Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
I think someone is trying to force the price down on EM4PM. £4500 looking to back 1.79 (with commission) when Ladbrokes would probably happily lay 5/6 and plenty of firms are 4/5.
Naughty naughty.
It's a free market. Ultimately someone will probably call their bluff.
It seems very out of whack with the next government market where the sum total of Lab maj, Lab min and any other imply a probability of just less than 50%
Lay Ed PM and back the various Labour next governments for some free money
Hmm - not sure about the maths there - I make all the lab govts + any other = 59.2% @ current odds. That's equivalent to backing EdPM @ about 1.7
Bugger. I missed out the Lab / Lib Dem option.
Thanks for the spot.
Although I'm not exactly sure what the 10.5 for any other covers in realistic terms? Lab / SNP and Lab / Con grand I guess.
Milliband has ruled it out formal SNP deal, Grand seems improbable.
I think I'm going to lay this.
I've been backing "any other"
My reading of this is eg;
Con minority with DUP attending cabinet LAB + LD coalition, with the SNP providing c&s, or abstaining
Basically any arrangement that isn't specifically listed, of which there are many.
My read of the market rules is that Lab + LD with SNP providing C&S would be settled as a LAB+LD coalition not as any other.
"A Coalition Government is one which has members from at least two parties attending Cabinet meetings and are said to “have a seat at Cabinet”. A minority Government would see all the Cabinet posts filled by one party, but supply and confidence would be enjoyed by that party by one or more other parties in Parliament in order to pass votes and budgets etc."
If there isn't SNP cabinet members, then it's a Lab + LD winner I think. The DUP one is interesting, I did consider it but ruled it out, what cabinet post do you think they could get? Sec State for NI is clearly off the table as this post requires a neutral figure.
The DUP have said they have no interest in coalition.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Yes, it's one of those "If X happened, would it worry you?" things, as I predicted earlier - the methodological problems are that it doesn't link to VI at all, even with a prompt ("If X happened, would it make you change your vote?"). Meh.
Bit dull considering. Still better than being one point behind. And those late UKIP switchers are the target of everything the Tories are doing - but will they switch?
My dad's company had a contract to supply a large pumping unit every few months. Each time it was used for a couple of days to pump and flush a sump - hardly an unusual request.
Unfortunately the sump belonged to an abattoir.
Even after cleaning, it used to be in such a hideous, stinky state that the same unit was kept on some clear land until the next time they hired it, and was not hired out to anyone else.
It would have been far cheaper for them to buy one. And less messy for us.
That sounds pretty horrific. Some people have jobs I just couldn't cope with.
In South Derbyshire there were (are?) a fair few turkey and chicken farms. A mate's first job, many years before, had been killing chickens. He said he started off taking it very seriously and treating the animals with respect - or as much as the job allowed. He was appalled by some of the antics his fellow workers got up to.
Within a couple of months he said he was doing the same things. Boredom, repetition and the closeness of death led him to do some things he looked back on with shame.
In my mind, that is a good argument for vegetarianism. Not what meat eating does to the animals, but what it does to us if we are not careful.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
There are hundreds of rail magazines. In fact, Railtec is on at the NEC 11-12 May.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Are the poll results being quoted based on an explicit question asking if people would switch parties? Because it doesn't necessarily follow that "I fear a Lab-SNP coalition" automatically becomes "I fear it so much I'll switch to the Tories".
And in that scenario the huge figure, which is 8% of all voters, would prefer David Cameron to stay on – meaning they may be ready to change their vote.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
@NickPalmer Nick Palmer was right about the VI YouGov not shifting much and the likelihood of another question being added to stoke the interest Tick...tock to Ed is PM.
The current system is constrained - it's about changing those constraints. If you stick a fast train on a crap line you'll get tiny improvements - I'm reasonably sure that there's no degradation. Fast trains on fast lines (exclusively) though works.
Which is HS2. But if you make that Maglev, you would have to replicate all the high speed traffic patterns - for instance Glasgow to London or get people to change to the Maglev line wherever it starts.
Having a high-speed rail lines means that some existing services can be diverted along it, freeing capacity on the old lines.
As an aside, such a conversation should perhaps stray into the cost of upgrading existing lines. The WCML took years longer than expected, was under spec (e.g. 125 MPH instead of 140 MPH), and cost around £10 billion against the expected £2 billion. People who claim we can upgrade existing lines to gain extra capacity need to remember that it is massively expensive to rebuild existing lines whilst keeping them in traffic.
Well precisely you've nailed it - the costs of building tunnels, acquiring land, etc are likely to be bigger than the technology costs. Moreover the replacement technology cots will be high too- so build ambitiously!
Some guys at an org called UK Ultraspeed did a feasibility study on maglev instead of HS2 a few years back - http://www.500kmh.com/ Their USP was that as you build the whole thing elevated the amount of land requiring purchase was reduced by 90% as you need a 10' diameter pole in the ground every 100 yards, the farmers can work around the large poles in the fields.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Yes, it's one of those "If X happened, would it worry you?" things, as I predicted earlier - the methodological problems are that it doesn't link to VI at all, even with a prompt ("If X happened, would it make you change your vote?"). Meh.
Meh? "If it happened"???
Are you kidding me?
Look at the polls - SNP on 40-50 seats, Lab/Con each on 270-280. If nothing changes, it _will_ happen.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
There are hundreds of rail magazines. In fact, Railtec is on at the NEC 11-12 May.
After his outburst today about Major's "Bastards", there can be no doubt that Paddy Ashdown is going 100% for a link up with Labour .... no change there then.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
These things require deep pockets of cash and political commitment as well as capitalists with outlook further than next quarter.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Yes, it's one of those "If X happened, would it worry you?" things, as I predicted earlier - the methodological problems are that it doesn't link to VI at all, even with a prompt ("If X happened, would it make you change your vote?"). Meh.
Meh? "If it happened"???
Are you kidding me?
Look at the polls - SNP on 40-50 seats, Lab/Con each on 270-280. If nothing changes, it _will_ happen.
I am pretty sure I would feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if a million Basils cried out momentarily, and then fell silent..............
With joy. Basil keeps whailing for those heady days when he was told of Crossover January, yearns for pulling away February and cries out for consistant Tory majority winning leads March. He has been known to wake up screaming out "Where the Feck is Crosbys swingback."
Still he wanders on, with his goalposts aloft and through tears of pain all he can see in front of him is six huge letters .....E....I....C....I....P.....M.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
But the problem is that Maglev is not the best. It is sexy, and interesting, and modern, but it is not the best. It would require a step-change in technology to make it the best - say room-temperature superconductors - but those might also benefit conventional high-speed rail.
If it was the best, then why have the Germans dismantled their research track? They have not mothballed it; they have dismantled it. Why, after so many decades, is there only one operating high-speed Maglev line for passengers, and they've scrapped plans to extend even that?
43% also say Mr Miliband should rule out any deal whatsoever with the SNP, versus 34% who want him to leave it open.
7 out of 10 voters think there'll be a hung parliament
Ed has ruled out a coalition. He can't say how SNP themselves might decide to vote.
Unfortunately for Ed 99% of people are clueless about how parliament works. Fortunately for Ed it take a leap and a half of terrible psephological logic to conclude the Tories are suddenly going to take 2 million votes. Unfortunately for Ed the exact same logic applies to unionist voters in Scotland.
43% also say Mr Miliband should rule out any deal whatsoever with the SNP, versus 34% who want him to leave it open.
7 out of 10 voters think there'll be a hung parliament
Ed has ruled out a coalition. He can't say how SNP themselves might decide to vote.
Unfortunately for Ed 99% of people are clueless about how parliament works. Fortunately for Ed it take a leap and a half of terrible psephological logic to conclude the Tories are suddenly going to take 2 million votes. Unfortunately for Ed the exact same logic applies to unionist voters in Scotland.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Yes, it's one of those "If X happened, would it worry you?" things, as I predicted earlier - the methodological problems are that it doesn't link to VI at all, even with a prompt ("If X happened, would it make you change your vote?"). Meh.
Meh? "If it happened"???
Are you kidding me?
Look at the polls - SNP on 40-50 seats, Lab/Con each on 270-280. If nothing changes, it _will_ happen.
And people don't like it.
And yet will they do anything about it?
Some might. It's a powerful narrative. And it's not just hypothesis; The SNP opining over rUK's policies is unnerving and rightly so.
These things require deep pockets of cash and political commitment as well as capitalists with outlook further than next quarter.
I'm sure you're right. I'll leave the question as to how you find these people as rhetorical.
However - I'm going to go all left wing,.. The state can choose to fund elaborate and ambitious enterprise. The US's race for the moon is the obvious example.
I sort of think (making this up as I write) that the state should pick up the lows and highs of the world. The most important thing is picking up on the lows - however as I'm not a politician I can focus on the delivery of the highs.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
These things require deep pockets of cash and political commitment as well as capitalists with outlook further than next quarter.
... and common sense not to invest in failed technology (unless they have good reason to feel they could do it better).
Fortunately in the case of Maglev, the UK got out relatively early. The Germans have spent far too much on it, and then gave it away to the Chinese!
The more they bleat, the more it suggests the pain.
Chuka Umunna@ChukaUmunna·5 mins5 minutes ago Major desperation from the PM & his party in every sense today. Their negative & divisive campaign is tanking and they don't know what to do
Question for Chukka
When was the last time SNP said anything positive about Tories?
Tories don't say anything nice about SNP. Quelle surprise.
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
It's all write downs, way less exciting than it could have been, they don't (seem) to have cash flow problems and its cash flow problems that kill companies.
This business has a real smell of dodgy insider dealings to let some US corporation buy it up dirt cheap. There's nothing wrong with Tesco -all this Aldi and Lidl stuff is totally overblown. Tesco is the market leader, they could obliterate everyone else if they so desired; it feels like the foot isn't on the gas pedal.
Which if it did happen would be a disaster - to give that country even more power over this country's food supply.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
These things require deep pockets of cash and political commitment as well as capitalists with outlook further than next quarter.
Absolutely! I would vote for anyone willing to invest in semi-mature tech like this, we have the brains to get stuff like this working but not the political will.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Nothing but ramping ! EICIPM
Bit dismissive - depends on how much this narrative becomes more powerful - at the very least I would be concerned if I supported labour.
What do you mean powerful? How many times can you say beware the Jocks? At some point soon this line of attack will become the object of ridicule and then what?
The Tory campaign- budget austerity, failed; long term economic plan, failed; Miliband is useless, failed; spend, spend, spend, failed; the Jocks are coming, the Jocks are coming- about to fail. I don't think the Tories are going backwards in this campaign- (they bloody well deserve to be because their campaign is crap), but it just seems like campaigns do not make the blind bit of difference.
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Guido_Bankruptee@repeatdrinkdriver - now In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
I don't mind being ruled by Scots - it's just I would prefer if those Scots doing the ruling genuinely cared about the whole of the country, even if they loved their part of it more. The SNP will I'm sure attempt not to do anything perceived as genuinely unfair, but given their very reason for existence and the passion with which they follow it, I find it hard to accept they could manage that consistently even if they tried. Oh well. Miliband may be more canny than we think - the SNP are very good at bluffing after all, maybe he can wring from them more than they think.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
These things require deep pockets of cash and political commitment as well as capitalists with outlook further than next quarter.
Absolutely! I would vote for anyone willing to invest in semi-mature tech like this, we have the brains to get stuff like this working but not the political will.
A classic case of hope over reality.
For one thing, the technology is working. It just is not particularly effective or a good solution in the vast majority of cases.
If you really want to help science and industry, then enablers like the Diamond Light Source are the way to go. Virtually unknown, but massively helpful and relatively cheap.
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Guido_Bankruptee@repeatdrinkdriver - now In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
Who to ?
What about ?
Apparently someone has been hacking around with Wikipedia to make it look as if it was Shapps - the same anonymous user writing nice things about him and horrid things about others. An obvious hoax, but the Guardian is running with it strangely.
I think someone is trying to force the price down on EM4PM. £4500 looking to back 1.79 (with commission) when Ladbrokes would probably happily lay 5/6 and plenty of firms are 4/5.
Naughty naughty.
It's a free market. Ultimately someone will probably call their bluff.
It seems very out of whack with the next government market where the sum total of Lab maj, Lab min and any other imply a probability of just less than 50%
Lay Ed PM and back the various Labour next governments for some free money
Hmm - not sure about the maths there - I make all the lab govts + any other = 59.2% @ current odds. That's equivalent to backing EdPM @ about 1.7
Bugger. I missed out the Lab / Lib Dem option.
Thanks for the spot.
Although I'm not exactly sure what the 10.5 for any other covers in realistic terms? Lab / SNP and Lab / Con grand I guess.
Milliband has ruled it out formal SNP deal, Grand seems improbable.
I think I'm going to lay this.
I've been backing "any other"
My reading of this is eg;
Con minority with DUP attending cabinet LAB + LD coalition, with the SNP providing c&s, or abstaining
Basically any arrangement that isn't specifically listed, of which there are many.
My read of the market rules is that Lab + LD with SNP providing C&S would be settled as a LAB+LD coalition not as any other.
"A Coalition Government is one which has members from at least two parties attending Cabinet meetings and are said to “have a seat at Cabinet”. A minority Government would see all the Cabinet posts filled by one party, but supply and confidence would be enjoyed by that party by one or more other parties in Parliament in order to pass votes and budgets etc."
If there isn't SNP cabinet members, then it's a Lab + LD winner I think. The DUP one is interesting, I did consider it but ruled it out, what cabinet post do you think they could get? Sec State for NI is clearly off the table as this post requires a neutral figure.
Interesting. Betfair seem to have added some blurb to the rules since I placed my main bets. I was under the impression a Lab+LD coalition needed 326+ seats to be a winner. Hmm.
TWO million English and Welsh voters could swing back to the Tories to keep a Labour-SNP axis out of government, a dramatic poll has revealed.
A third of all current Ukip voters - 35% - and one in five Lib Dems - 19% - fear Ed Miliband would share power with Nicola Sturgeon to get into No10.
Nothing but ramping ! EICIPM
Bit dismissive - depends on how much this narrative becomes more powerful - at the very least I would be concerned if I supported labour.
What do you mean powerful? How many times can you say beware the Jocks? At some point soon this line of attack will become the object of ridicule and then what?
The Tory campaign- budget austerity, failed; long term economic plan, failed; Miliband is useless, failed; spend, spend, spend, failed; the Jocks are coming, the Jocks are coming- about to fail. I don't think the Tories are going backwards in this campaign- (they bloody well deserve to be because their campaign is crap), but it just seems like campaigns do not make the blind bit of difference.
oh it's all so unfair.
You sound like Alistair Darling on the wireless this morning - why can't everyone just see sense and vote Labour?
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Guido_Bankruptee@repeatdrinkdriver - now In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
Who to ?
What about ?
Apparently someone has been hacking around with Wikipedia to make it look as if it was Shapps - the same anonymous user writing nice things about him and horrid things about others. An obvious hoax, but the Guardian is running with it strangely.
Surely Shapps would use his own name, if he was to do something like that....
I don't mind being ruled by Scots - it's just I would prefer if those Scots doing the ruling genuinely cared about the whole of the country, even if they loved their part of it more. The SNP will I'm sure attempt not to do anything perceived as genuinely unfair, but given their very reason for existence and the passion with which they follow it, I find it hard to accept they could manage that consistently even if they tried. Oh well. Miliband may be more canny than we think - the SNP are very good at bluffing after all, maybe he can wring from them more than they think.
The Scots voted to stay part of the UK in a referendum that many on here were crapping themselves over for fear "their country might be lost forever" etc
Part of the deal for them staying seems to be them wanting more power than before.. we have to deal with it and stop blabbing. Unionists cant have their cake and eat it, this is the price of the union remaining intact
Like a wife threatening divorce and you begging her to stay.. if she stays she will have gained more leverage and if you want her to stay indefinitely, you have to suffer it.
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Guido_Bankruptee@repeatdrinkdriver - now In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
It's got legs this one.
It's embarrassing. Shaps is a liability. But, as to legs, Shorty from A Fistful of Dollars has more legs
I'm not sure that Labour have ever recovered from the Ed in Salmond's pocket poster. In todays Times it was I think, they had a 2 page picture of just Sturgeon in front of a yellow background with the Scotland Stronger slogan. I'm sure they the paper intended it that way but it looked arrogant and hubristic. The question is - did the SNP want it to look like that?
Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
Who to ?
What about ?
Apparently someone has been hacking around with Wikipedia to make it look as if it was Shapps - the same anonymous user writing nice things about him and horrid things about others. An obvious hoax, but the Guardian is running with it strangely.
Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
Who to ?
What about ?
Apparently someone has been hacking around with Wikipedia to make it look as if it was Shapps - the same anonymous user writing nice things about him and horrid things about others. An obvious hoax, but the Guardian is running with it strangely.
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Guido_Bankruptee@repeatdrinkdriver - now In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
Just looking at the video of the Japanese MagLev train. I know there are all sorts of good reasons why not, but I'd much prefer HS2 to be exploring new technology like that. Even better would be the evacuated tube ideas of RM Salter. (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf)
I know the enthusiasm for madcap ideas went out in the 70s, but for something so fundamental as trains I'd be happy to see a substantial national spend if it was a real game-changing idea.
Yes. A hundred times yes.
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant > We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1??? These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside! < /rant >
These things require deep pockets of cash and political commitment as well as capitalists with outlook further than next quarter.
Absolutely! I would vote for anyone willing to invest in semi-mature tech like this, we have the brains to get stuff like this working but not the political will.
A classic case of hope over reality.
For one thing, the technology is working. It just is not particularly effective or a good solution in the vast majority of cases.
If you really want to help science and industry, then enablers like the Diamond Light Source are the way to go. Virtually unknown, but massively helpful and relatively cheap.
I don't mind being ruled by Scots - it's just I would prefer if those Scots doing the ruling genuinely cared about the whole of the country, even if they loved their part of it more. The SNP will I'm sure attempt not to do anything perceived as genuinely unfair, but given their very reason for existence and the passion with which they follow it, I find it hard to accept they could manage that consistently even if they tried. Oh well. Miliband may be more canny than we think - the SNP are very good at bluffing after all, maybe he can wring from them more than they think.
The Scots voted to stay part of the UK in a referendum that many on here were crapping themselves over for fear "their country might be lost forever" etc
Part of the deal for them staying seems to be them wanting more power than before.. we have to deal with it and stop blabbing. Unionists cant have their cake and eat it, this is the price of the union remaining intact
Like a wife threatening divorce and you begging her to stay.. if she stays she will have gained more leverage and if you want her to stay indefinitely, you have to suffer it.
They voted to stay part of the Union but with special powers (not as in X-Men special powers) that voters in, say, Dagenham don't have.
Part of that deal was to grant them a large degree of autonomy so they could run their own affairs. Now the narrative is that they want to run their affairs to the detriment of rUK and, indeed, even influence policy in rUK which will not affect them.
How true or not this is (and at least NS gives it legs, to coin a phrase), that is what is unnerving people.
I see the tories pulled out of a newsnight welfare debate.... presumably they smelt a trap and why give another story legs when this one is bubbling along..
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Guido_Bankruptee@repeatdrinkdriver - now In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
Miliband=Sturgeon meme still resonating. Arguably it's getting stronger.
This could - remarkably - win the election for the Tories.
And what the F did Labour expect when Jim Murphy said, explicitly, that taxes on Londoners and S E English people will directly pay for Scottish nurses? Did he expect the English to roll over and say "fine"?
This is venomous stuff for Labour. I am amazed they are not rebutting it.
What do Labour re-but "No we will not ask SNP to vote on our legislation"
Laura Kuenssberg ✔ @bbclaurak Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
Who to ? What about ?
Apparently someone has been hacking around with Wikipedia to make it look as if it was Shapps - the same anonymous user writing nice things about him and horrid things about others. An obvious hoax, but the Guardian is running with it strangely.
And the bbc it seems. BBC Politics ✔ @BBCPolitics Grant Shapps denies changing Wikipedia entries about himself & other #Conservative members http://bbc.co.uk/electionlive pic.twitter.com/4kQZmuAM0v
Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
Who to ?
What about ?
Apparently someone has been hacking around with Wikipedia to make it look as if it was Shapps - the same anonymous user writing nice things about him and horrid things about others. An obvious hoax, but the Guardian is running with it strangely.
Comments
There are issues that others are discovering with Maglev, and the latest incarnation of a partially evacuated tube is Elon Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX) Hyperloop system intended to go from San Fran to LA, but the point is that we British are supposed to be good at this stuff.
< rant >
We have some of the best engineers and aerodynamicists in the world here working for the likes of BAE, Airbus, RR and the F1 teams; what happened to the idea that we are innovators and world leaders in new technology?? Does everyone forget that we made Concorde, the hovercraft, cars like the E-Type and more recently the McLaren F1 and P1???
These things require vision and leadership from the top to get right, but there's no technological reason why we can't be the world's best at new train technology too, if only there were the will to do it. Let's start with a Maglev between Heathrow and Gatwick - preferably airside!
< /rant >
Daily SPUD (2 polls)
Con -1
Lab +1
UKIP +1
LD -1
Weekly SPUD so far (6 polls)
Con -5
Lab -4
UKIP +6
LD +2
Green -4
Almost two thirds, 64%, said it would be bad.
Interesting? Hardly, although by YouGov's normal zzzzzzing standards, I suppose it was rivetting.
The 'ramping' is being exaggerated.
The SNP is a big potential swing factor for the Tories.
Within a couple of months he said he was doing the same things. Boredom, repetition and the closeness of death led him to do some things he looked back on with shame.
In my mind, that is a good argument for vegetarianism. Not what meat eating does to the animals, but what it does to us if we are not careful.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/590624057818750977
http://goo.gl/9RfFdf
7 out of 10 voters think there'll be a hung parliament
Nick Palmer was right about the VI YouGov not shifting much and the likelihood of another question being added to stoke the interest
Tick...tock to Ed is PM.
Labour could not have done more to try an interrupt the tories and push them off of this subject today.
Speaks volumes, it might not be sporting, but it's working
Their USP was that as you build the whole thing elevated the amount of land requiring purchase was reduced by 90% as you need a 10' diameter pole in the ground every 100 yards, the farmers can work around the large poles in the fields.
Are you kidding me?
Look at the polls - SNP on 40-50 seats, Lab/Con each on 270-280. If nothing changes, it _will_ happen.
And people don't like it.
Even the Graun accepts this is a game-changer.
I was distracted by another headline on that page!
Neil Henderson ✔ @hendopolis
GUARDIAN: Shapps accused of secret slurs against top Tories #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/nHPv2H0IIw
St Valentine's Day Massacre
Tim Montgomerie ن ✔ @montie
As @LouiseMensch would ask that I report it: MASSIVE Tory surge in new @YouGov poll as Cameron soars to 1% lead over Labour. Awesome
If it was the best, then why have the Germans dismantled their research track? They have not mothballed it; they have dismantled it. Why, after so many decades, is there only one operating high-speed Maglev line for passengers, and they've scrapped plans to extend even that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emsland_test_facility
I'd live the converse to be true, but it is not.
Fortunately for Ed it take a leap and a half of terrible psephological logic to conclude the Tories are suddenly going to take 2 million votes.
Unfortunately for Ed the exact same logic applies to unionist voters in Scotland.
Chris Hanretty retweeted Tom Newton Dunn
I hear @anthonyjwells gritting his teeth as he gives this quote. Or is that just me?
Except Andy Murray who is a good egg - almost British.
The way the Scots have been demonised in the last few days, how do we expect them to stay in the UK.
I think if we held a referendum today, the result will be 55 - 45 Yes - NO. There is such a anti-Scot tirade on.
Laura Kuenssberg ✔ @bbclaurak
Shapps considering complaining, inc under criminal law that protects candidates during elex period - more on #newsnight
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11224016/David-Cameron-tells-Labour-LibDems-and-Green-supporters-in-Rochester-and-Strood-Vote-Tory-and-stop-Ukip.html
Like a desperado at a disco as the lights come on, trying to grab hold of any old rotter that no one else fancied taking home
However - I'm going to go all left wing,.. The state can choose to fund elaborate and ambitious enterprise. The US's race for the moon is the obvious example.
I sort of think (making this up as I write) that the state should pick up the lows and highs of the world. The most important thing is picking up on the lows - however as I'm not a politician I can focus on the delivery of the highs.
Fortunately in the case of Maglev, the UK got out relatively early. The Germans have spent far too much on it, and then gave it away to the Chinese!
When was the last time SNP said anything positive about Tories?
Tories don't say anything nice about SNP. Quelle surprise.
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·now
When someone who doesn't follow politics much tells you "we're gonna be ruled by the bloody Scots" you know Tory message cutting through.
Which if it did happen would be a disaster - to give that country even more power over this country's food supply.
The Day the Polls turned for TND.
Basil is doing backflips.
What about
Grant Shapps denies changing Wikipedia entries about himself & other #Conservative members http://bbc.co.uk/electionlive pic.twitter.com/4kQZmuAM0v
Jeremy Hunt ✔ @Jeremy_Hunt
Why are Guardian campaigning against Grant Shapps? He denies having anything to do with wiki edits he is accused of, couldn't be clearer
Retweeted by Douglas Carswell
The Tory campaign- budget austerity, failed; long term economic plan, failed; Miliband is useless, failed; spend, spend, spend, failed; the Jocks are coming, the Jocks are coming- about to fail.
I don't think the Tories are going backwards in this campaign- (they bloody well deserve to be because their campaign is crap), but it just seems like campaigns do not make the blind bit of difference.
In pub tonight and someone who doesn't follow politics said to me that they weren't voting Tory because Grant Shapps thinks they are all shit.
It's got legs this one.
For one thing, the technology is working. It just is not particularly effective or a good solution in the vast majority of cases.
If you really want to help science and industry, then enablers like the Diamond Light Source are the way to go. Virtually unknown, but massively helpful and relatively cheap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Light_Source
You sound like Alistair Darling on the wireless this morning - why can't everyone just see sense and vote Labour?
Titters
Part of the deal for them staying seems to be them wanting more power than before.. we have to deal with it and stop blabbing. Unionists cant have their cake and eat it, this is the price of the union remaining intact
Like a wife threatening divorce and you begging her to stay.. if she stays she will have gained more leverage and if you want her to stay indefinitely, you have to suffer it.
But, as to legs, Shorty from A Fistful of Dollars has more legs
In todays Times it was I think, they had a 2 page picture of just Sturgeon in front of a yellow background with the Scotland Stronger slogan. I'm sure they the paper intended it that way but it looked arrogant and hubristic.
The question is - did the SNP want it to look like that?
BBC Politics ✔ @BBCPolitics
Grant Shapps denies changing Wikipedia entries about himself & other #Conservative members http://bbc.co.uk/electionlive pic.twitter.com/4kQZmuAM0v
MAIL: Union's sinister hold over Miliband #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers
I'd still like to see us build a maglev though
Anyway, there's politics (and cricket) going on!
Part of that deal was to grant them a large degree of autonomy so they could run their own affairs. Now the narrative is that they want to run their affairs to the detriment of rUK and, indeed, even influence policy in rUK which will not affect them.
How true or not this is (and at least NS gives it legs, to coin a phrase), that is what is unnerving people.
"No we will not ask SNP to vote on our legislation"
A labour supporter you mean...
Neil Henderson @hendopolis ·
MIRROR: Thicky Wicki #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers