Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It was 58.2 million in 1996 and it's approx 69.5 million today, so you could just about argue it's (one) tens of millions.
Of course, not all is immigration but a lot is.
I suspect our population would have declined without immigration. Ovet 10m seems right to me. (I suspect tge true population is rather more than 69.5m today).
Given life expectancy has risen, births have exceeded deaths almost every year in that period.
Though how many births would not have happened is a complicating factor.
Welsh Fire vs Southerm Brave: well done to these two franchises for not changing their names, but they are daft names. Neither "Welsh" nor "Southern" are satisfactory answers to the question "Who are we playing Dad"? Welsh Fire is at least a thing, if a slightly abstract one. Southern Brave is just two unrelated adjectives. The question "why are Phil Salt and Luke Wood playing for Southern?" is also difficult to answer, as is "why is Joe Root playing for Welsh?"
Southern Softies would be the more obvious choice.
Excellent article - ie I agree with it - from Alastair Meeks on just how bad a place the Conservatives are in. I give Reform a higher prospect of crashing and burning, allowing the Tories to mop up, than maybe he does. But that this seems to be Badenoch's only strategy is desperate.
I got the impression it too much enjoyed being doom laden for the Conservatives, whilst not anchored on enough actual evidence.
For the Header I have sent to TSE inbox, it explores the same thing, but building on the conclusions of pollsters and psephologists and actual evidence, I found a lot of good news for the conservatives, electoral prospects not at all doom and gloom right now for Conservative Party and its supporters.
Yes, but you're a Conservative and Alastair isn't.
But I’m a psephologist. I know exactly how UK politics is tilting right now, and what happens next. Hence I put it in a header.
Excellent bit of fielding by, it would appear, the work experience kid playing for Southern, though he appears to have hurt himself in saving a couple of runs.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
When it became capital it wasn’t peripheral as it was arguably as important for it to be near the centres of power of the time in Europe. It’s well placed between the trading ports of the East coast with the Hanseatic league and the ports of the south trading with France and further afield.
Many key capitals are as peripheral and based on rivers - Paris (although geographically less peripheral to a smaller France of the time), Rome, Lisbon on the coast. Stockholm, Copenhagen all contemporary capitals on the coast and geared for trade.
As of now, it’s as in striking distance as much as Manchester or anywhere if the enemy has missiles. It’s closer to the financial and political centres of Europe benefiting from quick flights and Eurostar. So in the last and now it makes sense as a location.
Excellent bit of fielding by, it would appear, the work experience kid playing for Southern, though he appears to have hurt himself in saving a couple of runs.
Excellent article - ie I agree with it - from Alastair Meeks on just how bad a place the Conservatives are in. I give Reform a higher prospect of crashing and burning, allowing the Tories to mop up, than maybe he does. But that this seems to be Badenoch's only strategy is desperate.
I got the impression it too much enjoyed being doom laden for the Conservatives, whilst not anchored on enough actual evidence.
For the Header I have sent to TSE inbox, it explores the same thing, but building on the conclusions of pollsters and psephologists and actual evidence, I found a lot of good news for the conservatives, electoral prospects not at all doom and gloom right now for Conservative Party and its supporters.
I look forward to reading it.
I suppose the questions about Badenoch's "Waiting by the tree in case a rabbit hits it" (Chinese proverb) strategy are
(a) Will Reform's numbers fall far enough? If they only fall to where they were at the last election and Labour's numbers only fall somewhat compared with 2024, there will be a movement of seats between Labour and Reform with the Conservatives only modest beneficiaries compared with last time's catastrophic results.
(b) If Reform does effectively disappear will their voters move to the Conservatives, vote for another populist right party, or stay at home? Labour will benefit if it's the latter two.
It feels very high stakes. I think it requires Reform to effectively disappear and go back to the previous state. Which to be clear is an entirely plausible outcome, but not one that's happening right now, unless there's something Alastair and I are missing?
The question is how the Conservatives build a new voting coalition on top of the old one.
That's what will create the extra 10% in the polls Alastair Meeks mentions.
Inasmuch as every successful Opposition going into Government needs to build a coalition of both those who always vote for it, thosewho used to vote for it and have returned and those who have never voted for it, true.
I'm sure @MoonRabbit's piece will be full of "evidence" but the key points are Badenoch's approval numbers which are encouraging and the Conservative VI shares which are less so - 18% in the latest Deltapoll I think.
The question then becomes do we still have a two party system but with Reform having supplanted the Conservatives in opposition to labour who long ago replaced the Liberals?
The answer is perhaps yes and no.
The Conservatives retain areas of strength - they are and have been largely expunged from places which were once areas of strength but where they have been replaced as the dominant political force by other parties. In areas of former weakness, they are as weak if not weaker still.
I'm not familiar with Conservative local organisation and strength but I'd wager £20 of your money the correlation between the strength of local organisation/activity and electoral success is pretty strong - in effect, the Conservatives are now the Liberal Democrats operating out of small islands of strength surrounded by vast areas of weakness.
We saw this in London in May - the overall Conservative position was little changed but what we saw was consolidation in places like Wandsworth, Westminster, Harrow, Bromley and Bexley but in Sutton, Richmond, Kingston and Havering the results were disastrous.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between them could well win 150-200 seats next time and form an effective bloc between minority Labour and minority Reform administrations - it's a thought.
Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It was 58.2 million in 1996 and it's approx 69.5 million today, so you could just about argue it's (one) tens of millions.
Of course, not all is immigration but a lot is.
I suspect our population would have declined without immigration. Ovet 10m seems right to me. (I suspect tge true population is rather more than 69.5m today).
Agreed on both points, although I suspect population decline would have been relatively modest.
It's in the last 15 years or so that fertility has dropped to more worrying levels.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
The capital will grow where the wealth, trade and money is though, and that does tend to be on major rivers or seaports that facilitate major trade - at least back in the day.
If it were brand new today - i.e. with aviation being an option- then perhaps somewhere like Birmingham or Manchester could be a stronger candidate but the transport links out south and to southern ports would need to be shit hot.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
I doubt the 2034 election will be relevant to me to be fair but maybe I will have my pacemaker battery changed if required !!!
On the bus fares, Burnham in front of a bus with the £2 announcement shown prominently doesn't show it does not come in to 2027
Also seems there is the small print as ever:
Sky states further details of bus fare cap 'eligibility' still to be ironed out
Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced this morning he will cap single bus fare routes in England outside of London at £2 for all of 2027.
But it's not completely clear exactly which services this will apply to.
Lots of routes are excluded from the current £3 fare cap, according to gov.uk.
The Department for Transport said they would share more details in due course, but pointed out that under the £3 cap only open services that allow any member of the public to board, as well as services that allow free travel for the whole of the route, are eligible.
That would exclude dedicated school bus services.
On a visit to a bus depot in Bath to promote the policy, Burnham appeared in front of a branded bus with an asterisk that read "subject to local operator opt in".
*maximum fare, subject to local operator opt in
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I wouldn’t expect to jump on an Ember bus to Inverness for £2.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
The two are related.
A neutral place was chosen rather than the established major cities of the time, which left politics and finance separate.
If a neutral location were chosen in England then it would not be London, or Manchester.
I doubt the 2034 election will be relevant to me to be fair but maybe I will have my pacemaker battery changed if required !!!
On the bus fares, Burnham in front of a bus with the £2 announcement shown prominently doesn't show it does not come in to 2027
Also seems there is the small print as ever:
Sky states further details of bus fare cap 'eligibility' still to be ironed out
Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced this morning he will cap single bus fare routes in England outside of London at £2 for all of 2027.
But it's not completely clear exactly which services this will apply to.
Lots of routes are excluded from the current £3 fare cap, according to gov.uk.
The Department for Transport said they would share more details in due course, but pointed out that under the £3 cap only open services that allow any member of the public to board, as well as services that allow free travel for the whole of the route, are eligible.
That would exclude dedicated school bus services.
On a visit to a bus depot in Bath to promote the policy, Burnham appeared in front of a branded bus with an asterisk that read "subject to local operator opt in".
*maximum fare, subject to local operator opt in
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I wouldn’t expect to jump on an Ember bus to Inverness for £2.
Fares for me are free though I never use a bus.
Were you here earier Malc? We had evet such a lot of fun on that subject.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
The two are related.
A neutral place was chosen rather than the established major cities of the time, which left politics and finance separate.
If a neutral location were chosen in England then it would not be London, or Manchester.
We could look at past capitals of England as options
Wellington became New Zealand's capital in 1865 replacing Auckland.
This had a lot to do with the goldrush in Otago and the West Coast which brought a population surge to the South Island and required the capital to be nearer to where the economic activity was happening - Wellington fitted the bill.
When the gold ran out, the South Island declined - towns like Reefton, Greymouth and Kumara lost a lot of people.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
The two are related.
A neutral place was chosen rather than the established major cities of the time, which left politics and finance separate.
If a neutral location were chosen in England then it would not be London, or Manchester.
We could look at past capitals of England as options
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
Also, New York and Sydney are still the de facto capitals even if not the official political ones.
Welsh Fire vs Southerm Brave: well done to these two franchises for not changing their names, but they are daft names. Neither "Welsh" nor "Southern" are satisfactory answers to the question "Who are we playing Dad"? Welsh Fire is at least a thing, if a slightly abstract one. Southern Brave is just two unrelated adjectives. The question "why are Phil Salt and Luke Wood playing for Southern?" is also difficult to answer, as is "why is Joe Root playing for Welsh?"
Southern Softies would be the more obvious choice.
Welsh Fire vs Southerm Brave: well done to these two franchises for not changing their names, but they are daft names. Neither "Welsh" nor "Southern" are satisfactory answers to the question "Who are we playing Dad"? Welsh Fire is at least a thing, if a slightly abstract one. Southern Brave is just two unrelated adjectives. The question "why are Phil Salt and Luke Wood playing for Southern?" is also difficult to answer, as is "why is Joe Root playing for Welsh?"
Southern Softies would be the more obvious choice.
Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It was 58.2 million in 1996 and it's approx 69.5 million today, so you could just about argue it's (one) tens of millions.
Of course, not all is immigration but a lot is.
I suspect our population would have declined without immigration. Ovet 10m seems right to me. (I suspect tge true population is rather more than 69.5m today).
Well, as a significant number of people emigrate each year, I think that's almost certainly true.
Welsh Fire vs Southerm Brave: well done to these two franchises for not changing their names, but they are daft names. Neither "Welsh" nor "Southern" are satisfactory answers to the question "Who are we playing Dad"? Welsh Fire is at least a thing, if a slightly abstract one. Southern Brave is just two unrelated adjectives. The question "why are Phil Salt and Luke Wood playing for Southern?" is also difficult to answer, as is "why is Joe Root playing for Welsh?"
Southern Softies would be the more obvious choice.
Southern Bluster..
North Briton Loyalists..
Those lads are a bit shit at football, let’s not complicate it with cricket.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
The two are related.
A neutral place was chosen rather than the established major cities of the time, which left politics and finance separate.
If a neutral location were chosen in England then it would not be London, or Manchester.
We could look at past capitals of England as options
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
Plus there is a very good reason to separate your political capital from your financial capital and not overburden everything in the same place.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
New York is not the capital because of planning to avoid the financial capitals and political capitals being the same - Washington was chosen as a compromise to the southern colonies/states to ensure the capital was neutral.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
The two are related.
A neutral place was chosen rather than the established major cities of the time, which left politics and finance separate.
If a neutral location were chosen in England then it would not be London, or Manchester.
We could look at past capitals of England as options
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
And also have the cast speaking Ancient Greek in the way he had them Speaking Aramaic in the passion of the Christ and Mayan in Apocalypto. I’m sure Elon will approve.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
Yes he (Gibson not Burns) famously crowbarred Nazi attrocities such as the church burning into Redcoated Brits which was nice.
I doubt the 2034 election will be relevant to me to be fair but maybe I will have my pacemaker battery changed if required !!!
On the bus fares, Burnham in front of a bus with the £2 announcement shown prominently doesn't show it does not come in to 2027
Also seems there is the small print as ever:
Sky states further details of bus fare cap 'eligibility' still to be ironed out
Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced this morning he will cap single bus fare routes in England outside of London at £2 for all of 2027.
But it's not completely clear exactly which services this will apply to.
Lots of routes are excluded from the current £3 fare cap, according to gov.uk.
The Department for Transport said they would share more details in due course, but pointed out that under the £3 cap only open services that allow any member of the public to board, as well as services that allow free travel for the whole of the route, are eligible.
That would exclude dedicated school bus services.
On a visit to a bus depot in Bath to promote the policy, Burnham appeared in front of a branded bus with an asterisk that read "subject to local operator opt in".
*maximum fare, subject to local operator opt in
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I wouldn’t expect to jump on an Ember bus to Inverness for £2.
Fares for me are free though I never use a bus.
A man possessed of too much time a good tolerance for discomfort can use a Stagecoach day pass to visit Hereford from Oxford or vice versa for £5. Or £4 if purchased as a carnet of five. And these are no expresses - dozens and dozens of stops.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
Wasn't Lincoln Jewish himself? Shot in the Temple, no?
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
I need to see that. I rate Ken Burns, although I'm yet to see any American treating the American Revolution objectively- too many foundation myths.
The Patriot is total historical garbage, although has some good battle scenes.
I think the one place parliament could decant to is... Birmingham.
International airport very nearby, that's much better than Manchester Airport tbh
Central location
Historically important and still very large city.
Good train link to London (And another line being (Whatever your thoughts on it) being built.
Repurposing some of the NEC space (Heck it is repurposed all the time anyway) would do the trick.
Making it just a bit to the North of Brum would possibly concentrate minds on actually improving the train system. And now I'm reminded of..
[Humphrey] Why did we get two really good roads to Oxford before any to Southampton or Dover or any of the ports? Nearly all our Permanent Secretaries went to Oxford, Minister, and most Oxford colleges give very good dinners.
[Hacker] The Cabinet allow that?
[Humphrey] Certainly not! They said no motorway to take civil servants to Oxford, unless there was one to take Ministers hunting in the shires. That's why the M1 stopped in Leicestershire!
[Hacker] Oh, come! What about the M11 just completed? Doesn't Cambridge give as good dinners?
[Humphrey] Yes, of course, but it's been years since Transport had a Permanent Secretary from Cambridge.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
Or the Jews.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
I need to see that. I rate Ken Burns, although I'm yet to see any American treating the American Revolution objectively- too many foundation myths.
The Patriot is total historical garbage, although has some good battle scenes.
Every country has its foundation myths that play rather fast and loose with historical accuracy. We have a few ourselves.
Excellent article - ie I agree with it - from Alastair Meeks on just how bad a place the Conservatives are in. I give Reform a higher prospect of crashing and burning, allowing the Tories to mop up, than maybe he does. But that this seems to be Badenoch's only strategy is desperate.
I got the impression it too much enjoyed being doom laden for the Conservatives, whilst not anchored on enough actual evidence.
For the Header I have sent to TSE inbox, it explores the same thing, but building on the conclusions of pollsters and psephologists and actual evidence, I found a lot of good news for the conservatives, electoral prospects not at all doom and gloom right now for Conservative Party and its supporters.
I look forward to reading it.
I suppose the questions about Badenoch's "Waiting by the tree in case a rabbit hits it" (Chinese proverb) strategy are
(a) Will Reform's numbers fall far enough? If they only fall to where they were at the last election and Labour's numbers only fall somewhat compared with 2024, there will be a movement of seats between Labour and Reform with the Conservatives only modest beneficiaries compared with last time's catastrophic results.
(b) If Reform does effectively disappear will their voters move to the Conservatives, vote for another populist right party, or stay at home? Labour will benefit if it's the latter two.
It feels very high stakes. I think it requires Reform to effectively disappear and go back to the previous state. Which to be clear is an entirely plausible outcome, but not one that's happening right now, unless there's something Alastair and I are missing?
The question is how the Conservatives build a new voting coalition on top of the old one.
That's what will create the extra 10% in the polls Alastair Meeks mentions.
Inasmuch as every successful Opposition going into Government needs to build a coalition of both those who always vote for it, thosewho used to vote for it and have returned and those who have never voted for it, true.
I'm sure @MoonRabbit's piece will be full of "evidence" but the key points are Badenoch's approval numbers which are encouraging and the Conservative VI shares which are less so - 18% in the latest Deltapoll I think.
The question then becomes do we still have a two party system but with Reform having supplanted the Conservatives in opposition to labour who long ago replaced the Liberals?
The answer is perhaps yes and no.
The Conservatives retain areas of strength - they are and have been largely expunged from places which were once areas of strength but where they have been replaced as the dominant political force by other parties. In areas of former weakness, they are as weak if not weaker still.
I'm not familiar with Conservative local organisation and strength but I'd wager £20 of your money the correlation between the strength of local organisation/activity and electoral success is pretty strong - in effect, the Conservatives are now the Liberal Democrats operating out of small islands of strength surrounded by vast areas of weakness.
We saw this in London in May - the overall Conservative position was little changed but what we saw was consolidation in places like Wandsworth, Westminster, Harrow, Bromley and Bexley but in Sutton, Richmond, Kingston and Havering the results were disastrous.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between them could well win 150-200 seats next time and form an effective bloc between minority Labour and minority Reform administrations - it's a thought.
Forming a bloc with the Lib Dems is the exact opposite of what the Conservatives are doing now, which I think is hanging around waiting for Reform to collapse, so they can pick up the pieces. Feels like they are doing this because they can't think of anything better. And to be fair, it may work
Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It's not necessarily hogwash. The *net* population increase is about 12 million, but there's a lot of churn in that. It's quite possible from the avaliable numbers that over 20 million individuals have entered in the last 30 years, even if some of them (and a chunk of the existing British population) have also left.
I presume it will be realistic and will spend much more time on the soldiers dying of dysentery than would normally be the case in a movie.
If Mel Gibson were in charge I'd presume he'd find a way to still make the English the bad guys.
And also have the cast speaking Ancient Greek in the way he had them Speaking Aramaic in the passion of the Christ and Mayan in Apocalypto. I’m sure Elon will approve.
Excellent article - ie I agree with it - from Alastair Meeks on just how bad a place the Conservatives are in. I give Reform a higher prospect of crashing and burning, allowing the Tories to mop up, than maybe he does. But that this seems to be Badenoch's only strategy is desperate.
I got the impression it too much enjoyed being doom laden for the Conservatives, whilst not anchored on enough actual evidence.
For the Header I have sent to TSE inbox, it explores the same thing, but building on the conclusions of pollsters and psephologists and actual evidence, I found a lot of good news for the conservatives, electoral prospects not at all doom and gloom right now for Conservative Party and its supporters.
I look forward to reading it.
I suppose the questions about Badenoch's "Waiting by the tree in case a rabbit hits it" (Chinese proverb) strategy are
(a) Will Reform's numbers fall far enough? If they only fall to where they were at the last election and Labour's numbers only fall somewhat compared with 2024, there will be a movement of seats between Labour and Reform with the Conservatives only modest beneficiaries compared with last time's catastrophic results.
(b) If Reform does effectively disappear will their voters move to the Conservatives, vote for another populist right party, or stay at home? Labour will benefit if it's the latter two.
It feels very high stakes. I think it requires Reform to effectively disappear and go back to the previous state. Which to be clear is an entirely plausible outcome, but not one that's happening right now, unless there's something Alastair and I are missing?
The question is how the Conservatives build a new voting coalition on top of the old one.
That's what will create the extra 10% in the polls Alastair Meeks mentions.
Inasmuch as every successful Opposition going into Government needs to build a coalition of both those who always vote for it, thosewho used to vote for it and have returned and those who have never voted for it, true.
I'm sure @MoonRabbit's piece will be full of "evidence" but the key points are Badenoch's approval numbers which are encouraging and the Conservative VI shares which are less so - 18% in the latest Deltapoll I think.
The question then becomes do we still have a two party system but with Reform having supplanted the Conservatives in opposition to labour who long ago replaced the Liberals?
The answer is perhaps yes and no.
The Conservatives retain areas of strength - they are and have been largely expunged from places which were once areas of strength but where they have been replaced as the dominant political force by other parties. In areas of former weakness, they are as weak if not weaker still.
I'm not familiar with Conservative local organisation and strength but I'd wager £20 of your money the correlation between the strength of local organisation/activity and electoral success is pretty strong - in effect, the Conservatives are now the Liberal Democrats operating out of small islands of strength surrounded by vast areas of weakness.
We saw this in London in May - the overall Conservative position was little changed but what we saw was consolidation in places like Wandsworth, Westminster, Harrow, Bromley and Bexley but in Sutton, Richmond, Kingston and Havering the results were disastrous.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between them could well win 150-200 seats next time and form an effective bloc between minority Labour and minority Reform administrations - it's a thought.
Forming a bloc with the Lib Dems is the exact opposite of what the Conservatives are doing now, which I think is hanging around waiting for Reform to collapse, so they can pick up the pieces. Feels like they are doing this because they can't think of anything better. And to be fair, it may work
Hard to distinguish the deliberate strategy from "Reform are our spirit animal" self-indulgence. Talking of which,
Exc: Grant Shapps believed to be one of at least 10 ex Tory MPs who have failed their assessments as Badenoch overhauls selection process
"Al Carns refuses to join Burnham’s Government over defence spending Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It's not necessarily hogwash. The *net* population increase is about 12 million, but there's a lot of churn in that. It's quite possible from the avaliable numbers that over 20 million individuals have entered in the last 30 years, even if some of them (and a chunk of the existing British population) have also left.
Weird to call it hogwash for using an order of magnitude, its quite common to refer to large numbers by their order of magnitude.
Tens of millions covers anything between 10 million and less than 100 million anyway, it does not begin at 20 million.
Given everything we know, its almost certainly the right order of magnitude.
Spectator exclusive: Grant Shapps believed to be one of at least 10 ex Tory MPs who have failed their assessments as Badenoch overhauls selection process.
The other 10 failed applicants included Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox.
Musk really is the great hero of our age. He's doing stuff that is amazing. And yet he chooses to mix it with the political dopes (all of them).
I think Brunel managed not to be so daft. Although daft in different ways.
Brunel's daftness tended not to manifest itself in politics, as he utterly despised all politicians and almost all civil servants - the notable exception was Sir Benjamin Hawes, who just happened to be his brother in law.
His daftnesses included, most notably, his stubborn adherence to the idea of different gauges according to the speed of the line, and his refusal to patent any of his ideas meaning other people reaped the profits from them.
There are a number of pro Russian bloggers who are seriously concerned about Drapatyi’s appointment. His record as a fighter is unmatched.
Perhaps just as importantly, it's a demonstration that democratic protest is permitted even in wartime and that changes in leadership can happen without defenestration.
"Al Carns refuses to join Burnham’s Government over defence spending Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
Excellent article - ie I agree with it - from Alastair Meeks on just how bad a place the Conservatives are in. I give Reform a higher prospect of crashing and burning, allowing the Tories to mop up, than maybe he does. But that this seems to be Badenoch's only strategy is desperate.
I got the impression it too much enjoyed being doom laden for the Conservatives, whilst not anchored on enough actual evidence.
For the Header I have sent to TSE inbox, it explores the same thing, but building on the conclusions of pollsters and psephologists and actual evidence, I found a lot of good news for the conservatives, electoral prospects not at all doom and gloom right now for Conservative Party and its supporters.
I look forward to reading it.
I suppose the questions about Badenoch's "Waiting by the tree in case a rabbit hits it" (Chinese proverb) strategy are
(a) Will Reform's numbers fall far enough? If they only fall to where they were at the last election and Labour's numbers only fall somewhat compared with 2024, there will be a movement of seats between Labour and Reform with the Conservatives only modest beneficiaries compared with last time's catastrophic results.
(b) If Reform does effectively disappear will their voters move to the Conservatives, vote for another populist right party, or stay at home? Labour will benefit if it's the latter two.
It feels very high stakes. I think it requires Reform to effectively disappear and go back to the previous state. Which to be clear is an entirely plausible outcome, but not one that's happening right now, unless there's something Alastair and I are missing?
The question is how the Conservatives build a new voting coalition on top of the old one.
That's what will create the extra 10% in the polls Alastair Meeks mentions.
Inasmuch as every successful Opposition going into Government needs to build a coalition of both those who always vote for it, thosewho used to vote for it and have returned and those who have never voted for it, true.
I'm sure @MoonRabbit's piece will be full of "evidence" but the key points are Badenoch's approval numbers which are encouraging and the Conservative VI shares which are less so - 18% in the latest Deltapoll I think.
The question then becomes do we still have a two party system but with Reform having supplanted the Conservatives in opposition to labour who long ago replaced the Liberals?
The answer is perhaps yes and no.
The Conservatives retain areas of strength - they are and have been largely expunged from places which were once areas of strength but where they have been replaced as the dominant political force by other parties. In areas of former weakness, they are as weak if not weaker still.
I'm not familiar with Conservative local organisation and strength but I'd wager £20 of your money the correlation between the strength of local organisation/activity and electoral success is pretty strong - in effect, the Conservatives are now the Liberal Democrats operating out of small islands of strength surrounded by vast areas of weakness.
We saw this in London in May - the overall Conservative position was little changed but what we saw was consolidation in places like Wandsworth, Westminster, Harrow, Bromley and Bexley but in Sutton, Richmond, Kingston and Havering the results were disastrous.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between them could well win 150-200 seats next time and form an effective bloc between minority Labour and minority Reform administrations - it's a thought.
Forming a bloc with the Lib Dems is the exact opposite of what the Conservatives are doing now, which I think is hanging around waiting for Reform to collapse, so they can pick up the pieces. Feels like they are doing this because they can't think of anything better. And to be fair, it may work
Hard to distinguish the deliberate strategy from "Reform are our spirit animal" self-indulgence. Talking of which,
Exc: Grant Shapps believed to be one of at least 10 ex Tory MPs who have failed their assessments as Badenoch overhauls selection process
The Conservative Party moves in mysterious ways these days. Mysterious to me at least. Why on earth would they exclude Shapps, who I would think a straight down the line Tory? You can't get anyone more Tory. They might as well ban Disraeli.
File on 4 Investigates has also learned from several sources that the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose the obstetrics records to the defence.
The CPS reasoned that because the prosecution did not use them to form its case against Letby, they were not relevant.
In other words, the CPS didn't include obstetrics records as part of the prosecution case because they were 'unhelpful', and therefore withheld them from the defence because they were 'irrelevant'.
Incidentally, the AI - Claude Fable 5 - did the calculations during the World Cup. So we can deduce that i) Claude Fable 5 is not distracted by trivial things like footbal, and ii) Claude Fable 5 is not a fan of the Argentinians. Good old Claude Fable 5.
Excellent article - ie I agree with it - from Alastair Meeks on just how bad a place the Conservatives are in. I give Reform a higher prospect of crashing and burning, allowing the Tories to mop up, than maybe he does. But that this seems to be Badenoch's only strategy is desperate.
I got the impression it too much enjoyed being doom laden for the Conservatives, whilst not anchored on enough actual evidence.
For the Header I have sent to TSE inbox, it explores the same thing, but building on the conclusions of pollsters and psephologists and actual evidence, I found a lot of good news for the conservatives, electoral prospects not at all doom and gloom right now for Conservative Party and its supporters.
I look forward to reading it.
I suppose the questions about Badenoch's "Waiting by the tree in case a rabbit hits it" (Chinese proverb) strategy are
(a) Will Reform's numbers fall far enough? If they only fall to where they were at the last election and Labour's numbers only fall somewhat compared with 2024, there will be a movement of seats between Labour and Reform with the Conservatives only modest beneficiaries compared with last time's catastrophic results.
(b) If Reform does effectively disappear will their voters move to the Conservatives, vote for another populist right party, or stay at home? Labour will benefit if it's the latter two.
It feels very high stakes. I think it requires Reform to effectively disappear and go back to the previous state. Which to be clear is an entirely plausible outcome, but not one that's happening right now, unless there's something Alastair and I are missing?
The question is how the Conservatives build a new voting coalition on top of the old one.
That's what will create the extra 10% in the polls Alastair Meeks mentions.
Inasmuch as every successful Opposition going into Government needs to build a coalition of both those who always vote for it, thosewho used to vote for it and have returned and those who have never voted for it, true.
I'm sure @MoonRabbit's piece will be full of "evidence" but the key points are Badenoch's approval numbers which are encouraging and the Conservative VI shares which are less so - 18% in the latest Deltapoll I think.
The question then becomes do we still have a two party system but with Reform having supplanted the Conservatives in opposition to labour who long ago replaced the Liberals?
The answer is perhaps yes and no.
The Conservatives retain areas of strength - they are and have been largely expunged from places which were once areas of strength but where they have been replaced as the dominant political force by other parties. In areas of former weakness, they are as weak if not weaker still.
I'm not familiar with Conservative local organisation and strength but I'd wager £20 of your money the correlation between the strength of local organisation/activity and electoral success is pretty strong - in effect, the Conservatives are now the Liberal Democrats operating out of small islands of strength surrounded by vast areas of weakness.
We saw this in London in May - the overall Conservative position was little changed but what we saw was consolidation in places like Wandsworth, Westminster, Harrow, Bromley and Bexley but in Sutton, Richmond, Kingston and Havering the results were disastrous.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between them could well win 150-200 seats next time and form an effective bloc between minority Labour and minority Reform administrations - it's a thought.
Forming a bloc with the Lib Dems is the exact opposite of what the Conservatives are doing now, which I think is hanging around waiting for Reform to collapse, so they can pick up the pieces. Feels like they are doing this because they can't think of anything better. And to be fair, it may work
Hard to distinguish the deliberate strategy from "Reform are our spirit animal" self-indulgence. Talking of which,
Exc: Grant Shapps believed to be one of at least 10 ex Tory MPs who have failed their assessments as Badenoch overhauls selection process
The Conservative Party moves in mysterious ways these days. Mysterious to me at least. Why on earth would they exclude Shapps, who I would think a straight down the line Tory? You can't get anyone more Tory. They might as well ban Disraeli.
"Al Carns refuses to join Burnham’s Government over defence spending Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
One of the points of changing the voting system is to change voting behaviour, so it's kinda pointless if your polling/modelling isn't able to include that effect.
File on 4 Investigates has also learned from several sources that the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose the obstetrics records to the defence.
The CPS reasoned that because the prosecution did not use them to form its case against Letby, they were not relevant.
In other words, the CPS didn't include obstetrics records as part of the prosecution case because they were 'unhelpful', and therefore withheld them from the defence because they were 'irrelevant'.
Thats a pretty feeble excuse by Letby's lawyers. Obviously there would be obstetric notes for each mother and the Defence could have requested them if they wanted them.
File on 4 Investigates has also learned from several sources that the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose the obstetrics records to the defence.
The CPS reasoned that because the prosecution did not use them to form its case against Letby, they were not relevant.
In other words, the CPS didn't include obstetrics records as part of the prosecution case because they were 'unhelpful', and therefore withheld them from the defence because they were 'irrelevant'.
Thats a pretty feeble excuse by Letby's lawyers. Obviously there would be obstetric notes for each mother and the Defence could have requested them if they wanted them.
"The BBC has also seen evidence the defence did request the maternity notes but they were not released."
Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It was 58.2 million in 1996 and it's approx 69.5 million today, so you could just about argue it's (one) tens of millions.
Of course, not all is immigration but a lot is.
I suspect our population would have declined without immigration. Ovet 10m seems right to me. (I suspect tge true population is rather more than 69.5m today).
“Tens of millions” has to mean at least 20 million, or close to 20 million. ~10 million does not count. Yusuf lied.
File on 4 Investigates has also learned from several sources that the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose the obstetrics records to the defence.
The CPS reasoned that because the prosecution did not use them to form its case against Letby, they were not relevant.
In other words, the CPS didn't include obstetrics records as part of the prosecution case because they were 'unhelpful', and therefore withheld them from the defence because they were 'irrelevant'.
Thats a pretty feeble excuse by Letby's lawyers. Obviously there would be obstetric notes for each mother and the Defence could have requested them if they wanted them.
"The BBC has also seen evidence the defence did request the maternity notes but they were not released."
The defence could have requested them directly from the hospital.
Tens of millions? oh FFS. At least get the basic numbers right. How big was the number in last thirty years? Thirty million imported? Forty million? Eight five?
Utter hogwash on stilts
It's not necessarily hogwash. The *net* population increase is about 12 million, but there's a lot of churn in that. It's quite possible from the avaliable numbers that over 20 million individuals have entered in the last 30 years, even if some of them (and a chunk of the existing British population) have also left.
Weird to call it hogwash for using an order of magnitude, its quite common to refer to large numbers by their order of magnitude.
Tens of millions covers anything between 10 million and less than 100 million anyway, it does not begin at 20 million.
Given everything we know, its almost certainly the right order of magnitude.
2-10 million is millions. 20-100 is tens of millions. 200,000-1 million is hundreds of thousands.
File on 4 Investigates has also learned from several sources that the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose the obstetrics records to the defence.
The CPS reasoned that because the prosecution did not use them to form its case against Letby, they were not relevant.
In other words, the CPS didn't include obstetrics records as part of the prosecution case because they were 'unhelpful', and therefore withheld them from the defence because they were 'irrelevant'.
Read the article: it’s very caveated. The prosecution say that, no, the records would add nothing. What matters is the baby’s record, not the mother’s.
The claim that there’s an issue seems to rely on a speculative possibility that, in one case, a rare event might be discernible in the maternity records that would then explain one baby death. The only person in the article who has seen the records, the prosecution witness, says there’s nothing in the record that’s relevant.
It’s an online course. The main reason for an online course is usually (in this financial climate) to get overseas students who can’t afford to come to the UK, and charge them lots for a course. Obviously, you pick a course in a hot topic, AI.
That doesn’t mean it won’t be a great course, but it’s probably being done for financial reasons.
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
The capital will grow where the wealth, trade and money is though, and that does tend to be on major rivers or seaports that facilitate major trade - at least back in the day.
If it were brand new today - i.e. with aviation being an option- then perhaps somewhere like Birmingham or Manchester could be a stronger candidate but the transport links out south and to southern ports would need to be shit hot.
In old countries, like England, the seat of government is in the biggest, richest, city, because it had to be. It was where the power was, and so that's where you had to be to exercise power.
It's in newer countries that don't have the same history of centuries of internal conflict forcing a co-location of government and commercial centre where a decision can be made to put an administrative capital somewhere else for one reason or another.
I think it would be massively to Britain's benefit to improve transport links so that a combined Manchester-Sheffield-Leeds can compete internationally as a single economic area, or else do what Japan has done and improve transport links into London, so that more of the country is part of London's economic area.
I can't decide whether moving Parliament and the machinery of government would be a catalyst for that change, or a massive distraction.
Incidentally, the AI - Claude Fable 5 - did the calculations during the World Cup. So we can deduce that i) Claude Fable 5 is not distracted by trivial things like footbal, and ii) Claude Fable 5 is not a fan of the Argentinians. Good old Claude Fable 5.
It took it 42mins, reportedly. So plenty of time left to watch the winning goal.
"Al Carns refuses to join Burnham’s Government over defence spending Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
"Al Carns refuses to join Burnham’s Government over defence spending Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
Boris kicked the York thing off, It’s a levelling up gimmick thing isn’t it. Yet another thing Boris and Burnham governments share, quickly reaching for gimmicks, levelling up gimmicks their favourite. Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
They say York imo simply because of the history of being a capital, but mostly eyeing the land by the station. I don’t like the idea at all because a parliament is not just one building and 650 MPs, it will need thousands and thousands of people, they all need somewhere, and It will completely change York for the worst in my opinion.
The only place a second Parliament, or temporary home can be in big city, Manchester or Birmingham, becuase of so much that comes with it that needs infrastructure.
I still sure London is the right place, it’s currently close to the ministries of government - how’s it work having government and Parliament in different parts of country? The answer is remote voting to make it work, and using remote voting means you don’t even need 2nd Parliament. Even if need to vacateParliament for refurb, use somewhere in London temporary.
Gimmicks isn’t governing properly.
I agree with most of that. The arguments for not-London include: - it's tucked away in the far corner of the country miles from anywhere - it's atypical of everywhere else - it's bloody expensive - with government in London, the view of government tends to default to 'the rest of the country is a slightly embarassing encumberance whose best hope is the odd handout from London'
Obviously I'd say Manchester is best - central, accessible, large enough to accommodate an influx, attractive enough for people to want to live there, has a load of highly accessible brownfield land which could be used for the purpose - but this is equally true of Birmingham.
There are other cities that would have the capacity for being the home of a replacement parliament. Sharing the investment beyond our 2nd and 3rd cities must be worth considering.
It is rather predictable to just think about the usual big cities. They already attract a lot of investment.
I don't necessarily disagree. As Moonrabbit says, York is probably too small - but there's a lot of options inbetween. I had quite liked the idea of Stoke or Coventry - central, connected, in need of regeneration, cheap - but when I suggested this to a civil servant she was, I thought, unreasonably furious (though in th next breath conolaining that she, a senior civil servant, could only afford a poky two-bedroom flat in a semi-feral area of London). But she was prepared to countenance the idea of living in Manchester or Birmingham.
Alternatively, with a fast and frequent railway connecting Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield you could conceivably have a multipolar capiral.
How about following the Brazilian example and build a new Parliament in the Amazonian rainforest.
See my Stoke example.
Do we really believe opening a political talking shop outside London is going to make a difference?
Seems like pointless excercise to me.
Not opening a political talking shop - moving the existing political talking shop. Along with the machinery of government.
Moving still seems pointless to mw
If the UK were a new country, London would be one of the last places you'd consider for a capital. The only reason to have it there now is inertia. But inertia shouldn't be underestimated as a reason for anything.
Why? It's on a sheltered wide and accessible river estuary facing the continent, and good for trade.
It's a logical choice. Far more so than, say, Bristol or Newcastle.
Those make it a good location for a city but not for a capital. It's extremely peripheral, economically atypical and bloody expensive. And in strategic terms you don't particularly want your capital within striking distance of your enemies.
The capital will grow where the wealth, trade and money is though, and that does tend to be on major rivers or seaports that facilitate major trade - at least back in the day.
If it were brand new today - i.e. with aviation being an option- then perhaps somewhere like Birmingham or Manchester could be a stronger candidate but the transport links out south and to southern ports would need to be shit hot.
In old countries, like England, the seat of government is in the biggest, richest, city, because it had to be. It was where the power was, and so that's where you had to be to exercise power.
It's in newer countries that don't have the same history of centuries of internal conflict forcing a co-location of government and commercial centre where a decision can be made to put an administrative capital somewhere else for one reason or another.
I think it would be massively to Britain's benefit to improve transport links so that a combined Manchester-Sheffield-Leeds can compete internationally as a single economic area, or else do what Japan has done and improve transport links into London, so that more of the country is part of London's economic area.
I can't decide whether moving Parliament and the machinery of government would be a catalyst for that change, or a massive distraction.
Certainly a cast cost - many billions- and ultimate pointless
Meeks is very readable and makes some excellent points. But the conclusion I draw from his analysis is that every party is doing badly.
So the question ultimately comes down to a political one. Will the viewers decide Labour have failed and need to be replaced? And, if they do, will they trust Reform to be the instrument to kick Labour out?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no" then the Tories have a decent chance of winning back votes and seats. And if they aren't, then at least the Tories under Badenoch have a simple message around which to fight a rearguard action: "sound money for lower taxes."
I did think this paragraph was astute, though.
At the last election the Conservatives won 121 seats. This is by far their worst result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Despite that, it seems not to be understood just how bad a result it was.
Realistically the Tories cannot hope to do well at the next election, barring a miracle (or, well, multiple disasters for their opponents). So the most that Badenoch can be expected to achieve is to reduce the damage.
This does leave us with a very large landing zone for a hung Parliament.
I think Burnham will take votes from the Greens, which doesn't make logical sense since Burnham is going to extend drilling. But a lot of things in politics aren't very logical.
Meeks is very readable and makes some excellent points. But the conclusion I draw from his analysis is that every party is doing badly.
So the question ultimately comes down to a political one. Will the viewers decide Labour have failed and need to be replaced? And, if they do, will they trust Reform to be the instrument to kick Labour out?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no" then the Tories have a decent chance of winning back votes and seats. And if they aren't, then at least the Tories under Badenoch have a simple message around which to fight a rearguard action: "sound money for lower taxes."
I did think this paragraph was astute, though.
At the last election the Conservatives won 121 seats. This is by far their worst result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Despite that, it seems not to be understood just how bad a result it was.
Realistically the Tories cannot hope to do well at the next election, barring a miracle (or, well, multiple disasters for their opponents). So the most that Badenoch can be expected to achieve is to reduce the damage.
This does leave us with a very large landing zone for a hung Parliament.
Elections are zero sum games. Someone will come out top. Currently that looks like Reform with Labour as opposition and Tories third, although these could be a junior party if there is a hung parliament.
However Reform's hold also looks shaky and so who is most likely to benefit if it collapses? You might think the Tories but it really depends on how much Reform collapses and also how well Burnham and Badenoch respectively boost their respective party's numbers, if they do boost them. Very early days for Burnham so we don't know. Badenoch so far, not great. She's stabilised the fall but she's not making a lot of progress from a very low base.
Meeks is very readable and makes some excellent points. But the conclusion I draw from his analysis is that every party is doing badly.
So the question ultimately comes down to a political one. Will the viewers decide Labour have failed and need to be replaced? And, if they do, will they trust Reform to be the instrument to kick Labour out?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no" then the Tories have a decent chance of winning back votes and seats. And if they aren't, then at least the Tories under Badenoch have a simple message around which to fight a rearguard action: "sound money for lower taxes."
I did think this paragraph was astute, though.
At the last election the Conservatives won 121 seats. This is by far their worst result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Despite that, it seems not to be understood just how bad a result it was.
Realistically the Tories cannot hope to do well at the next election, barring a miracle (or, well, multiple disasters for their opponents). So the most that Badenoch can be expected to achieve is to reduce the damage.
This does leave us with a very large landing zone for a hung Parliament.
Labour's move to replace Starmer (before it is too late) is shrewd. Never before has the need for the country to bin a dull, technocratic leader and replace with someone who actually tries to understand what much of the country outside of the M25 wants been so obvious.
I think Mr Meeks has made a very strong argument for evaluating Badenoch's progress to date, the Tories polling does not match commentators opinion that she is growing into the job. 20% at a GE would almost certainly see a fall in Tory seats. Ms Badenoch has to date parked her tanks more on Farage's lawn (with limited success), let's now see if post Andy Burnham's election she now changes tack. Should the Tories be targeting seats like Plymouth Moorview and Guildford as more sensible targets than Stoke Central or Boston?
One of the more remarkable turnarounds in the Tory party has been Claire Countinho's damascene conversion from fairly pro Net Zero/renewables to more hostile/sceptic. I'm not convinced that change would go down as well in some of the Surrey stock broker belt in a 36 degree heatwave as it would in ex red wall or pro Brexit seats in the north of England.
The elephant in the room is that as things stand, (assuming Farage continues to implode) is we are likely heading for a hung parliament. Yes, it is possible for a party to get an overall majority on 26% of the vote, but it is highly unlikely to happen if 2, 3 or even 4 parties are hovering within 5% of each other.
I'd like to see Mr Meeks do a piece on Labour's fortunes too. I think there is an expectation that a chunk of the Reform vote will gradually shift into the Labour column over the next 3 years. I think that's definitely more likely to happen now that Starmer has been shifted.
Biggest problem for Burnham that I can see is, where is the money going to come from for government spending?
Very interesting. I'll have to look up what other maths problems have been solved by AI.
I've currently got it transcribing and cataloguing my radio drama / audiobook collection that goes back almost 30 years of mp3's and is full of 1950s+ recordings (a lot of them home-recorded on cassettes). After a few iterations it's now able to use a very efficient transcription model locally, take into the time of day for how much system load vs time we can trade off, all sorts of fanciness. All so I can ask a local DB "I think I have an old radio play with Dinsdale Landen where he plays a spy who....".
"Al Carns refuses to join Burnham’s Government over defence spending Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
It's another Keir Starmer. Man with unarguably stellar record in another career having rings run round him in politics, because he isn't a politician. It's a craft. Which takes time and learning, particularly from mistakes. We used to know that. Now it seems to be vault to the top. Don't cut it, unsurprisingly. Career over. Having failed to win the Labour leadership twice is probably extremely good experience for your third go.
Incidentally, the AI - Claude Fable 5 - did the calculations during the World Cup. So we can deduce that i) Claude Fable 5 is not distracted by trivial things like footbal, and ii) Claude Fable 5 is not a fan of the Argentinians. Good old Claude Fable 5.
It took it 42mins, reportedly. So plenty of time left to watch the winning goal.
My best guess at present for 2029, worst case scenario for Labour is they are largest party in a hung parliament. The more I see of Reform, they are like Newcastle circa 1996, I don't think theyll get over the line
I also think 2029 will likely be the last election held under FPTP. The question then is, does the government of the day go for a full PR system under STV, or a Scottish system with a constituency link for 2/3rds of the seats, the rest PR.
Next question I am asking myself is, should I buy Lab largest party on the spreads, or stick the money in S&S ISA or a pension?
Meeks is very readable and makes some excellent points. But the conclusion I draw from his analysis is that every party is doing badly.
So the question ultimately comes down to a political one. Will the viewers decide Labour have failed and need to be replaced? And, if they do, will they trust Reform to be the instrument to kick Labour out?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no" then the Tories have a decent chance of winning back votes and seats. And if they aren't, then at least the Tories under Badenoch have a simple message around which to fight a rearguard action: "sound money for lower taxes."
I did think this paragraph was astute, though.
At the last election the Conservatives won 121 seats. This is by far their worst result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Despite that, it seems not to be understood just how bad a result it was.
Realistically the Tories cannot hope to do well at the next election, barring a miracle (or, well, multiple disasters for their opponents). So the most that Badenoch can be expected to achieve is to reduce the damage.
This does leave us with a very large landing zone for a hung Parliament.
What exactly from the previous 14 years of government would persuade anyone that "sound money for lower taxes" is the Tory Party USP?
Meeks is very readable and makes some excellent points. But the conclusion I draw from his analysis is that every party is doing badly.
So the question ultimately comes down to a political one. Will the viewers decide Labour have failed and need to be replaced? And, if they do, will they trust Reform to be the instrument to kick Labour out?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no" then the Tories have a decent chance of winning back votes and seats. And if they aren't, then at least the Tories under Badenoch have a simple message around which to fight a rearguard action: "sound money for lower taxes."
I did think this paragraph was astute, though.
At the last election the Conservatives won 121 seats. This is by far their worst result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Despite that, it seems not to be understood just how bad a result it was.
Realistically the Tories cannot hope to do well at the next election, barring a miracle (or, well, multiple disasters for their opponents). So the most that Badenoch can be expected to achieve is to reduce the damage.
This does leave us with a very large landing zone for a hung Parliament.
What exactly from the previous 14 years of government would persuade anyone that "sound money for lower taxes" is the Tory Party USP?
They cut inheritance tax and the top rate of income tax and the lowest earners out of tax and the Coalition reduced spending
Comments
Though how many births would not have happened is a complicating factor.
Many key capitals are as peripheral and based on rivers - Paris (although geographically less peripheral to a smaller France of the time), Rome, Lisbon on the coast. Stockholm, Copenhagen all contemporary capitals on the coast and geared for trade.
As of now, it’s as in striking distance as much as Manchester or anywhere if the enemy has missiles. It’s closer to the financial and political centres of Europe benefiting from quick flights and Eurostar. So in the last and now it makes sense as a location.
Does he need his mummy to kiss it better?
I'm sure @MoonRabbit's piece will be full of "evidence" but the key points are Badenoch's approval numbers which are encouraging and the Conservative VI shares which are less so - 18% in the latest Deltapoll I think.
The question then becomes do we still have a two party system but with Reform having supplanted the Conservatives in opposition to labour who long ago replaced the Liberals?
The answer is perhaps yes and no.
The Conservatives retain areas of strength - they are and have been largely expunged from places which were once areas of strength but where they have been replaced as the dominant political force by other parties. In areas of former weakness, they are as weak if not weaker still.
I'm not familiar with Conservative local organisation and strength but I'd wager £20 of your money the correlation between the strength of local organisation/activity and electoral success is pretty strong - in effect, the Conservatives are now the Liberal Democrats operating out of small islands of strength surrounded by vast areas of weakness.
We saw this in London in May - the overall Conservative position was little changed but what we saw was consolidation in places like Wandsworth, Westminster, Harrow, Bromley and Bexley but in Sutton, Richmond, Kingston and Havering the results were disastrous.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats between them could well win 150-200 seats next time and form an effective bloc between minority Labour and minority Reform administrations - it's a thought.
It's in the last 15 years or so that fertility has dropped to more worrying levels.
America's capital is not New York, Australia's is not Sydney for a reason.
If it were brand new today - i.e. with aviation being an option- then perhaps somewhere like Birmingham or Manchester could be a stronger candidate but the transport links out south and to southern ports would need to be shit hot.
Canberra was also chosen as a neutral compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
Both are consequences of federal states vying for influence rather than some idea of splitting finance and politics.
A neutral place was chosen rather than the established major cities of the time, which left politics and finance separate.
If a neutral location were chosen in England then it would not be London, or Manchester.
Malmesbury
Colchester
Winchester
Tamworth
Northampton
To be honest, I doubt anyone them would be willing but there would historical precedent
This had a lot to do with the goldrush in Otago and the West Coast which brought a population surge to the South Island and required the capital to be nearer to where the economic activity was happening - Wellington fitted the bill.
When the gold ran out, the South Island declined - towns like Reefton, Greymouth and Kumara lost a lot of people.
He's really not that keen on them Jews either.
(I don't think he's ever forgiven the English for this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TLN_RFibaUE )
International airport very nearby, that's much better than Manchester Airport tbh
Central location
Historically important and still very large city.
Good train link to London (And another line being (Whatever your thoughts on it) being built.
Repurposing some of the NEC space (Heck it is repurposed all the time anyway) would do the trick.
Thamesmead or Greenwich then.
Mark Lamb wins Arizona House primary despite sex scandals
He warded off Republican primary rival Daniel Keenan, who spent big to make Lamb’s alleged sexual misconduct central to the 5th District’s race.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/21/lamb-wins-arizona-house-primary-01007464
It’s already got a load of rubbish it can’t get rid of.
Currently watching the Ken Burns’ series The American Revolution which is pretty good. I hadn’t realised how atrocity filled it was on both/all sides, closer to a horrible civil war than a goodies v baddies thing. I vaguely remember watching The Patriot which I think was filled with atrocities, but mostly committed by one side.
There's some lovely places to live near that end of Birmingham too, Hampton in Arden & Meriden for instance for Casino's friend to rent or buy.
Southern Water?
The Patriot is total historical garbage, although has some good battle scenes.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:exkwti3p75fr75vko3typ65c/post/3mr6llzpigs2l?ref_src=embed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstories%2F2026%2F7%2F22%2F800073253%2Fcommunity%2Frussian-stuff-blowing-up%2F
There are a number of pro Russian bloggers who are seriously concerned about Drapatyi’s appointment. His record as a fighter is unmatched.
‘‘Twas a sad day The Happy Trooper closed its doors.
Subtitled in Linear A.
Exc: Grant Shapps believed to be one of at least 10 ex Tory MPs who have failed their assessments as Badenoch overhauls selection process
https://bsky.app/profile/jaheale.bsky.social/post/3mrb6jqtyn22v
Former Armed Forces minister resigned last month because he did not believe military had been offered enough money"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/22/al-carns-refuses-to-join-burnhams-government-over-defence-s/
Tens of millions covers anything between 10 million and less than 100 million anyway, it does not begin at 20 million.
Given everything we know, its almost certainly the right order of magnitude.
The other 10 failed applicants included Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox.
https://bsky.app/profile/jaheale.bsky.social/post/3mrb6jqtyn22v
Bit embarrassing for Putinist propagandists.
- An AI just disproved the Jacobian Conjecture for N=3 and above by giving a counter-example.
- The counter-example is an equation with three variables x,y and z and a Jacobian determinant.
- That equation sends several points to the same point, so even if you know the equation and the output data, you can't reconstruct the input data.
- So the Jacobian Conjecture - that an equation with a Jacobian determinant is invertible - is false.
This is apparently the most complex maths problem yet solved with an AIhttps://bsky.app/profile/shashj.bsky.social/post/3mr3mvf4ap22r
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2580374-ais-solution-to-87-year-old-riddle-takes-mathematicians-by-surprise/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobian_conjecture
File on 4 Investigates has also learned from several sources that the Crown Prosecution Service did not disclose the obstetrics records to the defence.
The CPS reasoned that because the prosecution did not use them to form its case against Letby, they were not relevant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2g93n0j2ko
In other words, the CPS didn't include obstetrics records as part of the prosecution case because they were 'unhelpful', and therefore withheld them from the defence because they were 'irrelevant'.
https://www.online.southampton.ac.uk/artificial-intelligence-masters-courses
I want to put this on the record.
I bought some Lab majority this week. Those votes have to go somewhere.
https://bsky.app/profile/alastairmeeks.bsky.social/post/3mraepifqz22b
The claim that there’s an issue seems to rely on a speculative possibility that, in one case, a rare event might be discernible in the maternity records that would then explain one baby death. The only person in the article who has seen the records, the prosecution witness, says there’s nothing in the record that’s relevant.
That doesn’t mean it won’t be a great course, but it’s probably being done for financial reasons.
It's in newer countries that don't have the same history of centuries of internal conflict forcing a co-location of government and commercial centre where a decision can be made to put an administrative capital somewhere else for one reason or another.
I think it would be massively to Britain's benefit to improve transport links so that a combined Manchester-Sheffield-Leeds can compete internationally as a single economic area, or else do what Japan has done and improve transport links into London, so that more of the country is part of London's economic area.
I can't decide whether moving Parliament and the machinery of government would be a catalyst for that change, or a massive distraction.
So plenty of time left to watch the winning goal.
And also because I wasn't asked. Bastards, aren't they, Al ?
Ed Milibald?
https://x.com/wiliband_/status/2079871105045545056
So the question ultimately comes down to a political one. Will the viewers decide Labour have failed and need to be replaced? And, if they do, will they trust Reform to be the instrument to kick Labour out?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no" then the Tories have a decent chance of winning back votes and seats. And if they aren't, then at least the Tories under Badenoch have a simple message around which to fight a rearguard action: "sound money for lower taxes."
I did think this paragraph was astute, though.
At the last election the Conservatives won 121 seats. This is by far their worst result since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Despite that, it seems not to be understood just how bad a result it was.
Realistically the Tories cannot hope to do well at the next election, barring a miracle (or, well, multiple disasters for their opponents). So the most that Badenoch can be expected to achieve is to reduce the damage.
This does leave us with a very large landing zone for a hung Parliament.
You can find the explanation here:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W
It is unlikely that is wise, strategically.
However Reform's hold also looks shaky and so who is most likely to benefit if it collapses? You might think the Tories but it really depends on how much Reform collapses and also how well Burnham and Badenoch respectively boost their respective party's numbers, if they do boost them. Very early days for Burnham so we don't know. Badenoch so far, not great. She's stabilised the fall but she's not making a lot of progress from a very low base.
I think Mr Meeks has made a very strong argument for evaluating Badenoch's progress to date, the Tories polling does not match commentators opinion that she is growing into the job. 20% at a GE would almost certainly see a fall in Tory seats. Ms Badenoch has to date parked her tanks more on Farage's lawn (with limited success), let's now see if post Andy Burnham's election she now changes tack. Should the Tories be targeting seats like Plymouth Moorview and Guildford as more sensible targets than Stoke Central or Boston?
One of the more remarkable turnarounds in the Tory party has been Claire Countinho's damascene conversion from fairly pro Net Zero/renewables to more hostile/sceptic. I'm not convinced that change would go down as well in some of the Surrey stock broker belt in a 36 degree heatwave as it would in ex red wall or pro Brexit seats in the north of England.
The elephant in the room is that as things stand, (assuming Farage continues to implode) is we are likely heading for a hung parliament. Yes, it is possible for a party to get an overall majority on 26% of the vote, but it is highly unlikely to happen if 2, 3 or even 4 parties are hovering within 5% of each other.
I'd like to see Mr Meeks do a piece on Labour's fortunes too. I think there is an expectation that a chunk of the Reform vote will gradually shift into the Labour column over the next 3 years. I think that's definitely more likely to happen now that Starmer has been shifted.
Biggest problem for Burnham that I can see is, where is the money going to come from for government spending?
God bless AI.
Man with unarguably stellar record in another career having rings run round him in politics, because he isn't a politician.
It's a craft. Which takes time and learning, particularly from mistakes.
We used to know that.
Now it seems to be vault to the top. Don't cut it, unsurprisingly. Career over.
Having failed to win the Labour leadership twice is probably extremely good experience for your third go.
I also think 2029 will likely be the last election held under FPTP. The question then is, does the government of the day go for a full PR system under STV, or a Scottish system with a constituency link for 2/3rds of the seats, the rest PR.
Next question I am asking myself is, should I buy Lab largest party on the spreads, or stick the money in S&S ISA or a pension?