Starmer led Labour. Even on here I can think of four. BJO Me Nick P and Wulfrun....Add a few who will be glad that they don't now have to face that choice and the numbers add up.
Tories like Taz and Scampi and Sandpit are just Tories who have never given a shit about anyone other than themselves. Ever. So no change
Thank you for your reply and Gaza is a very important issue for some and certainly I can understand why they want labour to be pro active for their cause
I think you are being a wee bit unfair on Taz, Scampi, and Sandpit who almost certainly care about all the innocents [ on both sides] who have been affected by this horrible state of affairs but for most people the cost of living and even immigration is the tangible subject that they want addressing
Netanyahu and Hamas are evil and need to face their day of reckoning
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
You can scan them in now, too.
I got a cheque that was too big to scan.
Value or size! If its size, could you not step back a bit? And if its value, stop bragging!
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yup, if they could they'd close the Bank of Scotland brand too but it is a bit more complicated plus the North Britains would be angry.
Lloyds acquired the TSB, which has a better reputation than the Bank of Scotland. Although it’s becoming irrelevant, as most Scottish towns no longer have a bank at all.
TSB branches will either close or become Santander soon.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
You can scan them in now, too.
I got a cheque that was too big to scan.
Was it one of those huge ones that lottery winners are pictured with next to a minor celebrity?
Andy Burnham has told female Labour MPs there will be a woman in every meeting in an effort to change the “boys’ club” culture at No 10.
Oh how utterly fucking pathetic!
He should remind Labour MPs of what it said in the manifesto about Labour being four square behind the Equality Act and single sex spaces for women and tell some of his more idiot MPs to stop trying to undermine this and the rule of law. He could also, for good measure, as a former Health Secretary, tell the NHS to comply with the law instead of buggering about wasting public money losing court cases. While he's about it, he can come up with some proposals to deal with the Ockenden Report and the Amos Report on maternity care - other than to ignore it and the 30 or so previous reports saying the same thing, which seems to have been the policy of the last few governments. On the Amos Report, it is worth noting two things: (1) Dr Bill Kirkup, an expert in this area, resigned from the team because he felt that discussion of the normal birth ideology pushed by some midwives which might have been behind some of the tragedies had been removed at the last minute; and (2) Amos could not bring herself to use the word "woman" but insisted on using "birthing people" instead. If a report on maternity care cannot even describe properly the women who give birth, what bloody use is it likely to be?
Anyway, back to my garden, despite learning that I have a cracked rib caused by a fall - though since much of it has become sclerotic with cancer and part of my right lung has collapsed so there's not much for the ribs to do really - this may not mean much tho' probably explains the pain I've been in. And I also have some sort of torn or damaged ligament in my wrist.
It never bloody ends.
Garden is looking fantastic though!
What the hell is wrong with these idiots. How can they not see how utterly ridiculous they look to the absolute vast majority of brain operated hominids (or “humans”). There is a small coterie of total fuckwits who get exercised by this need to not offend three people in the country and they seem to have captured so much of the wider state.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
You can scan them in now, too.
I got a cheque that was too big to scan.
Was it one of those huge ones that lottery winners are pictured with next to a minor celebrity?
It wasn’t that far off.
A refund cheque from EDF.
What was very annoying was they had my active direct debit details but still sent a cheque.
PMQs is so boring with Sir Drear and his tedious monotony
Damn! PMQs has started without me! Time for 1.25x.
Kemi asked the same question six times, and Starmer gave the same answer six times. Ed Davey asked what might as well have been a planted question. I think there is only one more PMQs left for Keir Starmer so that will be full of bromides.
Kemi needs to get her act together. She's improved her PMQs since her early days when she'd ask long, rambling questions that allowed the PM to choose which part to answer and ignore the rest, and often a week late and about something her own government did. But she still regularly wastes her time asking the same thing over and over again. Presumably this is David Cameron's advice, or someone at CCHQ looking for something they can clip up for TwiX.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
To be accurate, what you should have said is that Gaza barely registers as a vote-determining issue with anyone like you, that is anyone who would not have given serious consideration to voting Labour before the events around Gaza kicked off in 2023. And that means that Burnham's success or failure will not be about whether people like you can be persuaded to vote for him.
Many had been giving such consideration to voting Labour, and despite what were otherwise the most favourable political circumstances Labour ended up with the support of only 34% of the electorate while support of the Greens and various left Independents more than doubled to about 8%. Gaza was instrumental in that. Since then the action or rather inaction of Starmer's government on Gaza has been one of the main reasons why Green support has risen into the teens and until recently was even polling higher than Labour on the odd occasion.
The Genocide deniers are all secretly wanking themselves off at little old women in the UK been arrested as terrorists for holding a placard.
Whilst claiming they are normal and those of us who think its a disgrace arent
Genocide deniers? We have gone from the Holocaust, which I think no-one would deny was a genocide, to Gaza, where I think its controversial. Firstly Israel was attacked, horrifically so. There are plenty of videos of the events if you are that way inclined. Horrible stuff. So they decided to go after the terrorists once and for all, and in doing so some 70000 people have been killed. I don't believe that that amounts to 70000 terrorists, so its certainly true that innocents have been killed. Life for an everyday Gazan citizen must have been pretty awful over the last few years. But is it a genocide? Some feel passionately that it is. Personally I don't. I think Israel has gone too far, and there must have been other ways. Its almost certainly linked to Netanyahu's own troubles.
As for the little old women being arrested as terrorists, well yes, they know what they are doing. They are supporting people who are happy to use sledgehammers against women.
You might view the proscription of Palestine Action as wrong. You might find it laughable that holder up a sign with 'I support Palestine' is legal where as one saying 'I support Palestine Action' is a terrorist offence. But do the curtesy of respecting others opinions.
Gaza is irrelevant now. Netanyahu has moved on to Lebanon to protect his country job.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Makes it easier to avoid, Lloyds acquiring HBOS was the beginning of the end for my current account mortgage and the start of having to contact the grumpiest woman in Scotland for any account enquiries.
For avoidance of doubt, Mrs. F doesn’t work for HBOS.
According to recent polling, the Democrats are more likely to win the Senate contest in Texas than in Maine. Crazy times. And the powers of shit candidate selection.
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
You can scan them in now, too.
I got a cheque that was too big to scan.
Was it one of those huge ones that lottery winners are pictured with next to a minor celebrity?
It wasn’t that far off.
A refund cheque from EDF.
What was very annoying was they had my active direct debit details but still sent a cheque.
That's part of the punishment. How dare you actually extract money from them.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
PMQs is so boring with Sir Drear and his tedious monotony
Damn! PMQs has started without me! Time for 1.25x.
Kemi asked the same question six times, and Starmer gave the same answer six times. Ed Davey asked what might as well have been a planted question. I think there is only one more PMQs left for Keir Starmer so that will be full of bromides.
Kemi needs to get her act together. She's improved her PMQs since her early days when she'd ask long, rambling questions that allowed the PM to choose which part to answer and ignore the rest, and often a week late and about something her own government did. But she still regularly wastes her time asking the same thing over and over again. Presumably this is David Cameron's advice, or someone at CCHQ looking for something they can clip up for TwiX.
It doesn't work. Have a rethink for the new guy.
Andy v Kemi is going to be very different and even more collegiate
It will be a very interesting contrast to Starmer v Kemi
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yup, if they could they'd close the Bank of Scotland brand too but it is a bit more complicated plus the North Britains would be angry.
Lloyds acquired the TSB, which has a better reputation than the Bank of Scotland. Although it’s becoming irrelevant, as most Scottish towns no longer have a bank at all.
TSB branches will either close or become Santander soon.
Our TSB and Santander have already closed, as have the Clydesdale and RBS. The Bank of Scotland, which is the last bank in town, closes this month.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
It's not necessarily the main reason for voting labour but when it comes to liking or or loathing a leader it can be crucial. I may not be typical but I know quite a few who voted Labour who now would be reluctant to vote for a Starmer led Labour. Even on here I can think of four. BJO Me Nick P and Wulfrun....Add a few who will be glad that they don't now have to face that choice and the numbers add up.
Tories like Taz and Scampi and Sandpit are just Tories who have never given a shit about anyone other than themselves. Ever. So no change
Thank you for your reply and Gaza is a very important issue for some and certainly I can understand why they want labour to be pro active for their cause
I think you are being a wee bit unfair on Taz, Scampi, and Sandpit who almost certainly care about all the innocents [ on both sides] who have been affected by this horrible state of affairs but for most people the cost of living and even immigration is the tangible subject that they want addressing
Netanyahu and Hamas are evil and need to face their day of reckoning
Part of our wider problem.as a society. We all have specific issues that we care deeply about, but we're getting worse at thinking about the other things that others might care about.
One of Starmer's failings has been an unwillingness/inability to convincingly adjudicate in those situations, especially when they have tradeoffs. But the fading of a sense of us (even the bits of us we disagree with) is an issue for all of us. It's probably something to do with antisocial media.
Big pharma suddenly discovers that those billions of dollars spent in investigating drugs which failed might now have enormous value again, as proprietary training data.
Nvidia and Eli Lilly are building a $1B lab for AI drug discovery in SF.
Lilly CEO Dave Ricks talks about their data advantage: “Some scale [tech-bio] players…are just training on public data but they’re only 4,000 ever approved drugs. Lilly alone has 3 million failed drugs.” https://x.com/bearlyai/status/2071606615682449636
Lloyds Banking Group announces Halifax to rebrand to Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has today confirmed that the Halifax brand will change to Lloyds.
Existing Halifax customers will start to use the Lloyds app in the coming months and will see their accounts rebranded to Lloyds over time. As part of this change, the Halifax brand will stop opening new accounts .
Halifax branches will be rebranded to Lloyds – meaning that Lloyds will continue to offer one of the largest branch networks in the UK today.
There is no change to Bank of Scotland, which will continue to offer the same market leading experience and propositions, exclusively to customers in Scotland.
Makes sense to have a single brand in England. Will also presumably allow more branch closures, as my town has one of each.
Yep - I think they’ve run out of branches that they could close without rebranding.
As cash usage dies branches do.
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
I suspect the last time I used a branch was to pay a rather large cheque in. I don't even think I've phoned First Direct in 3 years.
You can scan them in now, too.
I got a cheque that was too big to scan.
Was it one of those huge ones that lottery winners are pictured with next to a minor celebrity?
It wasn’t that far off.
A refund cheque from EDF.
What was very annoying was they had my active direct debit details but still sent a cheque.
That's part of the punishment. How dare you actually extract money from them.
Besides, a cheque might not get cashed. It might get lost in the post, or the recipient might forget to pay it in.
Ryanair aren't the only firm to optimise the awfulness of their service to make the most profit. There must be evil mathematicians who study such things.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
To be accurate, what you should have said is that Gaza barely registers as a vote-determining issue with anyone like you, that is anyone who would not have given serious consideration to voting Labour before the events around Gaza kicked off in 2023. And that means that Burnham's success or failure will not be about whether people like you can be persuaded to vote for him.
Many had been giving such consideration to voting Labour, and despite what were otherwise the most favourable political circumstances Labour ended up with the support of only 34% of the electorate while support of the Greens and various left Independents more than doubled to about 8%. Gaza was instrumental in that. Since then the action or rather inaction of Starmer's government on Gaza has been one of the main reasons why Green support has risen into the teens and until recently was even polling higher than Labour on the odd occasion.
The Genocide deniers are all secretly wanking themselves off at little old women in the UK been arrested as terrorists for holding a placard.
Whilst claiming they are normal and those of us who think its a disgrace arent
Genocide deniers? We have gone from the Holocaust, which I think no-one would deny was a genocide, to Gaza, where I think its controversial. Firstly Israel was attacked, horrifically so. There are plenty of videos of the events if you are that way inclined. Horrible stuff. So they decided to go after the terrorists once and for all, and in doing so some 70000 people have been killed. I don't believe that that amounts to 70000 terrorists, so its certainly true that innocents have been killed. Life for an everyday Gazan citizen must have been pretty awful over the last few years. But is it a genocide? Some feel passionately that it is. Personally I don't. I think Israel has gone too far, and there must have been other ways. Its almost certainly linked to Netanyahu's own troubles.
As for the little old women being arrested as terrorists, well yes, they know what they are doing. They are supporting people who are happy to use sledgehammers against women.
You might view the proscription of Palestine Action as wrong. You might find it laughable that holder up a sign with 'I support Palestine' is legal where as one saying 'I support Palestine Action' is a terrorist offence. But do the curtesy of respecting others opinions.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
There have been motorways in Manchester for decades. If they were the underlying driver of economic activity you’d expect GDP per capita in the NW of England to be 15x higher than in London.
They are a necessary enabler of economic activity, but not much more than that. The only part of the UK where you could reasonably argue that a lack of them is materially inhibiting growth is the NE of England, and even then I’m not convinced it would unlock boundless economic activity in County Durham.
What are you talking about? London is very well connected with the M25, M1 and M40.
Meanwhile eg Blackpool has the pathetic M55 and . . . err . . . plus . . . uhmmm . . .
London is not lacking in infrastructure. Much of the NW absolutely is.
He will have done. He'll have learned that their profession to christian values is a complete nonsense.
The US isn’t a theocracy. They left all of that behind 250 years ago.
The US was never a theocracy, 250 years ago or ever. And theocracy in colonial America was mostly confined to the Massachusetts Bay and New Haven colonies in the 17th century, and then it was never complete. Even there it was never complete and it died out long before the Revolution.
America and the British colonies that preceded it have had many systems of government - monarchy, oligarchy, racial apartheid, democracy and now idiocracy.
But theocracy never really established itself there.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
It's not necessarily the main reason for voting labour but when it comes to liking or or loathing a leader it can be crucial. I may not be typical but I know quite a few who voted Labour who now would be reluctant to vote for a Starmer led Labour. Even on here I can think of four. BJO Me Nick P and Wulfrun....Add a few who will be glad that they don't now have to face that choice and the numbers add up.
Tories like Taz and Scampi and Sandpit are just Tories who have never given a shit about anyone other than themselves. Ever. So no change
Thank you for your reply and Gaza is a very important issue for some and certainly I can understand why they want labour to be pro active for their cause
I think you are being a wee bit unfair on Taz, Scampi, and Sandpit who almost certainly care about all the innocents [ on both sides] who have been affected by this horrible state of affairs but for most people the cost of living and even immigration is the tangible subject that they want addressing
Netanyahu and Hamas are evil and need to face their day of reckoning
Part of our wider problem.as a society. We all have specific issues that we care deeply about, but we're getting worse at thinking about the other things that others might care about.
One of Starmer's failings has been an unwillingness/inability to convincingly adjudicate in those situations, especially when they have tradeoffs. But the fading of a sense of us (even the bits of us we disagree with) is an issue for all of us. It's probably something to do with antisocial media.
You're speaking for me exactly. I'm frustrated by the butterfly attention of the media to acute suffering (e.g. what exactly is the situation in Gaza now? - I've heard nothing for weeks), supplemented by the lack of evident priorities under Starmer, which with luck Burnham will address (even if I won't always agree with the choices).
He will have done. He'll have learned that their profession to christian values is a complete nonsense.
The US isn’t a theocracy. They left all of that behind 250 years ago.
The US was never a theocracy, 250 years ago or ever. And theocracy in colonial America was mostly confined to the Massachusetts Bay and New Haven colonies in the 17th century, and then it was never complete. Even there it was never complete and it died out long before the Revolution.
America and the British colonies that preceded it have had many systems of government - monarchy, oligarchy, racial apartheid, democracy and now idiocracy.
But theocracy never really established itself there.
Utah gets closest. Its alcohol and caffeine laws are knocking on the door of theocratic. But rule by the clergy? No.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
There have been motorways in Manchester for decades. If they were the underlying driver of economic activity you’d expect GDP per capita in the NW of England to be 15x higher than in London.
They are a necessary enabler of economic activity, but not much more than that. The only part of the UK where you could reasonably argue that a lack of them is materially inhibiting growth is the NE of England, and even then I’m not convinced it would unlock boundless economic activity in County Durham.
What are you talking about? London is very well connected with the M25, M1 and M40.
Meanwhile eg Blackpool has the pathetic M55 and . . . err . . . plus . . . uhmmm . . .
London is not lacking in infrastructure. Much of the NW absolutely is.
Eabhal is a car hating cycling loon in Scotland. Best ignored on such matters. He should stick to Edinburgh and his BTL
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
"who's calling for more motorways?"
Me, across the western side of the West Midlands conurbation. Or not even a motorway, just a single lane fast A road to by pass the bottlenecks linking to the M5. We seem to be the forgotten part of the UK in terms of major road construction.
It's a ridiculous situation where a 150 mile journey from Wolverhampton to Exeter takes about 3 hours 30 minutes but with the first 15 miles down the gridlocked A4123 to the M5 J2 taking 40 minutes even on a moderately good day. The absence of by-passes around Kidderminster and Wall Heath (Dudley) make the A449 alternative to J6 no quicker even using rat runs down suburban streets and single lane rural roads.
35 or so years ago the problem was recognised but a proposal for a Western Orbital Route was knocked on the head. But since then there have been no relevant changes to the road network here even on a much reduced scale while the traffic volumes have increased massively.
PS. Meanwhile going east or north from here instead of south we're the only part of the UK where you have to pay tolls to use a motorway.
A real one Glasgow to Edinburgh would be nice and dual carriageway on A9 please.
Dual the A303 by Stonehenge. I hate Starmer and Reeves for cancelling this after all the money that had been spent.
I never understood why they couldn't just build a tunnel at ground level and then gently cover it. Like a reverse ha-ha.
Because too many absolute wankers obsess about the 'historic' landscape. Yes its riddled with tumuli, but most have been investigated already. There is nothing there that could not be surveyed in advance. Its just a lot of vested interests (English Heritage for one).
They closed the road passed one side years ago in order to build a new visitor centre a mile away and stop people parking on the road for a quick view. They then wanted a massive tunnel to stop people seeing the stones at all. There is no reason at all that the road could not be dualed as it is. There would need to be a bypass round Winterbourne Stoke, but I saw plans for that in the 1990's when worked at the pub there.
I recall one farmer, who put up a replica of part of Stonehenge for fun (a long way from the real one), getting a bunch of people attacking his “destruction of the landscape”.
There was also a chap who wanted to build a modern long barrow, to offer burials, getting stick, IIRC.
Come to think of it, the builders of Stonehenge didn’t file any planning docs, health and safety case is missing, environmental… There is also no evidence that they performed an archeological survey of the site, despite building on an existing site of cultural significance.
Why do we celebrate shoddy building by such scumbags?
There was a story a couple of weeks back based on two (2) holes in the ground extrapolated out into something far bigger.
We have no real idea what Stonehenge was built for. We can guess, but we cannot know. There may well have been a road passing the stones back then too.
There is a stone circle on top of Pale Heights in Cheshire. It was erected about 26 years ago. It's nice. Its stone are aligned to the highest visible points in the seven neighbouring historic counties (Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire). If I had such a spot, and some time, I'd erect one. Stone circles all had to be new at some point.
According to recent polling, the Democrats are more likely to win the Senate contest in Texas than in Maine. Crazy times. And the powers of shit candidate selection.
They have Platner 0.7% ahead in Maine but Paxton 0.6% ahead in Texas.
I appreciate that their averages may well have a pro Republican bias because they include some biased polling but on a comparison basis that should even out.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
Parts of England Motorway pain/provision from best to worst. Top:
NW - Tonnes of motorways, absolutely flying to where you're going. East Mids - Both M1 and A1(Sometimes M) run through. I live here, and it's not too bad tbh. Yorks and Humber - Mostly fine, M1 & A1 do the job. Thank God the Darrington works have finished. East - Not too many motorways but like the SW does it really need them. Nothing like the bottleneck of Bristol either. West Mids - Lots of Motorways but somehow not quite enough. Forever roadworks, M42 ... ugh. HS2 has caused eternal roadworks here SW - M5 bottleneck. High chance of getting stuck nr Avonmouth to access most of the SW. Not sure about M4. SE/London - Plenty of Motorway but the obviously high pop density around London made this feel fucking awful last time I was down on the M25 (Something I don't wish to repeat too often). How many people are driving round London on a bloody Sunday night ?!? Doesn't happen elsewhere tbh. Great provision (Neccessarily) but there's a reason everyone gets the train here lol. NE - Forgotten child A1 needs dualling, enough said.
Scotland - DESERT
A few new motorways that would help relieve congestion and open up new opportunities would be: M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley. An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury. An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
M580 (a motorway along route currently serviced by the A580 East Lancs Road), could work with your M41.
M59 - cancelled former project to link Blackpool to Liverpool with a bridge over the Ribble. Could connect Stockport and other places along the NW coast, as well as potentially generating some new towns along that route.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
There are certainly a lot of folk loudly proclaiming that no one gives a flying fuck about Gaza which I wouldn’t describe as standard not giving a flying fuck behaviour. Not sure how normal they are mind.
In any case Gaza played a big part in the collapse of the Labour Party vote which I imagine should affect bettors’ thinking about a possible Labour renaissance under Burnham.
Unless I hang out with a bunch of weirdos, which I don't believe I do, Gaza is an issue which engages plenty of normal type people. Although I'd say (as with most things) the level of interest fluctuates according to how much it's in the news.
To adapt Eliot’s phrase, humankind cannot bear too much reality and loses interest quickly when it’s someone else’s reality. At a basic level I imagine most folk would prefer their governments not to be complicit with the wrong side of those realities. Too much reality currently includes Sudan, Ukraine, Iran and Venezuela. Pretty sure the ‘no one gives a flying fuck’ lads don’t care much about any of them, except for Ukraine and in a moving little flags on pins about a map sense.
Ukraine has the very obvious difference that there a) two separate states involved, b) these divide neatly into good guys and bad guys, and c) the bad guys are also our enemies while the good guys are slightly more 'western'. None of these are true for the others that you mention in a way that is obviously graspable to the mildly interested. That's why that one gets more traction.
I have to break it to you that the UK formally recognises Palestine so there are 2 ‘states’ involved. I know that one of them is preternaturally weak and has no means to prevent tens of thousands of its civilians being slaughtered but nevertheless two states.
I refer you to 'is obviously graspable to the mildly interested'. Which is why we talk about Gaza rather than Palestine.
Technically, you are perfectly correct. But I am explaining why Ukraine gets far more traction.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
Gaza barely registers as an issue, and Burnham's entire speech in Manchester this week was entirely on domestic issues and he did not once mention Gaza
Gaza is a tragedy, but Burnham success or failure will not be about Gaza
It's not necessarily the main reason for voting labour but when it comes to liking or or loathing a leader it can be crucial. I may not be typical but I know quite a few who voted Labour who now would be reluctant to vote for a Starmer led Labour. Even on here I can think of four. BJO Me Nick P and Wulfrun....Add a few who will be glad that they don't now have to face that choice and the numbers add up.
Tories like Taz and Scampi and Sandpit are just Tories who have never given a shit about anyone other than themselves. Ever. So no change
Thank you for your reply and Gaza is a very important issue for some and certainly I can understand why they want labour to be pro active for their cause
I think you are being a wee bit unfair on Taz, Scampi, and Sandpit who almost certainly care about all the innocents [ on both sides] who have been affected by this horrible state of affairs but for most people the cost of living and even immigration is the tangible subject that they want addressing
Netanyahu and Hamas are evil and need to face their day of reckoning
Part of our wider problem.as a society. We all have specific issues that we care deeply about, but we're getting worse at thinking about the other things that others might care about.
One of Starmer's failings has been an unwillingness/inability to convincingly adjudicate in those situations, especially when they have tradeoffs. But the fading of a sense of us (even the bits of us we disagree with) is an issue for all of us. It's probably something to do with antisocial media.
You're speaking for me exactly. I'm frustrated by the butterfly attention of the media to acute suffering (e.g. what exactly is the situation in Gaza now? - I've heard nothing for weeks), supplemented by the lack of evident priorities under Starmer, which with luck Burnham will address (even if I won't always agree with the choices).
If you can't get into Gaza (and journalists can't) you can't report on things.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
"who's calling for more motorways?"
Me, across the western side of the West Midlands conurbation. Or not even a motorway, just a single lane fast A road to by pass the bottlenecks linking to the M5. We seem to be the forgotten part of the UK in terms of major road construction.
It's a ridiculous situation where a 150 mile journey from Wolverhampton to Exeter takes about 3 hours 30 minutes but with the first 15 miles down the gridlocked A4123 to the M5 J2 taking 40 minutes even on a moderately good day. The absence of by-passes around Kidderminster and Wall Heath (Dudley) make the A449 alternative to J6 no quicker even using rat runs down suburban streets and single lane rural roads.
35 or so years ago the problem was recognised but a proposal for a Western Orbital Route was knocked on the head. But since then there have been no relevant changes to the road network here even on a much reduced scale while the traffic volumes have increased massively.
PS. Meanwhile going east or north from here instead of south we're the only part of the UK where you have to pay tolls to use a motorway.
A real one Glasgow to Edinburgh would be nice and dual carriageway on A9 please.
Dual the A303 by Stonehenge. I hate Starmer and Reeves for cancelling this after all the money that had been spent.
I never understood why they couldn't just build a tunnel at ground level and then gently cover it. Like a reverse ha-ha.
Because too many absolute wankers obsess about the 'historic' landscape. Yes its riddled with tumuli, but most have been investigated already. There is nothing there that could not be surveyed in advance. Its just a lot of vested interests (English Heritage for one).
They closed the road passed one side years ago in order to build a new visitor centre a mile away and stop people parking on the road for a quick view. They then wanted a massive tunnel to stop people seeing the stones at all. There is no reason at all that the road could not be dualed as it is. There would need to be a bypass round Winterbourne Stoke, but I saw plans for that in the 1990's when worked at the pub there.
I recall one farmer, who put up a replica of part of Stonehenge for fun (a long way from the real one), getting a bunch of people attacking his “destruction of the landscape”.
There was also a chap who wanted to build a modern long barrow, to offer burials, getting stick, IIRC.
Come to think of it, the builders of Stonehenge didn’t file any planning docs, health and safety case is missing, environmental… There is also no evidence that they performed an archeological survey of the site, despite building on an existing site of cultural significance.
Why do we celebrate shoddy building by such scumbags?
There was a story a couple of weeks back based on two (2) holes in the ground extrapolated out into something far bigger.
We have no real idea what Stonehenge was built for. We can guess, but we cannot know. There may well have been a road passing the stones back then too.
There is a stone circle on top of Pale Heights in Cheshire. It was erected about 26 years ago. It's nice. Its stone are aligned to the highest visible points in the seven neighbouring historic counties (Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire). If I had such a spot, and some time, I'd erect one. Stone circles all had to be new at some point.
There's a nice one in Hilly Fields park in Brockley. Erected in 2000.
According to recent polling, the Democrats are more likely to win the Senate contest in Texas than in Maine. Crazy times. And the powers of shit candidate selection.
They have Platner 0.7% ahead in Maine but Paxton 0.6% ahead in Texas.
I appreciate that their averages may well have a pro Republican bias because they include some biased polling but on a comparison basis that should even out.
I said recent polling. The RCP averages are a trailing indicator and the 'average' includes polling that's quite some way from recent, I think ? (I'm happy to be corrected if that's wrong.)
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
Wouldn't the Hamas own figures be more accurate than what Israel thinks its done?
Most reputable organisations put the ratio at 2:1 civilians : combatants Actual deaths are likely to be higher than reported, the Venezuelans are still pulling people from rubble a week after the earthquake, there weren't similar rescue efforts in Gaza for obvious reasons.
Ultimately the argument comes down to whether you value all human life equally or whether you consider some humans more valuable than others because of their religion, ethnicity or skin colour and excuse the actions of those who abuse them. It's really not that difficult.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
"who's calling for more motorways?"
Me, across the western side of the West Midlands conurbation. Or not even a motorway, just a single lane fast A road to by pass the bottlenecks linking to the M5. We seem to be the forgotten part of the UK in terms of major road construction.
It's a ridiculous situation where a 150 mile journey from Wolverhampton to Exeter takes about 3 hours 30 minutes but with the first 15 miles down the gridlocked A4123 to the M5 J2 taking 40 minutes even on a moderately good day. The absence of by-passes around Kidderminster and Wall Heath (Dudley) make the A449 alternative to J6 no quicker even using rat runs down suburban streets and single lane rural roads.
35 or so years ago the problem was recognised but a proposal for a Western Orbital Route was knocked on the head. But since then there have been no relevant changes to the road network here even on a much reduced scale while the traffic volumes have increased massively.
PS. Meanwhile going east or north from here instead of south we're the only part of the UK where you have to pay tolls to use a motorway.
A real one Glasgow to Edinburgh would be nice and dual carriageway on A9 please.
Dual the A303 by Stonehenge. I hate Starmer and Reeves for cancelling this after all the money that had been spent.
I never understood why they couldn't just build a tunnel at ground level and then gently cover it. Like a reverse ha-ha.
Because too many absolute wankers obsess about the 'historic' landscape. Yes its riddled with tumuli, but most have been investigated already. There is nothing there that could not be surveyed in advance. Its just a lot of vested interests (English Heritage for one).
They closed the road passed one side years ago in order to build a new visitor centre a mile away and stop people parking on the road for a quick view. They then wanted a massive tunnel to stop people seeing the stones at all. There is no reason at all that the road could not be dualed as it is. There would need to be a bypass round Winterbourne Stoke, but I saw plans for that in the 1990's when worked at the pub there.
I recall one farmer, who put up a replica of part of Stonehenge for fun (a long way from the real one), getting a bunch of people attacking his “destruction of the landscape”.
There was also a chap who wanted to build a modern long barrow, to offer burials, getting stick, IIRC.
Come to think of it, the builders of Stonehenge didn’t file any planning docs, health and safety case is missing, environmental… There is also no evidence that they performed an archeological survey of the site, despite building on an existing site of cultural significance.
Why do we celebrate shoddy building by such scumbags?
There was a story a couple of weeks back based on two (2) holes in the ground extrapolated out into something far bigger.
We have no real idea what Stonehenge was built for. We can guess, but we cannot know. There may well have been a road passing the stones back then too.
There is a stone circle on top of Pale Heights in Cheshire. It was erected about 26 years ago. It's nice. Its stone are aligned to the highest visible points in the seven neighbouring historic counties (Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire). If I had such a spot, and some time, I'd erect one. Stone circles all had to be new at some point.
According to recent polling, the Democrats are more likely to win the Senate contest in Texas than in Maine. Crazy times. And the powers of shit candidate selection.
They have Platner 0.7% ahead in Maine but Paxton 0.6% ahead in Texas.
I appreciate that their averages may well have a pro Republican bias because they include some biased polling but on a comparison basis that should even out.
I said recent polling. The RCP averages are a trailing indicator and the 'average' includes polling that's quite some way from recent, I think ? (I'm happy to be corrected if that's wrong.)
All seem pretty recent. Democrats have been convincing themselves that they are finally going to take Texas since the time of LBJ. And it never seems to happen.
Parts of England Motorway pain/provision from best to worst. Top:
NW - Tonnes of motorways, absolutely flying to where you're going. East Mids - Both M1 and A1(Sometimes M) run through. I live here, and it's not too bad tbh. Yorks and Humber - Mostly fine, M1 & A1 do the job. Thank God the Darrington works have finished. East - Not too many motorways but like the SW does it really need them. Nothing like the bottleneck of Bristol either. West Mids - Lots of Motorways but somehow not quite enough. Forever roadworks, M42 ... ugh. HS2 has caused eternal roadworks here SW - M5 bottleneck. High chance of getting stuck nr Avonmouth to access most of the SW. Not sure about M4. SE/London - Plenty of Motorway but the obviously high pop density around London made this feel fucking awful last time I was down on the M25 (Something I don't wish to repeat too often). How many people are driving round London on a bloody Sunday night ?!? Doesn't happen elsewhere tbh. Great provision (Neccessarily) but there's a reason everyone gets the train here lol. NE - Forgotten child A1 needs dualling, enough said.
Scotland - DESERT
A few new motorways that would help relieve congestion and open up new opportunities would be: M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley. An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury. An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
M580 (a motorway along route currently serviced by the A580 East Lancs Road), could work with your M41.
M59 - cancelled former project to link Blackpool to Liverpool with a bridge over the Ribble. Could connect Stockport and other places along the NW coast, as well as potentially generating some new towns along that route.
Oxford to Cambridge.
Plenty of others would be good ideas too.
A pedant notes: *Southport* not Stockport.
The #1 new motorway that I want - it doesn't have to be a motorway, a dual carriageway would do - is an extension of the A683 from Heysham to Barrow in Furness over Morecambe Bay, doubling as a tidal barrage. With a railway line running alongside.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
"who's calling for more motorways?"
Me, across the western side of the West Midlands conurbation. Or not even a motorway, just a single lane fast A road to by pass the bottlenecks linking to the M5. We seem to be the forgotten part of the UK in terms of major road construction.
It's a ridiculous situation where a 150 mile journey from Wolverhampton to Exeter takes about 3 hours 30 minutes but with the first 15 miles down the gridlocked A4123 to the M5 J2 taking 40 minutes even on a moderately good day. The absence of by-passes around Kidderminster and Wall Heath (Dudley) make the A449 alternative to J6 no quicker even using rat runs down suburban streets and single lane rural roads.
35 or so years ago the problem was recognised but a proposal for a Western Orbital Route was knocked on the head. But since then there have been no relevant changes to the road network here even on a much reduced scale while the traffic volumes have increased massively.
PS. Meanwhile going east or north from here instead of south we're the only part of the UK where you have to pay tolls to use a motorway.
A real one Glasgow to Edinburgh would be nice and dual carriageway on A9 please.
Dual the A303 by Stonehenge. I hate Starmer and Reeves for cancelling this after all the money that had been spent.
I never understood why they couldn't just build a tunnel at ground level and then gently cover it. Like a reverse ha-ha.
Because too many absolute wankers obsess about the 'historic' landscape. Yes its riddled with tumuli, but most have been investigated already. There is nothing there that could not be surveyed in advance. Its just a lot of vested interests (English Heritage for one).
They closed the road passed one side years ago in order to build a new visitor centre a mile away and stop people parking on the road for a quick view. They then wanted a massive tunnel to stop people seeing the stones at all. There is no reason at all that the road could not be dualed as it is. There would need to be a bypass round Winterbourne Stoke, but I saw plans for that in the 1990's when worked at the pub there.
I recall one farmer, who put up a replica of part of Stonehenge for fun (a long way from the real one), getting a bunch of people attacking his “destruction of the landscape”.
There was also a chap who wanted to build a modern long barrow, to offer burials, getting stick, IIRC.
Come to think of it, the builders of Stonehenge didn’t file any planning docs, health and safety case is missing, environmental… There is also no evidence that they performed an archeological survey of the site, despite building on an existing site of cultural significance.
Why do we celebrate shoddy building by such scumbags?
Won't somebody think of the poor jumping spiders ruthlessly squished under those massive rocks. Thank goodness those days are gone.
Parts of England Motorway pain/provision from best to worst. Top:
NW - Tonnes of motorways, absolutely flying to where you're going. East Mids - Both M1 and A1(Sometimes M) run through. I live here, and it's not too bad tbh. Yorks and Humber - Mostly fine, M1 & A1 do the job. Thank God the Darrington works have finished. East - Not too many motorways but like the SW does it really need them. Nothing like the bottleneck of Bristol either. West Mids - Lots of Motorways but somehow not quite enough. Forever roadworks, M42 ... ugh. HS2 has caused eternal roadworks here SW - M5 bottleneck. High chance of getting stuck nr Avonmouth to access most of the SW. Not sure about M4. SE/London - Plenty of Motorway but the obviously high pop density around London made this feel fucking awful last time I was down on the M25 (Something I don't wish to repeat too often). How many people are driving round London on a bloody Sunday night ?!? Doesn't happen elsewhere tbh. Great provision (Neccessarily) but there's a reason everyone gets the train here lol. NE - Forgotten child A1 needs dualling, enough said.
Scotland - DESERT
A few new motorways that would help relieve congestion and open up new opportunities would be: M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley. An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury. An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
M580 (a motorway along route currently serviced by the A580 East Lancs Road), could work with your M41.
M59 - cancelled former project to link Blackpool to Liverpool with a bridge over the Ribble. Could connect Stockport and other places along the NW coast, as well as potentially generating some new towns along that route.
Oxford to Cambridge.
Plenty of others would be good ideas too.
A pedant notes: *Southport* not Stockport.
The #1 new motorway that I want - it doesn't have to be a motorway, a dual carriageway would do - is an extension of the A683 from Heysham to Barrow in Furness over Morecambe Bay, doubling as a tidal barrage. With a railway line running alongside.
Ideally connected to a dualled A65 from M6 J36 to Bradford.
Parts of England Motorway pain/provision from best to worst. Top:
NW - Tonnes of motorways, absolutely flying to where you're going. East Mids - Both M1 and A1(Sometimes M) run through. I live here, and it's not too bad tbh. Yorks and Humber - Mostly fine, M1 & A1 do the job. Thank God the Darrington works have finished. East - Not too many motorways but like the SW does it really need them. Nothing like the bottleneck of Bristol either. West Mids - Lots of Motorways but somehow not quite enough. Forever roadworks, M42 ... ugh. HS2 has caused eternal roadworks here SW - M5 bottleneck. High chance of getting stuck nr Avonmouth to access most of the SW. Not sure about M4. SE/London - Plenty of Motorway but the obviously high pop density around London made this feel fucking awful last time I was down on the M25 (Something I don't wish to repeat too often). How many people are driving round London on a bloody Sunday night ?!? Doesn't happen elsewhere tbh. Great provision (Neccessarily) but there's a reason everyone gets the train here lol. NE - Forgotten child A1 needs dualling, enough said.
Scotland - DESERT
A few new motorways that would help relieve congestion and open up new opportunities would be: M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley. An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury. An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
M580 (a motorway along route currently serviced by the A580 East Lancs Road), could work with your M41.
M59 - cancelled former project to link Blackpool to Liverpool with a bridge over the Ribble. Could connect Stockport and other places along the NW coast, as well as potentially generating some new towns along that route.
Oxford to Cambridge.
Plenty of others would be good ideas too.
A pedant notes: *Southport* not Stockport.
The #1 new motorway that I want - it doesn't have to be a motorway, a dual carriageway would do - is an extension of the A683 from Heysham to Barrow in Furness over Morecambe Bay, doubling as a tidal barrage. With a railway line running alongside.
Ideally connected to a dualled A65 from M6 J36 to Bradford.
I don't think I'll ever get used to Halifax Town being re-named Lloyds Town. Just doesn't sound right.
Could be renamed Scotland town instead. I've been a Haifax customer for 35 years and they just made my current account a Bank of Scotland account! I don't even live in Scotland. And the rest of my accounts are still Halifax accounts...
According to recent polling, the Democrats are more likely to win the Senate contest in Texas than in Maine. Crazy times. And the powers of shit candidate selection.
They have Platner 0.7% ahead in Maine but Paxton 0.6% ahead in Texas.
I appreciate that their averages may well have a pro Republican bias because they include some biased polling but on a comparison basis that should even out.
I said recent polling. The RCP averages are a trailing indicator and the 'average' includes polling that's quite some way from recent, I think ? (I'm happy to be corrected if that's wrong.)
All seem pretty recent. Democrats have been convincing themselves that they are finally going to take Texas since the time of LBJ. And it never seems to happen.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
There have been motorways in Manchester for decades. If they were the underlying driver of economic activity you’d expect GDP per capita in the NW of England to be 15x higher than in London.
They are a necessary enabler of economic activity, but not much more than that. The only part of the UK where you could reasonably argue that a lack of them is materially inhibiting growth is the NE of England, and even then I’m not convinced it would unlock boundless economic activity in County Durham.
What are you talking about? London is very well connected with the M25, M1 and M40.
Meanwhile eg Blackpool has the pathetic M55 and . . . err . . . plus . . . uhmmm . . .
London is not lacking in infrastructure. Much of the NW absolutely is.
Eabhal is a car hating cycling loon in Scotland. Best ignored on such matters. He should stick to Edinburgh and his BTL
What’s with the ad hominem? Is it because you’ve run out of argument?
Edinburgh’s GVA per capita is 40% higher than Glasgow’s, despite the latter having a motorway running right through the centre of it.
It’s 100% higher than the NW of England, despite those 400 miles of motorway.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
There have been motorways in Manchester for decades. If they were the underlying driver of economic activity you’d expect GDP per capita in the NW of England to be 15x higher than in London.
They are a necessary enabler of economic activity, but not much more than that. The only part of the UK where you could reasonably argue that a lack of them is materially inhibiting growth is the NE of England, and even then I’m not convinced it would unlock boundless economic activity in County Durham.
What are you talking about? London is very well connected with the M25, M1 and M40.
Meanwhile eg Blackpool has the pathetic M55 and . . . err . . . plus . . . uhmmm . . .
London is not lacking in infrastructure. Much of the NW absolutely is.
Eabhal is a car hating cycling loon in Scotland. Best ignored on such matters. He should stick to Edinburgh and his BTL
What’s with the ad hominem?
It's just malc's way of saying hello. Think nothing of it.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
The UK has no useful role in the area.
I have no idea where you got that from. Sources? Try reading this:
In summary, of 72,612 casualties from the Israeli invasion and bombing of Gaza up to April 2026, around 80% have been civilians. 29% of casualties have been children and 16% women, by deduction 55% were men.
Radar upgrades are more than just radar upgrades (and partly explain why GCAP is intended to be so big).
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/lightning-strikes-new-f-35-radar-could-have-directed-energy-attack-mode/ F-35 program leader Lieutenant General Greg Masiello delivered something of a lite-beer testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, with many questions deferred to a closed session. But the discussion (transcript here) pointed to a big and little-discussed change to air warfare technology – fighter radars so powerful that they can act as high-power microwave (HPM) weapons. And this involves not just the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning but also British Eurofighter Typhoons and the multinational Global Combat Aircraft Program (GCAP).
HPM is not just a type of jamming. A form of directed energy, it is the targeting of an adversary’s radio-frequency (RF) devices, such as radars, communications radios and passive receivers, with pulses of energy so intense that the system is forced offline or even physically damaged. The technology is being widely offered for use against battlefield drones, but those are RF-susceptible targets at distances of a few kilometres at most.
Masiello was talking about something that could give Godzilla a round of electroshock therapy at 200 km range.
The story emerged as Senator Mark Kelly questioned Masiello about the new Northrop Grumman APG-85 radar that’s going into US F-35s. There have been a few revelations about that radar in the past year or so: no other country will get it, it is not interchangeable with the current APG-81 sensor, and deliveries of it have been running late. Masiello disclosed that F-35Bs have been delivered to the US Marine Corps without radars.
Masiello also said that the ‘full capability’ of the APG-85 could not be exploited without the forthcoming upgrades to the fighter’s engine and complex cooling system. The program expects to deliver upgraded engines in 2031, but the cooling system will be ‘a few years later’ – raising cooling capacity from the current 30 kW to the future requirement, a startling 62 kW to 80 kW. Running the APG-85 more than doubles the cooling needed for the entire aircraft.
Now that’s revealing, because if a radar needs remarkably more cooling, it must be pumping remarkably greater energy out through its antenna...
Parts of England Motorway pain/provision from best to worst. Top:
NW - Tonnes of motorways, absolutely flying to where you're going. East Mids - Both M1 and A1(Sometimes M) run through. I live here, and it's not too bad tbh. Yorks and Humber - Mostly fine, M1 & A1 do the job. Thank God the Darrington works have finished. East - Not too many motorways but like the SW does it really need them. Nothing like the bottleneck of Bristol either. West Mids - Lots of Motorways but somehow not quite enough. Forever roadworks, M42 ... ugh. HS2 has caused eternal roadworks here SW - M5 bottleneck. High chance of getting stuck nr Avonmouth to access most of the SW. Not sure about M4. SE/London - Plenty of Motorway but the obviously high pop density around London made this feel fucking awful last time I was down on the M25 (Something I don't wish to repeat too often). How many people are driving round London on a bloody Sunday night ?!? Doesn't happen elsewhere tbh. Great provision (Neccessarily) but there's a reason everyone gets the train here lol. NE - Forgotten child A1 needs dualling, enough said.
Scotland - DESERT
A few new motorways that would help relieve congestion and open up new opportunities would be: M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley. An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury. An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
Improving and dualing the entire A66 from Scotch Corner to the M6 would be another one worth doing. A section is in progress so this obviously hasn't been forgotten but it should have been done 30 years ago.
According to recent polling, the Democrats are more likely to win the Senate contest in Texas than in Maine. Crazy times. And the powers of shit candidate selection.
They have Platner 0.7% ahead in Maine but Paxton 0.6% ahead in Texas.
I appreciate that their averages may well have a pro Republican bias because they include some biased polling but on a comparison basis that should even out.
I said recent polling. The RCP averages are a trailing indicator and the 'average' includes polling that's quite some way from recent, I think ? (I'm happy to be corrected if that's wrong.)
All seem pretty recent. Democrats have been convincing themselves that they are finally going to take Texas since the time of LBJ. And it never seems to happen.
Going off on an extended holiday with your mistress in the middle of the campaign doesn't seem an optimal move.
There's also this kind of thing. Predicting voter enthusiasm for November, and how it might impact actual votes is difficult, but for now it seems to strongly favour Democrats.
We’ve known that since 2024, when the distribution was even more stark. Labour are the party of highly educated net contributors. Reform’s best cohort are council house tenants. The distribution is the same in Scotland.
There is a deep underlying tension there because the rhetoric of both parties is at odds with their actual voters. I’d love to see a poll of Universal Credit and PIP claimants.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
Wouldn't the Hamas own figures be more accurate than what Israel thinks its done?
Most reputable organisations put the ratio at 2:1 civilians : combatants Actual deaths are likely to be higher than reported, the Venezuelans are still pulling people from rubble a week after the earthquake, there weren't similar rescue efforts in Gaza for obvious reasons.
Ultimately the argument comes down to whether you value all human life equally or whether you consider some humans more valuable than others because of their religion, ethnicity or skin colour and excuse the actions of those who abuse them. It's really not that difficult.
I value all human life. Do Hamas? Did they when they attacked Israel? When they took hostages, many of whom died?
There has to be a better solution that what is there now.
Its like some crap tribute act to the Gordon Brown era.
Will Ed Balls be offered a job as well ?
Is the Labour party admitting its not elected anyone talented from 2010 onwards ?
And is this new Manchester economy anything more than the ultimate expression of the Gordon Brown economy - people renting foreign owned flats with massive debts all round.
You've not been to Manchester this century have you?
R4 More or Less Stats up to 2023 (latest info apparently). Productivity growth 2019-2023 supposedly 14% but a lot of it is down to errors or reporting changes in the ONS stats gathering over that period, real wages rose by 1% in same period. Changes from stats to "feel" after that, conclusion is that there "Manchesterism" is real but not as successful as claimed and that the root causes predate Burnham.
So big, shiny buildings, more inequality and its football club changed from being perennial losers by Arab money.
Anything else ?
Construction of dense residential /commercial neighbourhoods is a much more reliable indicator of economic growth than plastering motorways everywhere. Indeed there is a strong negative correlation with the latter.
You can’t really avoid the fact it’s dense, compact cities like London, Edinburgh etc that generate most of the economic output in the UK, and the most potential lies with other cities like Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool which fall far behind their German/Dutch/French equivalents.
Lots of motorways in Greater Manchester.
Anyway who's calling for more motorways ?
But we keep coming back to people renting flats in big, shiny buildings, often foreign owned, with the poor decanted to banlieues on the outskirts.
House price growth uber alles whereas in South Korea and Taiwan their big shiny buildings are for hi tech manufacturing.
There have been motorways in Manchester for decades. If they were the underlying driver of economic activity you’d expect GDP per capita in the NW of England to be 15x higher than in London.
They are a necessary enabler of economic activity, but not much more than that. The only part of the UK where you could reasonably argue that a lack of them is materially inhibiting growth is the NE of England, and even then I’m not convinced it would unlock boundless economic activity in County Durham.
What are you talking about? London is very well connected with the M25, M1 and M40.
Meanwhile eg Blackpool has the pathetic M55 and . . . err . . . plus . . . uhmmm . . .
London is not lacking in infrastructure. Much of the NW absolutely is.
The M25 does not connect London with anywhere. It is basically a big ring road round the outside so that traffic does not need to go through the middle of London at 3 miles an hour or whatever the average speed would be.
Household income below £20k won't involve a great deal of working. Reform. The party of benefit claimants.
Pensioners? Is "household income" self-reporting? I'd suggest there could be some reporting issues here for example pensioners not considering the state pension as income.
Dreadful figures for Starmer. That's what happens when you forget you are a LABOUR PM and issues like a genocide in Gaza where 86,000 people were slaughtered matter.
.................And arresting elderly vicars for writing 'Palestine Action' is taken as tacit approval for that genocide. Don't be fooled by Farage's facists. They are not the only voices that should have been heard
No-one normal gives a flying fuck about Gaza mate.
Thats actually saying nobody gives a fuck about International Law.
Until it impacts on them
Gaza is glorious and enthusiastic group masturbation for activist Lefties.
They love it because it's where all their prejudices meet on class, colour, colonialism and capitalism and it's utterly irresistible to them.
Knock yourself out, but no-one normal cares. It's entirely irrelevant to British politics and our actions are entirely irrelevant as well.
Some people do care a lot. But what I have not noticed from those who do care is them noticing that according to Hamas's own figures 50,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters. Hamas has announced that it is paying pensions to the widows of those 50,000 fighters. Fighters get killed in wars. Killing fighters is war - not genocide. The remaining deaths are a tragedy of course.
Wouldn't the Hamas own figures be more accurate than what Israel thinks its done?
Most reputable organisations put the ratio at 2:1 civilians : combatants Actual deaths are likely to be higher than reported, the Venezuelans are still pulling people from rubble a week after the earthquake, there weren't similar rescue efforts in Gaza for obvious reasons.
Ultimately the argument comes down to whether you value all human life equally or whether you consider some humans more valuable than others because of their religion, ethnicity or skin colour and excuse the actions of those who abuse them. It's really not that difficult.
I value all human life. Do Hamas? Did they when they attacked Israel? When they took hostages, many of whom died?
There has to be a better solution that what is there now.
I doubt there is a single poster on PB who supports what Hamas did in October 23, there are plenty supporting / excusing what Israel has done since. Which has been just as horrific on a larger scale.
"I doubt there is a single poster on PB who supports what Hamas did in October 23, there are plenty supporting / excusing what Israel has done since. Which has been just as horrific on a larger scale."
What should Israel have done? I' don't think they have got it right, but I am interested to know what people think the response SHOULD have been.
I don't think I'll ever get used to Halifax Town being re-named Lloyds Town. Just doesn't sound right.
Could be renamed Scotland town instead. I've been a Haifax customer for 35 years and they just made my current account a Bank of Scotland account! I don't even live in Scotland. And the rest of my accounts are still Halifax accounts...
Banks are nearly all online so most people likely don't live in same country as their bank.
Today(!)s round of WC matches could be interesting..... Doc Congo could give England a very tough time - similarly Senegal and Belgium.... only US vs Bosnia & H looks straightforward, despite the 2 against 1 advantage...
Comments
Unless he meant Howard Donald.
An idiot can see the Pope's teachings haven't impacted Joe Biden's policies from abortion to same sex marriage.
But you feigned ignorance about not knowing about America's long history of anti-Catholic bigotry.
I also like Luke Akehurst, so I accept that’s a black mark on me.
I just don’t care about Gaza and doubt many in North Durham do
they never had a Premier Banking/Wealth Management offeringI found Howard from the Halifax annoying.Keir Starmer is trying to blow up Andy Burnham before he’s started
https://x.com/JohnRentoul/status/2072281223519514627
Whilst claiming they are normal and those of us who think its a disgrace arent
Other than to meet my relationship manager I think I've used a bank twice in the last 7 years and one of those was to get an immediate debit card replacement.
Once you’ve filtered out the mad, dim, lazy and those who have already mentally moved on, there are maybe twenty MPs left who are any use.
The ratio is might be a bit on the low side, but even 1 in 3 MPs being any good beyond backbenchery would only give Kemi 40 cards to in her deck.
I wonder who the Talented Twenty are.
As for the little old women being arrested as terrorists, well yes, they know what they are doing. They are supporting people who are happy to use sledgehammers against women.
You might view the proscription of Palestine Action as wrong. You might find it laughable that holder up a sign with 'I support Palestine' is legal where as one saying 'I support Palestine Action' is a terrorist offence. But do the curtesy of respecting others opinions.
He should remind Labour MPs of what it said in the manifesto about Labour being four square behind the Equality Act and single sex spaces for women and tell some of his more idiot MPs to stop trying to undermine this and the rule of law. He could also, for good measure, as a former Health Secretary, tell the NHS to comply with the law instead of buggering about wasting public money losing court cases. While he's about it, he can come up with some proposals to deal with the Ockenden Report and the Amos Report on maternity care - other than to ignore it and the 30 or so previous reports saying the same thing, which seems to have been the policy of the last few governments. On the Amos Report, it is worth noting two things: (1) Dr Bill Kirkup, an expert in this area, resigned from the team because he felt that discussion of the normal birth ideology pushed by some midwives which might have been behind some of the tragedies had been removed at the last minute; and (2) Amos could not bring herself to use the word "woman" but insisted on using "birthing people" instead. If a report on maternity care cannot even describe properly the women who give birth, what bloody use is it likely to be?
Anyway, back to my garden, despite learning that I have a cracked rib caused by a fall - though since much of it has become sclerotic with cancer and part of my right lung has collapsed so there's not much for the ribs to do really - this may not mean much tho' probably explains the pain I've been in. And I also have some sort of torn or damaged ligament in my wrist.
It never bloody ends.
Garden is looking fantastic though!
M67 extended across the Pennines to join the M1 between Sheffield and Barnsley.
An M41 from Haydock, west of Warrington, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Worcester to join the M5 north of Tewkesbury.
An M303 from Reading, via Andover, Warminster and Shepton Mallet to join the M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton.
Also dual the A1 fully between Newcastle and Edinburgh and fully dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness.
The UK has no useful role in the area.
They're still there but it is heaving with shoppers, diners and revellers.
Salford is even more stark. You were in danger of getting shot 20 years ago.
The population of the City Centre has grown from under 500 to 85k in 35 years.
If that isn't success then I have to ask what do you want?
How would you measure success?
I think you are being a wee bit unfair on Taz, Scampi, and Sandpit who almost certainly care about all the innocents [ on both sides] who have been affected by this horrible state of affairs but for most people the cost of living and even immigration is the tangible subject that they want addressing
Netanyahu and Hamas are evil and need to face their day of reckoning
A refund cheque from EDF.
What was very annoying was they had my active direct debit details but still sent a cheque.
Kemi needs to get her act together. She's improved her PMQs since her early days when she'd ask long, rambling questions that allowed the PM to choose which part to answer and ignore the rest, and often a week late and about something her own government did. But she still regularly wastes her time asking the same thing over and over again. Presumably this is David Cameron's advice, or someone at CCHQ looking for something they can clip up for TwiX.
It doesn't work. Have a rethink for the new guy.
Crazy times.
And the powers of shit candidate selection.
Texas - Senate Polling:
🔵 Talarico: 48%
🔴 Paxton: 46%
A2 Insights / June 28, 2026
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/2072180686635549088
It will be a very interesting contrast to Starmer v Kemi
One of Starmer's failings has been an unwillingness/inability to convincingly adjudicate in those situations, especially when they have tradeoffs. But the fading of a sense of us (even the bits of us we disagree with) is an issue for all of us. It's probably something to do with antisocial media.
Who would have predicted that ?
Nvidia and Eli Lilly are building a $1B lab for AI drug discovery in SF.
Lilly CEO Dave Ricks talks about their data advantage: “Some scale [tech-bio] players…are just training on public data but they’re only 4,000 ever approved drugs. Lilly alone has 3 million failed drugs.”
https://x.com/bearlyai/status/2071606615682449636
Ryanair aren't the only firm to optimise the awfulness of their service to make the most profit. There must be evil mathematicians who study such things.
Note doesn't seem to have been updated since Sept '25 so likely a few more on the list
Meanwhile eg Blackpool has the pathetic M55 and . . . err . . . plus . . . uhmmm . . .
London is not lacking in infrastructure. Much of the NW absolutely is.
America and the British colonies that preceded it have had many systems of government - monarchy, oligarchy, racial apartheid, democracy and now idiocracy.
But theocracy never really established itself there.
If I had such a spot, and some time, I'd erect one. Stone circles all had to be new at some point.
They have Platner 0.7% ahead in Maine but Paxton 0.6% ahead in Texas.
I appreciate that their averages may well have a pro Republican bias because they include some biased polling but on a comparison basis that should even out.
M59 - cancelled former project to link Blackpool to Liverpool with a bridge over the Ribble. Could connect Stockport and other places along the NW coast, as well as potentially generating some new towns along that route.
Oxford to Cambridge.
Plenty of others would be good ideas too.
Technically, you are perfectly correct. But I am explaining why Ukraine gets far more traction.
The RCP averages are a trailing indicator and the 'average' includes polling that's quite some way from recent, I think ?
(I'm happy to be corrected if that's wrong.)
Actual deaths are likely to be higher than reported, the Venezuelans are still pulling people from rubble a week after the earthquake, there weren't similar rescue efforts in Gaza for obvious reasons.
Ultimately the argument comes down to whether you value all human life equally or whether you consider some humans more valuable than others because of their religion, ethnicity or skin colour and excuse the actions of those who abuse them.
It's really not that difficult.
And the Texas ones:https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/texas/paxton-vs-talarico
All seem pretty recent. Democrats have been convincing themselves that they are finally going to take Texas since the time of LBJ. And it never seems to happen.
The #1 new motorway that I want - it doesn't have to be a motorway, a dual carriageway would do - is an extension of the A683 from Heysham to Barrow in Furness over Morecambe Bay, doubling as a tidal barrage. With a railway line running alongside.
Going off on an extended holiday with your mistress in the middle of the campaign doesn't seem an optimal move.
Edinburgh’s GVA per capita is 40% higher than Glasgow’s, despite the latter having a motorway running right through the centre of it.
It’s 100% higher than the NW of England, despite those 400 miles of motorway.
Think nothing of it.
"@YouGov
Support for Labour now *rises* with household income, while Reform UK's is strongest among poorer households
Household income: £70k or above
Lab: 22%
Con: 20%
Ref: 18%
LD: 17%
Grn: 17%
Rst: 2%
Household income: Below £20k
Ref: 30%
Grn: 17%
Con: 15%
Lab: 15%
LD: 11%
Rst: 5%
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/55084-how-would-britain-vote-two-years-since-the-2024-election "
https://x.com/YouGov/status/2072268794605486473
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war
In summary, of 72,612 casualties from the Israeli invasion and bombing of Gaza up to April 2026, around 80% have been civilians. 29% of casualties have been children and 16% women, by deduction 55% were men.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/lightning-strikes-new-f-35-radar-could-have-directed-energy-attack-mode/
F-35 program leader Lieutenant General Greg Masiello delivered something of a lite-beer testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, with many questions deferred to a closed session. But the discussion (transcript here) pointed to a big and little-discussed change to air warfare technology – fighter radars so powerful that they can act as high-power microwave (HPM) weapons. And this involves not just the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning but also British Eurofighter Typhoons and the multinational Global Combat Aircraft Program (GCAP).
HPM is not just a type of jamming. A form of directed energy, it is the targeting of an adversary’s radio-frequency (RF) devices, such as radars, communications radios and passive receivers, with pulses of energy so intense that the system is forced offline or even physically damaged. The technology is being widely offered for use against battlefield drones, but those are RF-susceptible targets at distances of a few kilometres at most.
Masiello was talking about something that could give Godzilla a round of electroshock therapy at 200 km range.
The story emerged as Senator Mark Kelly questioned Masiello about the new Northrop Grumman APG-85 radar that’s going into US F-35s. There have been a few revelations about that radar in the past year or so: no other country will get it, it is not interchangeable with the current APG-81 sensor, and deliveries of it have been running late. Masiello disclosed that F-35Bs have been delivered to the US Marine Corps without radars.
Masiello also said that the ‘full capability’ of the APG-85 could not be exploited without the forthcoming upgrades to the fighter’s engine and complex cooling system. The program expects to deliver upgraded engines in 2031, but the cooling system will be ‘a few years later’ – raising cooling capacity from the current 30 kW to the future requirement, a startling 62 kW to 80 kW. Running the APG-85 more than doubles the cooling needed for the entire aircraft.
Now that’s revealing, because if a radar needs remarkably more cooling, it must be pumping remarkably greater energy out through its antenna...
Reform. The party of benefit claimants.
Predicting voter enthusiasm for November, and how it might impact actual votes is difficult, but for now it seems to strongly favour Democrats.
Maine - Extremely Motivated To Vote:
🔵 Platner: 53%
🔴 Collins: 44%
Beacon/Shaw / June 27, 2026
There is a deep underlying tension there because the rhetoric of both parties is at odds with their actual voters. I’d love to see a poll of Universal Credit and PIP claimants.
There has to be a better solution that what is there now.
Benefits claimants are only worthy if the middle,classes look on them paternally
Is "household income" self-reporting?
I'd suggest there could be some reporting issues here for example pensioners not considering the state pension as income.
What should Israel have done? I' don't think they have got it right, but I am interested to know what people think the response SHOULD have been.