Out of curiosity, is geothermal at all cost effective? A neighbour of mine went the whole hog yrs ago and did his barn conversion with water pipes buried way down too.
No idea if it worked well. Or at all.
Geothermal is not the same thing as a heat pump.
Geothermal means drilling down to where there is genuinely hot water naturally (thermal spring, geyser, volcanic fissure, most of Iceland, etc). This water is then used directly to heat homes or if its REALLY hot to flash to steam in a turbine/generator. The UK is not terribly suitable for this. I believe there is one truly geothermal district heating scheme in Southampton. But it's never going to amount to much in the UK.
Heat pumps are a very different beast. They are fridges in reverse. Icy refrigerant is pumped through pipes buried underground or in ponds etc. The refrigerant gets warmer. An electrically powered scroll pump compresses the now warm refrigerant and it gets very hot. It dumps this heat via a heat exchanger into a water loop. This is circulated round your house. The energy in the hot water comes about 20% from the electricity and 80% from your pond or ground under your lawn. In that sense they can be 400% efficient! If electricity is cheap then heat pumps absolutely rock as a cost effective way to heat homes (displacing demand for gas). If electricity is expensive they may not compete with a good modern gas boiler overall.
One additional point, heat or air pumps generally produce low intensity heat, so really suited for underfloor heating.
One gem I picked up from my reading around on heat pumps and low carbon residential in general was that mean internal winter temperatures in 1970 were 12C, now they're 17.5C. Wonder if that has any bearing on our overall weight gains?
I installed electric mat underfloor heating in my house - and it really is marvellous - if you can stand the bills. The whole house is warmer, the heat seems to stay within the space too as flooring retains the heat and distributes it evenly. As a lifelong barefooter - I can't recommend it highly enough - especially under soft terracotta or limestone.
Yes, commented last thread. I've known him for ages - he's certainly well out on the left in general but very much a free-thinker (e.g. supported Cameron on intervening in Syria because he felt Assad's atrocities couldn't be tolerated). Doubt if he's currently a member of any other party.
Thx Nick. I guess not being a member of another party is the key test, but I'm afraid one can't help but think that this sort of thing is going to bring trouble for Labour in the long run.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
One thing I've never got my head around is essay-buying/plagiarism. It simply wasn't something I'd ever come across myself and an allegation of cheating was a hushed-tones taboo. Now the newspapers are full of stories about a whole industry to cater for it.
Nursing is apparently rife with it. That strikes me as appalling given the hand-on nature of the job!
The services used to be advertised on Facebook. Worse, they used to advertise for writers via government websites. They even sent me an emailed advert once via a government employment scheme.
There was a brilliant piece on it some years ago in the Grauniad, but unfortunately I can't find it. I vividly remember the writer saying they had written a sociology paper in 2 days using Wiki. Rather more alarmingly, it was submitted and passed - as a doctoral thesis.
It has a purpose but is not targetted to your particular interests so you don't value that.
No Charles.
I love the countryside. I love engineering. I like grand projects. I love London's parks, which are the capital's under-appreciated jewels.
You will see me raving (*) about these topics all too often on PB.
Yet despite all that, I am against the Garden Bridge. Perhaps you should ask yourself if I am right, instead of continuing to defend the indefensible.
(*) In all sense of the term.
Your continued complaint is that cyclists have to push their bikes. It's not designed for cyclists.
This is privately funded*, open to the public and creating a new landmark for London. It doesn't do everything but it's a good improvement for the area.
but we won't agree and I suspect just rehersing the same argument will bore everyone else
* No additional public money is being spent on it that would not have been spent on Temple Tube.
At the risk of an enforced stint in Conservative Home, her apparent penchant for micromanaging does suggest that her polling may follow Brownian motions.
Agreed. One of Cameron's strengths was letting his ministers get on with it. That meant that they made mistakes from time to time but better that than the paralysis that Brown induced by insisting that every decision had to come by him.
David Cameron was uniquely good among Prime Ministers in my lifetime for the deployment of his ministers. He followed the simple but previously untried approach of letting ministers get familiar with their jobs and then trusting them. It meant that he got the utmost out of quite limited resources.
It was Osborne who did the meddling not Cameron.
You were either an Osbornite or you weren't. If you were, you were part of the charmed circle that it appeared for a while was destined for the top (many did get to the top). If you were outside, it all passed you by, and you were excluded from the heart of government and unlikely to become part of it.
Rather than meddling.
In his final disastrous Budget speech Osborne announced policies which were the responsibilities of about half a dozen other departments.
Remembering how awful Osborne is/was now. That his reward for being a mediocre Chancellor and his outrageous conduct during the referendum campaign was the highest honour in the land still makes me seethe with anger.
Wouldn't have said a CH was higher than a peerage, or even the Order of Merit.
(Just to be clear, I don't think he deserved anything either.)
Agreed. A CH is a very high honour. Apart from the OM (which is restricted to fewer members), it's the highest 'for service' that doesn't change the recipient's name - it ranks immediately after a GBE in terms of the order in which honours are worn.
I suspect that the fact that it meant that he didn't become 'Sir George' was a factor in what he received (even though on the death of his father, a baronet, he will gain that title).
Are 5000 clearing places at Russell Groups unis usually available?
They've lifted the cap on recruitment, so they can in theory take as many as they like. So if somebody has done unexpectedly well they can upgrade.
Just got mine through and all of them were at least one grade above predictions, which would be rather nice if I weren't still gutted that a couple who had really worked hard and deserved a reward for that got Ds rather than Cs.
Just a minute. Your expectation for those two was E but you thought they’d really deserved a C?
When students start A-levels they are given various aptitude tests to see what a 'natural' grade would be. That came out as E, but since then they have worked incredibly hard and improved massively. So I felt a D was, if an improvement on official expectations, still a bit disappointing and I know they will be disappointed too.
These test grades incidentally are also used in the new league tables to measure progress - the more grades a student rises on them, the better the teacher and the school scores.
Thanks. Shall have to ask the A level teachers in my family about their experience of such tests.
She needs to make a decision about Hinkley C. It looks a really crap deal negotiated at a time when all the experts saw energy costs rising indefinitely. If she is not persuaded that is likely any more she needs to find an alternative and fast.
There is no need for an alternative. If HPC is cancelled, then we will see - without any need for government 'planning' - continued investment in CCGTs, wind, and solar.
Indeed, the only planning that government could sensibly do in this area, is to mandate that new homes come with building integrated solar.
What are the economics of household solar in the UK at present *without* subsidies?
Solar thermal, which I have, tends to pay for itself in fifteen years (which I regard as essentially cost neutral), including the RHI payments for seven years, which in my case is about £65 a quarter. Solar PV is the one where the reduction in feed-in tariff (the amount you get paid for generating electricity for the Grid) has seriously hit the viability. However you also need a lot of appropriate roof space for that, which I did not have. My solar thermal (essentially free hot water) just needs two panels.
My own inexpert view from reading materials is that solar thermal is much better for use in much of the UK than solar PV. Although my reading is out-of-date, and I've no idea how better technology and the various tariffs affect their viability.
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned here, but when talking about such things I'd often link to Mr MacKay's excellent book (available on-line for free) "Sustainable Energy without the hot air"
Certainly the solar thermal does what it says on the tin. If there is any sun about or even just significant brightness about during the day, then the day's hot water is all free, even in winter. If it's a light grey day then there is normally enough for at least a shower and some washing up. If it is a heavy grey and rainy day then the gas backup is needed, although in the summer it is surprising how little brightness is actually needed to start drawing off some heat. In the winter of course such days are a dead loss. And I would normally put the gas on for an hour if the day's water gets used up in the evening and I anticipate a morning bath - again just a winter thing, as the summer early sunrise means it reheats well before I get up. Overall based on the first year I would say that I use the gas fully probably for about 15%-20% of days in the year.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
HPC is set up to be the largest construction site in Europe with large numbers of UK contractors having built their work programs for the next decade around it. There are tens of thousands of future jobs affected along very long supply chains spreading the spend around the country.
This cannot determine whether this is a good idea or not but at a time when confidence has been shaken this needs some management and presentational skill. Maybe an announcement on Crossrail 2 or HS3 could be accelerated to lessen the sting.
Crossrail 2 and starting HS2 from Manchester/Liverpool and Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham would be the two I would choose. I would also seriously look at doing the whole bloody thing underground, we have the TBMs from Crossrail, it seems like a much better solution than having to buy up swathes of the countryside and dealing with loads of local opposition. If those branches are successful then an underground extension down to London can be planned and eventually upwards extensions to Edinburgh/Glasgow.
(Snip)
I fear starting HS2 from the north is probably a non-starter, for the reasons I've gone into before. Much better to get HS3 up and running, and planned and built in conjunction with the northern HS2.
It's be a rare example of joined-up infrastructure planning in the UK.
The TBM's from Crossrail are also a non-starter for several reasons: *) the machines are only a small cost in a multi-billion pound project. *) Some are buried, and most are fairly knackered. *) HS2 tunnels are to be 8.8 metres in internal diameter. Crossrail's are 6.2 metres internal diameter.
One of those points might be more important than the others.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
One thing I've never got my head around is essay-buying/plagiarism. It simply wasn't something I'd ever come across myself and an allegation of cheating was a hushed-tones taboo. Now the newspapers are full of stories about a whole industry to cater for it.
Nursing is apparently rife with it. That strikes me as appalling given the hand-on nature of the job!
The services used to be advertised on Facebook. Worse, they used to advertise for writers via government websites. They even sent me an emailed advert once via a government employment scheme.
There was a brilliant piece on it some years ago in the Grauniad, but unfortunately I can't find it. I vividly remember the writer saying they had written a sociology paper in 2 days using Wiki. Rather more alarmingly, it was submitted and passed - as a doctoral thesis.
There is the (probably apocryphal) story about the lecturer who received a paper from a student which he, the lecturer, had written some years before. Sent it back saying although it had been graded as a C he’d always thought it had deserved better, so gave it a B!
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
Certainly a lot of U.S., Canadian and Caribbean sprinters, Africans tend to be more long distance runners
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
Interstingly west african places ie the likes of Nigeria where some theorise the right "genes" for spiriting come from there was one ivory coast athelete who was up there with the best and that was it.
In comparison, we know for long distance pretty much all the top athletes descend from a very small area in Africa, but what we see is a domination by people born there rather than descendants.
Thanks. Shall have to ask the A level teachers in my family about their experience of such tests.
I'm not thrilled by them, TBH. They sometimes seem rather random, but they are now becoming very important.
That being said, it is right that a measure of progress, rather than raw grades, should be used to judge the school. For example, my school as a child always came out slightly below Crypt in Gloucester. So naturally you would assume that Crypt was the better school, although only by a little- until you realised that Crypt was selective and therefore to achieve slightly more highly than one of the most difficult and troubled schools in the county was a truly shocking performance.
Yes but he was stage managed, most knew what a nasty piece of work he was and the veneer slipped off pretty fast. Mrs May has no such back history, and is seemed as v nice and charming
You could never have said that about Brown.
That is true. The impression is of quiet, ruthless even efficiency. But as @AlastairMeeks has noted, she is a micromanager and that is all very well (not ideal) as SoS but is an unknown quantity in a PM. Then again, perhaps she thinks she can and will be up to managing personally every department. Unlikely, but possible.
She has appointed the three clowns to Brexit and they are already fighting like cats in a sack, so it seems as though she has no intention of letting them "get on with it". All very well for Brexit (and understandable, given its importance and that she will be defined by it).
But for government as a whole? We shall see.
I
Yes, put like that the failings stand out as HS. But I also have to believe (I don't know) that Dave, and indeed the whole administration, must surely not have been too worried about immigration because it makes no sense for him to have been so explicit about it, and then for nothing to have happened.
Perhaps the autobiography will tell us a bit more but it doesn't add up. Either he cared and she let him down (or it was undoable, probably as likely); or he didn't care, in which case that reflects badly on him.
None of which, of course, would have mattered sans EURef.
The reality that we have discussed here before is that when you have more than a couple of million poorly integrated people from the subcontinent that wish their spouses to come from there and elderly parents or siblings to join them stopping substantial immigration requires far more draconian measures than any UK government would contemplate. Add in Osborne's jobs miracle and mass EU unemployment and the result was inevitable.
I am not really blaming May for her failure in this area. I am just questioning this perception of "ruthless efficiency".
I think that would be the right thing to do but it would also kick off an almighty culture war, probably with marches in the street and all sorts of legal and political challenges, and the word 'racist' bandied about like it was a foam party.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
When I were lad, we were dropped in t'river once a week and glad of it. And heating? Wear overcoat and be glad you had one.
BTW, I'm not from Yorkshire. Sorry to interrupt your learned discussions. I will now go and soak up the sun while it's free.
Ha! I'm awful to live with as I cycle between 1950s parsimony and whole hog luxury.
Once energy prices really took off a few years back - I turned off all my heating and reverted to a single wood burner in my dining hall/cold water for everything bar showers. Guests would come round and complain about the thermostat showing 11C/too cold. I was in t-shirt and happily saying the place would warm up in a hour or two once the burner was roaring
There is the (probably apocryphal) story about the lecturer who received a paper from a student which he, the lecturer, had written some years before. Sent it back saying although it had been graded as a C he’d always thought it had deserved better, so gave it a B!
Very good! I do have one along those lines, a true one. Some lazy sausage copied his essay from a book on Amazon. However, he forgot to delete the adverts. The lecturer was most surprised to find in the middle of an essay on the First World War, an offer to increase the size of her penis by mechanical means.
Also gives some idea of what sorts of things he was getting up to (ahem) when he should have been working.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Sure. But they aren't comparing that. As I added on my OP the real question is why some groups excel at school & others dont. WWC kids are going baxkwards, first wave of Polish kids are doing well. Black kids below average, Chinese / Indian kids way above.
I guess we aren't allowed that discussion because it's racialist, instead they reports just exaggerate grievances & the level of racism & the proposed solution will be positive discrimination rather than addressing the underlying issues.
Partly culture, in Chinese and Indian culture parents want their children to be doctors and lawyers while in black and wwc culture parents want them to be footballers
It has a purpose but is not targetted to your particular interests so you don't value that.
No Charles.
I love the countryside. I love engineering. I like grand projects. I love London's parks, which are the capital's under-appreciated jewels.
You will see me raving (*) about these topics all too often on PB.
Yet despite all that, I am against the Garden Bridge. Perhaps you should ask yourself if I am right, instead of continuing to defend the indefensible.
(*) In all sense of the term.
Your continued complaint is that cyclists have to push their bikes. It's not designed for cyclists.
This is privately funded*, open to the public and creating a new landmark for London. It doesn't do everything but it's a good improvement for the area.
but we won't agree and I suspect just rehersing the same argument will bore everyone else
* No additional public money is being spent on it that would not have been spent on Temple Tube.
That's just one of my complaints. I fear you need to go back and re-read my posts. But on that complaint: "It's not designed for cyclists." shows the problem very well. It's not been designed to meet any real need.
A tip: you start with requirements, then design to meet those requirements. If you do it well, you can end up with something that works and is beautiful.
Instead, the bridge is the dream of a c-list actress that has been jumped on by idiots and self-serving charlatans. I mean, they're even associating with Princess Di now, FFS. They're scraping the barrel.
Your point on Temple Tube is incomprehensibly and unusually stupid. In fact, it's one of the things that makes me think the project's trying to treat people like fools.
Oh, and I do hope you talk about the bridge helping disadvantaged youths in the area. I 'm still laughing at that.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
Grammar schools may be the wrong solution. Let's say that the anacedotal evidence below is true that there is an at home cultural issue here, a grammar school might have the wrong ethos for that to work .
Btw, This forms the basis behind the KIPPs programme in US.
She needs to make a decision about Hinkley C. It looks a really crap deal negotiated at a time when all the experts saw energy costs rising indefinitely. If she is not persuaded that is likely any more she needs to find an alternative and fast.
There is no need for an alternative. If HPC is cancelled, then we will see - without any need for government 'planning' - continued investment in CCGTs, wind, and solar.
Indeed, the only planning that government could sensibly do in this area, is to mandate that new homes come with building integrated solar.
What are the economics of household solar in the UK at present *without* subsidies?
If you spend £5,000 on a rooftop solar system in the South of England, and just use it to offset your electricity bill - i.e. to allow the meter to 'run backwards', then you will get £600-750/electricity a year.
Now, if you are a higher rate tax payer, this is particularly attractive. Because an offset cost is like getting money tax free. So a 12-15% return is equivalent to a 25% pre-tax one! There aren't many investments that offer that kind of return. (Legally.)
The funny bit is, no-one in their right minds will sign up for the government scheme, because the feed in tariff is now below the residential electricity rate.
HPC is set up to be the largest construction site in Europe with large numbers of UK contractors having built their work programs for the next decade around it. There are tens of thousands of future jobs affected along very long supply chains spreading the spend around the country.
This cannot determine whether this is a good idea or not but at a time when confidence has been shaken this needs some management and presentational skill. Maybe an announcement on Crossrail 2 or HS3 could be accelerated to lessen the sting.
Crossrail 2 and starting HS2 from Manchester/Liverpool and Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham would be the two I would choose. I would also seriously look at doing the whole bloody thing underground, we have the TBMs from Crossrail, it seems like a much better solution than having to buy up swathes of the countryside and dealing with loads of local opposition. If those branches are successful then an underground extension down to London can be planned and eventually upwards extensions to Edinburgh/Glasgow.
(Snip)
I fear starting HS2 from the north is probably a non-starter, for the reasons I've gone into before. Much better to get HS3 up and running, and planned and built in conjunction with the northern HS2.
It's be a rare example of joined-up infrastructure planning in the UK.
The TBM's from Crossrail are also a non-starter for several reasons: *) the machines are only a small cost in a multi-billion pound project. *) Some are buried, and most are fairly knackered. *) HS2 tunnels are to be 8.8 metres in internal diameter. Crossrail's are 6.2 metres internal diameter.
One of those points might be more important than the others.
Buried is probably the biggest issue!
I just looked up the cost, not massive, surely we could buy new ones and do HS2 underground. It would raise the construction cost but eliminate the land purchase costs entirely. Start two in Manchester and two in Birmingham, they can tunnel towards Crewe, within three or four years it will be done. It also allows us to run four lines from London to Birmingham without buying up swathes of the countryside, building on greenbelt land, splitting the country in half, having to build loads of bridges etc...
Again, I'm not an engineer, but if we can tunnel 26 miles in London for Crossrail, 31 miles across the channel, 100 miles from London to Birmingham should be within the realms of possibility. That also goes for the 80 miles from Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe. The Swiss just built the Gotthard Base Tunnel which is 90 miles worth of tunnelling under a bloody mountain range, it must be possible to do it under the English countryside.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Sure. But they aren't comparing that. As I added on my OP the real question is why some groups excel at school & others dont. WWC kids are going baxkwards, first wave of Polish kids are doing well. Black kids below average, Chinese / Indian kids way above.
I guess we aren't allowed that discussion because it's racialist, instead they reports just exaggerate grievances & the level of racism & the proposed solution will be positive discrimination rather than addressing the underlying issues.
Partly culture, in Chinese and Indian culture parents want their children to be doctors and lawyers while in black and www culture parents want them to be footballers
The reality is we honestly don't know. I suspect this is part of the reason. Another is family structure, stereotypically you have big close knit families with those from Indian sub continent where as we known single parenthood is much higher in WWC & black families.
HPC is set up to be the largest construction site in Europe with large numbers of UK contractors having built their work programs for the next decade around it. There are tens of thousands of future jobs affected along very long supply chains spreading the spend around the country.
This cannot determine whether this is a good idea or not but at a time when confidence has been shaken this needs some management and presentational skill. Maybe an announcement on Crossrail 2 or HS3 could be accelerated to lessen the sting.
Crossrail 2 and starting HS2 from Manchester/Liverpool and Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham would be the two I would choose. I would also seriously look at doing the whole bloody thing underground, we have the TBMs from Crossrail, it seems like a much better solution than having to buy up swathes of the countryside and dealing with loads of local opposition. If those branches are successful then an underground extension down to London can be planned and eventually upwards extensions to Edinburgh/Glasgow.
(Snip)
I fear starting HS2 from the north is probably a non-starter, for the reasons I've gone into before. Much better to get HS3 up and running, and planned and built in conjunction with the northern HS2.
It's be a rare example of joined-up infrastructure planning in the UK.
The TBM's from Crossrail are also a non-starter for several reasons: *) the machines are only a small cost in a multi-billion pound project. *) Some are buried, and most are fairly knackered. *) HS2 tunnels are to be 8.8 metres in internal diameter. Crossrail's are 6.2 metres internal diameter.
One of those points might be more important than the others.
They're a non starter because the Crossrail TBMs don't exist anymore.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
It'll gentrify those areas faster than any other intervention...
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
Interstingly west african places ie the likes of Nigeria where some theorise the right "genes" for spiriting come from there was one ivory coast athelete who was up there with the best and that was it.
In comparison, we know for long distance pretty much all the top athletes descend from a very small area in Africa, but what we see is a domination by people born there rather than descendants.
until you can have confidence in the drug testing regimes in these countries, the whole discussion is moot
HPC is set up to be the largest construction site in Europe with large numbers of UK contractors having built their work programs for the next decade around it. There are tens of thousands of future jobs affected along very long supply chains spreading the spend around the country.
This cannot determine whether this is a good idea or not but at a time when confidence has been shaken this needs some management and presentational skill. Maybe an announcement on Crossrail 2 or HS3 could be accelerated to lessen the sting.
Crossrail 2 and starting HS2 from Manchester/Liverpool and Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham would be the two I would choose. I would also seriously look at doing the whole bloody thing underground, we have the TBMs from Crossrail, it seems like a much better solution than having to buy up swathes of the countryside and dealing with loads of local opposition. If those branches are successful then an underground extension down to London can be planned and eventually upwards extensions to Edinburgh/Glasgow.
(Snip)
I fear starting HS2 from the north is probably a non-starter, for the reasons I've gone into before. Much better to get HS3 up and running, and planned and built in conjunction with the northern HS2.
It's be a rare example of joined-up infrastructure planning in the UK.
The TBM's from Crossrail are also a non-starter for several reasons: *) the machines are only a small cost in a multi-billion pound project. *) Some are buried, and most are fairly knackered. *) HS2 tunnels are to be 8.8 metres in internal diameter. Crossrail's are 6.2 metres internal diameter.
One of those points might be more important than the others.
They're a non starter because the Crossrail TBMs don't exist anymore.
I knew tunnelling had finished, but have all the unburied machines already been repurposed?
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Ha! I'm awful to live with as I cycle between 1950s parsimony and whole hog luxury.
Once energy prices really took off a few years back - I turned off all my heating and reverted to a single wood burner in my dining hall/cold water for everything bar showers. Guests would come round and complain about the thermostat showing 11C/too cold. I was in t-shirt and happily saying the place would warm up in a hour or two once the burner was roaring
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
Interstingly west african places ie the likes of Nigeria where some theorise the right "genes" for spiriting come from there was one ivory coast athelete who was up there with the best and that was it.
In comparison, we know for long distance pretty much all the top athletes descend from a very small area in Africa, but what we see is a domination by people born there rather than descendants.
until you can have confidence in the drug testing regimes in these countries, the whole discussion is moot
Fair point... two countries with shockingly bad drug testing programmes, Jamaica & Kenya.
"'Provisionally, as of the end of June 2016, overall UK solar PV capacity stood at 10,478 MW across 887,992 installations. This is an increase of 26% (2,183 MW) compared to June 2015."
The average capacity factor of solar in the UK is 9.7%, so the UK has the equivalent of an 'always on' 1GW of solar.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
Thx Nick. I guess not being a member of another party is the key test, but I'm afraid one can't help but think that this sort of thing is going to bring trouble for Labour in the long run.
Yes, he's got his opponents locally, but in fairness if he thinks Labour is now the best party it's hard to argue that he shouldn't be a member. He's hard-working (which is one reason why he got elected) and doesn't try to block people with different views - he's probably not one of my biggest fans but he's always been perfectly civil and worked hard for me in 2015. The fact that he thinks for himself and isn't afraid to take on other left-wingers when he disagrees with them is important too.
Obviously we can't have people who are secretly in other parties, but it's important to look at the individuals, rather than just judge them by who they supported 10 years ago.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
Interstingly west african places ie the likes of Nigeria where some theorise the right "genes" for spiriting come from there was one ivory coast athelete who was up there with the best and that was it.
In comparison, we know for long distance pretty much all the top athletes descend from a very small area in Africa, but what we see is a domination by people born there rather than descendants.
until you can have confidence in the drug testing regimes in these countries, the whole discussion is moot
Fair point... two countries with shockingly bad drug testing programmes, Jamaica & Kenya.
I thought Jamaica’s was good now. I know there’s a problem with Kenya.
I just looked up the cost, not massive, surely we could buy new ones and do HS2 underground. It would raise the construction cost but eliminate the land purchase costs entirely. Start two in Manchester and two in Birmingham, they can tunnel towards Crewe, within three or four years it will be done. It also allows us to run four lines from London to Birmingham without buying up swathes of the countryside, building on greenbelt land, splitting the country in half, having to build loads of bridges etc...
Again, I'm not an engineer, but if we can tunnel 26 miles in London for Crossrail, 31 miles across the channel, 100 miles from London to Birmingham should be within the realms of possibility. That also goes for the 80 miles from Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe. The Swiss just built the Gotthard Base Tunnel which is 90 miles worth of tunnelling under a bloody mountain range, it must be possible to do it under the English countryside.
The cost of tunnelling depends on the ground condition: soft, waterlogged ground or fractured granite are obviously harder and more expensive to dig through than (say) limestone and sandstone, which are relatively easy to dig through but supports itself well. So the cost per-tunnel-mile will vary massively.
Another issue is that maximum speed in tunnels is, AIUI, slower due to aerodynamic effects.
Access is another problem: there would have to be regular surface buildings to allow maintenance and escape access. Also, maintenance in tunnels is more expensive than it is on on-ground or even most viaducts (I think there are figures on this buried in HS2's docs to do with the Chiltern tunnels).
So it's feasible, but it would almost certainly cost more to build and operate. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on that though.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Sure. But they aren't comparing that. As I added on my OP the real question is why some groups excel at school & others dont. WWC kids are going baxkwards, first wave of Polish kids are doing well. Black kids below average, Chinese / Indian kids way above.
I guess we aren't allowed that discussion because it's racialist, instead they reports just exaggerate grievances & the level of racism & the proposed solution will be positive discrimination rather than addressing the underlying issues.
Partly culture, in Chinese and Indian culture parents want their children to be doctors and lawyers while in black and www culture parents want them to be footballers
The reality is we honestly don't know. I suspect this is part of the reason. Another is family structure, stereotypically you have big close knit families with those from Indian sub continent where as we known single parenthood is much higher in WWC & black families.
One also has to look at class structure. Indians and Chinese are far more middle class than West Indians and Pakistanis. The UK's upper and upper middle classes are more White than the population as a whole. Children from higher social classes are far more likely to be brought up by both biological parents, exposed to a much wider vocabulary at an early age, and do homework than children from lower social classes. That gives such children a massive head start in life. "Equality Action Plans" can't really do anything to alter that.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
It'll gentrify those areas faster than any other intervention...
Spot on. There's no easier way to get rid of poor people from an area than to stick a grammar school in the middle of it.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
It'll gentrify those areas faster than any other intervention...
Spot on. There's no easier way to get rid of poor people from an area than to stick a grammar school in the middle of it.
Except for (at the very least) those who choose to stay or are in eg social rented, who will benefit from the improvements.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
Are 5000 clearing places at Russell Groups unis usually available?
They've lifted the cap on recruitment, so they can in theory take as many as they like. So if somebody has done unexpectedly well they can upgrade.
Just got mine through and all of them were at least one grade above predictions, which would be rather nice if I weren't still gutted that a couple who had really worked hard and deserved a reward for that got Ds rather than Cs.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
It'll gentrify those areas faster than any other intervention...
Spot on. There's no easier way to get rid of poor people from an area than to stick a grammar school in the middle of it.
Except for (at the very least) those who choose to stay or are in eg social rented, who will benefit from the improvements.
Social renting? People on housing benefit will quickly be priced out by middle class parents (like me), who want their kids to be in the 'zone' for the grammar school.
The British consumer seems to have largely ignored Brexit. Retail sales up 1.4% MoM, 5.9% YoY.
We haven’t actually Brexited yet, have we? It’s like getting a prescription from the doctor, but not actually taking the form to the pharmacy, then being asked if the medicine’s working!
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
It'll gentrify those areas faster than any other intervention...
Spot on. There's no easier way to get rid of poor people from an area than to stick a grammar school in the middle of it.
Only if there are not enough of them, and they are as poorly funded as existing examples.
At the moment, there is no easier way to stifle the bright but poor than persisting with comps that have a catchment area. Good ones see house prices rise beyond means of many.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
Does anyone run a train service in a vacuum or near vacuum? I would have thought that would be extremely difficult to do.
It has a purpose but is not targetted to your particular interests so you don't value that.
No Charles.
I love the countryside. I love engineering. I like grand projects. I love London's parks, which are the capital's under-appreciated jewels.
You will see me raving (*) about these topics all too often on PB.
Yet despite all that, I am against the Garden Bridge. Perhaps you should ask yourself if I am right, instead of continuing to defend the indefensible.
(*) In all sense of the term.
Your continued complaint is that cyclists have to push their bikes. It's not designed for cyclists.
This is privately funded*, open to the public and creating a new landmark for London. It doesn't do everything but it's a good improvement for the area.
but we won't agree and I suspect just rehersing the same argument will bore everyone else
* No additional public money is being spent on it that would not have been spent on Temple Tube.
Is there not a way the actual structure of it could be simpler and less expensive? The point of it (it seems to me) being the garden rather than the bridge.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
How can it be a vacuum? Passengers have to breath, and trains have doors and windows and aren't pressurised.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Both those statistics being a fairly shocking indictment of the state of far too many of our schools.
Working in Cannock, which is hardly a hotbed of prosperity and high achievement, I keep reminding myself that I am still facing a far less difficult task than I did in Bristol.
Hence May's argument for grammars but where they are really needed is the poorest areas
It'll gentrify those areas faster than any other intervention...
Spot on. There's no easier way to get rid of poor people from an area than to stick a grammar school in the middle of it.
Except for (at the very least) those who choose to stay or are in eg social rented, who will benefit from the improvements.
Social renting? People on housing benefit will quickly be priced out by middle class parents (like me), who want their kids to be in the 'zone' for the grammar school.
The biggest barrier to social mobility (between races or classes) is low economic growth. Between 1950-2000, output per head grew at about 2% a year. Since then, output per head has been 0.8% p.a. Unsurprisingly, social mobility has come to a halt. In a society of low growth, one person's gain has to be another person's loss. In a society of high growth, all can prosper, if at different rates.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
Does anyone run a train service in a vacuum or near vacuum? I would have thought that would be extremely difficult to do.
If I was building a whole new line underground I'd definitely look at lowering air pressure. Less chance of corrosion, higher speed trains and less maintenance. Obviously asking for 100m section of tunnel to be kept in vacuum conditions is probably impossible, but it's something worth looking at.
I was violently ill last night, and had a very poor night's sleep. We couldn't work out what I'd eaten to cause the problem. This morning I got up and had an extra-large glass of orange juice with my coffee to replace the fluids I'd lost.
I've just gone back for another, only to realise the taste was slightly odd. I then saw the best-before date on the orange-juice carton, purchased a few days ago, was the 20th July.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
How can it be a vacuum? Passengers have to breath, and trains have doors and windows and aren't pressurised.
Amazingly I don't die of suffocation when I go on a plane.
Good retail figures, sentiment (at least amongst consumers) seems to be good.
I would suggest that the weak pound meant fewer people took overseas holidays, and that might have played a role too.
...and have you noticed how absolutely teeming with tourists the whole of the UK has been just recently?? London is chokka. But so are the Peak District, the Lake District, Edinburgh, York, Warwick, Stratford upon Avon and the Surrey Hills- all of which I can vouch for personally over the last month. The weak pound is drawing them in big time...
If I was building a whole new line underground I'd definitely look at lowering air pressure. Less chance of corrosion, higher speed trains and less maintenance. Obviously asking for 100m section of tunnel to be kept in vacuum conditions is probably impossible, but it's something worth looking at.
Water ingress would be a problem. If you decrease the pressure it'll suck more water in.
As an aside, decompression sickness was first called 'caisson's disease', as people digging caissons for bridges and tunnelling in general got it. The reason: they'd pump high-pressure air in to where the men were working to decrease the water flow in.
Another useless fact brought to you by Josias Jessops.
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
How can it be a vacuum? Passengers have to breath, and trains have doors and windows and aren't pressurised.
Amazingly I don't die of suffocation when I go on a plane.
On a plane, they take the air out of the high-compression part of the turbine. Trains wouldn't have that.
I was violently ill last night, and had a very poor night's sleep. We couldn't work out what I'd eaten to cause the problem. This morning I got up and had an extra-large glass of orange juice with my coffee to replace the fluids I'd lost.
I've just gone back for another, only to realise the taste was slightly odd. I then saw the best-before date on the orange-juice carton, purchased a few days ago, was the 20th July.
I was violently ill last night, and had a very poor night's sleep. We couldn't work out what I'd eaten to cause the problem. This morning I got up and had an extra-large glass of orange juice with my coffee to replace the fluids I'd lost.
I've just gone back for another, only to realise the taste was slightly odd. I then saw the best-before date on the orange-juice carton, purchased a few days ago, was the 20th July.
Oh dear. I fear for the well-being of my bottom.
Oh my goodness, that's terrible. I hope the effects don't last long.
If I was building a whole new line underground I'd definitely look at lowering air pressure. Less chance of corrosion, higher speed trains and less maintenance. Obviously asking for 100m section of tunnel to be kept in vacuum conditions is probably impossible, but it's something worth looking at.
That sounds tricky, tbh, as you'd need regular access points in case of problems, and there will be stations along the way. So, you'd be going from atmospheric pressure, to low pressure, and back again. The engineering challenges associated with maintaining these zones of low pressure, when you have trains entering and exiting them regularly (causing huge wind effects as the air tried to rush into the low pressure zone), seem enormous to me.
Maybe you could simply have some (very large) fans along the way that lowered the pressure to 0.9 atmospheres or thereabouts.
Good retail figures, sentiment (at least amongst consumers) seems to be good.
I would suggest that the weak pound meant fewer people took overseas holidays, and that might have played a role too.
It may also have led to more overseas visitors from Europe taking advantage of the weaker currency and cheap flights.
I talk to a lot of tourists. Mainly because it's easy to get lost up on the Dowards, so I cast my self in the role of a human St Bernards. Anecdotally, Islamic terrorism has had an effect. I've had a decent number of conversations beginning "Ordinarily we'd be in France but...".
starting HS2 from ... Sheffield/Leeds down to Birmingham
Given that they've yet to finalise the route around Sheffield, have a planning enquiry and then start on the multi-year process of everyone suing everyone, I'm not actually sure that we can bring the eastern section of HS2 part 2 materially forward even if the money suddenly appeared on May's doorstep.
If the project was done underground that would completely sidestep the majority of planning issues and the route would be simple, as the crow flies.
Would you really want to do a 3-4 hour journey underground? If you have no choice like the Channel tunnel then I suppose it is bearable (not done it myself) but as a regular thing? This island is crowded but it is not that crowded.
Well the point is that with tunnels the route would be close to as the crow flies, with a 200mph train, the journey time from Euston to New Street is 40 minutes, I spend longer on the underground every day at the moment. The run from New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is 30 minutes, 40 if it stops at Crewe. The longest run is to Glasgow which would be a solid hour or so, but currently the train from Glasgow to London takes four and a half hours, the journey time for an underground, as the crow flies, high speed rail network would be less than half that. I could spend a couple of hours underground, I've done 16 hour flights before!
" the route would be close to as the crow flies"
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
The deviation isn't going to be more than say 10 miles from the ideal route though. On speed as you mentioned just before. I'd have thought the ability to run in a vacuum or near vacuum would lower air resistance and increase the terminal velocity, or at least lower the energy requirements to maintain a certain speed.
How can it be a vacuum? Passengers have to breath, and trains have doors and windows and aren't pressurised.
Amazingly I don't die of suffocation when I go on a plane.
The differences between a plane and an eight carriage train don't need to be spelled out.
Good retail figures, sentiment (at least amongst consumers) seems to be good.
I would suggest that the weak pound meant fewer people took overseas holidays, and that might have played a role too.
...and have you noticed how absolutely teeming with tourists the whole of the UK has been just recently?? London is chokka. But so are the Peak District, the Lake District, Edinburgh, York, Warwick, Stratford upon Avon and the Surrey Hills- all of which I can vouch for personally over the last month. The weak pound is drawing them in big time...
Absolutely, I think that's also a positive effect.
She needs to make a decision about Hinkley C. It looks a really crap deal negotiated at a time when all the experts saw energy costs rising indefinitely. If she is not persuaded that is likely any more she needs to find an alternative and fast.
There is no need for an alternative. If HPC is cancelled, then we will see - without any need for government 'planning' - continued investment in CCGTs, wind, and solar.
Indeed, the only planning that government could sensibly do in this area, is to mandate that new homes come with building integrated solar.
What are the economics of household solar in the UK at present *without* subsidies?
If you spend £5,000 on a rooftop solar system in the South of England, and just use it to offset your electricity bill - i.e. to allow the meter to 'run backwards', then you will get £600-750/electricity a year.
Now, if you are a higher rate tax payer, this is particularly attractive. Because an offset cost is like getting money tax free. So a 12-15% return is equivalent to a 25% pre-tax one! There aren't many investments that offer that kind of return. (Legally.)
The funny bit is, no-one in their right minds will sign up for the government scheme, because the feed in tariff is now below the residential electricity rate.
Those numbers look rather exaggerated - at about 2-3x the actual figures - unless you do not mean what I think you mean ie electricity actually saved by using that generated by the panels.
According to the Energy Saving Trust estimation app, a £5k system (= 4kw Peak at current prices) in a south facing shadow free roof at Goonhilly in Cornwall will generate 3750kwH per year.
At 10p per kW typical price, that is £375 electricity generated per year, which you only get if your use is perfectly aligned to solar generation all the time and uses 100% of the electricity.
The only way you will achieve perfect alignment is with a system such as an Immersun and Heat Storage (eg a Sunamp phase change system), which will easily set you back another 2-3k.
As ever, unless the house is very well sorted already, boring things such as insulation and a betetr boiler, and switching tariff, are far better options to do first, then think about solar.
Solar has now come far enough that even the 4p or so current FiT is useful, and may make the investment acceptable.
I would have thought a vacuum tunnel is a non-starter. This is essentially Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept. T'is bollocks on stilts.
But..I'd have thought putting a large ducted fan at the front piping air to thrust nozzles at the back would solve the 'slower in tunnels' problem. (Just not maybe at an effective cost or energy demand overall). However the idea of a train with a jet engine on its front appeals to me at a simple level!
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Sure. But they aren't comparing that. As I added on my OP the real question is why some groups excel at school & others dont. WWC kids are going baxkwards, first wave of Polish kids are doing well. Black kids below average, Chinese / Indian kids way above.
I guess we aren't allowed that discussion because it's racialist, instead they reports just exaggerate grievances & the level of racism & the proposed solution will be positive discrimination rather than addressing the underlying issues.
Partly culture, in Chinese and Indian culture parents want their children to be doctors and lawyers while in black and www culture parents want them to be footballers
The reality is we honestly don't know. I suspect this is part of the reason. Another is family structure, stereotypically you have big close knit families with those from Indian sub continent where as we known single parenthood is much higher in WWC & black families.
One also has to look at class structure. Indians and Chinese are far more middle class than West Indians and Pakistanis. The UK's upper and upper middle classes are more White than the population as a whole. Children from higher social classes are far more likely to be brought up by both biological parents, exposed to a much wider vocabulary at an early age, and do homework than children from lower social classes. That gives such children a massive head start in life. "Equality Action Plans" can't really do anything to alter that.
I think that is definitely true for Indian families. But then Polish kids aren't.
This is the kind of stuff we should be researching, not some not even undergrad level of statistical analysis, picking the headline figure way down the line without considering all these factors.
She needs to make a decision about Hinkley C. It looks a really crap deal negotiated at a time when all the experts saw energy costs rising indefinitely. If she is not persuaded that is likely any more she needs to find an alternative and fast.
There is no need for an alternative. If HPC is cancelled, then we will see - without any need for government 'planning' - continued investment in CCGTs, wind, and solar.
Indeed, the only planning that government could sensibly do in this area, is to mandate that new homes come with building integrated solar.
What are the economics of household solar in the UK at present *without* subsidies?
If you spend £5,000 on a rooftop solar system in the South of England, and just use it to offset your electricity bill - i.e. to allow the meter to 'run backwards', then you will get £600-750/electricity a year.
Now, if you are a higher rate tax payer, this is particularly attractive. Because an offset cost is like getting money tax free. So a 12-15% return is equivalent to a 25% pre-tax one! There aren't many investments that offer that kind of return. (Legally.)
The funny bit is, no-one in their right minds will sign up for the government scheme, because the feed in tariff is now below the residential electricity rate.
Those numbers look rather exaggerated - at about 2-3x the actual figures.
According to the Energy Saving Trust estimation app, a £5k system (= 4kw Peak at current prices) in a south facing shadow free roof at Goonhilly in Cornwall will generate 3750kwH per year.
At 10p per kW typical price, that is £375 electricity generated per year, which you only get if your use is perfectly aligned to solar generation all the time and uses 100% of the electricity.
The only way you will achieve perfect alignment is with a system such as an Immersun and Heat Storage (eg a Sunamp phase change system), which will easily set you back another 2-3k.
As ever, unless the house is very well sorted already, boring things such as insulation is a far better option to do first, then think about solar.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Similar reason behind less black people in high profile jobs.
The question is why are some demographics do much worse at school, especially when other non-white groups do way better than average eg Indian & Chinese.
Not many whites, Indians or Chinese in the Olympic 100m final on Sunday though
An interesting - but highly controversial - question would be whether the relatively few West African finalists suggests a eugenics bias to that same ethnic group in the former slave countries or whether the gap is predominantly down to funding, training and talent-spotting.
Interstingly west african places ie the likes of Nigeria where some theorise the right "genes" for spiriting come from there was one ivory coast athelete who was up there with the best and that was it.
In comparison, we know for long distance pretty much all the top athletes descend from a very small area in Africa, but what we see is a domination by people born there rather than descendants.
until you can have confidence in the drug testing regimes in these countries, the whole discussion is moot
Fair point... two countries with shockingly bad drug testing programmes, Jamaica & Kenya.
I thought Jamaica’s was good now. I know there’s a problem with Kenya.
Up until less than 2 years ago, it was described as a total joke. Remember also with doping making the gains is far harder than sustaining them.
Good retail figures, sentiment (at least amongst consumers) seems to be good.
I would suggest that the weak pound meant fewer people took overseas holidays, and that might have played a role too.
It may also have led to more overseas visitors from Europe taking advantage of the weaker currency and cheap flights.
I talk to a lot of tourists. Mainly because it's easy to get lost up on the Dowards, so I cast my self in the role of a human St Bernards. Anecdotally, Islamic terrorism has had an effect. I've had a decent number of conversations beginning "Ordinarily we'd be in France but...".
I know that for no rational reason Paris is off my wife's list of places to visit. And this is someone who went to Brussels on a day trip 5 days after the attacks there - the tickets had been bought and were going to be used...
I would have thought a vacuum tunnel is a non-starter. This is essentially Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept. T'is bollocks on stilts.
But..I'd have thought putting a large ducted fan at the front piping air to thrust nozzles at the back would solve the 'slower in tunnels' problem. (Just not maybe at an effective cost or energy demand overall). However the idea of a train with a jet engine on its front appeals to me at a simple level!
I talk to a lot of tourists. Mainly because it's easy to get lost up on the Dowards, so I cast my self in the role of a human St Bernards. Anecdotally, Islamic terrorism has had an effect. I've had a decent number of conversations beginning "Ordinarily we'd be in France but...".
Yes, Americans in particular seem to be affected by that. When I was over there I was chatting to several of them about work taking me to Brussels from time to time, and they all thought this was a pretty daring high-risk enterprise, terrorists lurking round every corner. Throwing statistics at them (far more likely to die falling down the stairs etc.) had no effect, even on well-read, intelligent people. The Continent Is Scary was their view. I was too polite to say that the risk of a non-terrorist shooting me in the US was far higher.
"Diane Abbott, Clive Lewis, Owen Jones, John McDonnell and Ken Loach are among those who will all appear at Momentum’s alternative conference in Liverpool – and the programme has received endorsement from Jeremy Corbyn.
The organisation today announced the line-up for their four-day politics, art and culture festival, which has been organised to coincide with Labour Party conference in Liverpool from the 24 – 27 September.
The festival, called The World Transformed, is designed to “build a movement” around the party, and develop a new politics of participation and involvement. It is also expected to connect grassroots groups with the Labour Party more generally. It will include over 150 hours of workshops, talks, performance and activities to “empower communities and transform society”.
I was violently ill last night, and had a very poor night's sleep. We couldn't work out what I'd eaten to cause the problem. This morning I got up and had an extra-large glass of orange juice with my coffee to replace the fluids I'd lost.
I've just gone back for another, only to realise the taste was slightly odd. I then saw the best-before date on the orange-juice carton, purchased a few days ago, was the 20th July.
Oh dear. I fear for the well-being of my bottom.
Oh my goodness, that's terrible. I hope the effects don't last long.
Are you going to get Trading Standards in?
It'd be a case of proving it. I buy OJ from my local shop two or three times a week, and how could I prove that the carton was one I'd bought earlier this week?
I get on very well with the staff there though, so I might mention it. I might also take a sneaky look in their fridge to see if there are any more out of date.
If I was building a whole new line underground I'd definitely look at lowering air pressure. Less chance of corrosion, higher speed trains and less maintenance. Obviously asking for 100m section of tunnel to be kept in vacuum conditions is probably impossible, but it's something worth looking at.
That sounds tricky, tbh, as you'd need regular access points in case of problems, and there will be stations along the way. So, you'd be going from atmospheric pressure, to low pressure, and back again. The engineering challenges associated with maintaining these zones of low pressure, when you have trains entering and exiting them regularly (causing huge wind effects as the air tried to rush into the low pressure zone), seem enormous to me.
Maybe you could simply have some (very large) fans along the way that lowered the pressure to 0.9 atmospheres or thereabouts.
Stations are easy, the platform and line can be separated by a barrier with double walled doors that align to the train doors. Again, it's just something to look at. Building HS2 as a conventional above ground line feels like a non-starter to me. The gains are limited and the downsides huge. The new PM and chancellor seem to be a lot more practical than the last two so I can't see how HS2 proceeds in its current state. Shifting the while project underground mitigates a lot of the political obstacles for HS2.
I talk to a lot of tourists. Mainly because it's easy to get lost up on the Dowards, so I cast my self in the role of a human St Bernards. Anecdotally, Islamic terrorism has had an effect. I've had a decent number of conversations beginning "Ordinarily we'd be in France but...".
.. I was too polite to say that the risk of a non-terrorist shooting me in the US was far higher.
I suppose it's worth pointing out May only had the support of 199 of her MPs on the ballot but that puts her streets ahead of Corbyn so it's a moot point at best.
I'm not a fan of May - I'm as big a fan of masterly inactivity as the next person but so far, apart from flying a few kites and whistling at a few dogs for the Daily Mail constituency, she's done the sum total of bugger all.
As others have noted, there are a considerable set of challenges coming and while she can bask vicariously in the success of Team GB, Conference Season is fast approaching and I imagine the Conservatives will be keen to bury the hatchet though in whom is far from clear.
The fault lines within the Party clearly remain though they have moved from "will we leave" to "how will we leave" which at least is progress. The problem is "Brexit means Brexit" is a meaningless platitude which satisfies both everyone and no one at the same time.
I think allowing six months from the Referendum is reasonable and I'd be looking for Article 50 to be triggered in the New Year but we've still to have the substantive national debate about what kind of relationship we want to have with the EU and the rest of the world.
Allowing that debate to happen wholly within the confines of the Conservative Party is what seems to be happening and that would be a mistake.
However the idea of a train with a jet engine on its front appeals to me at a simple level!
The Americans and Russian's tried that. The Germans (before the war) tried sticking a huge propeller on the back of a train but gave up on it once they figured out it would be a pain to reverse and stood a reasonable change of occasionally shredding the odd platform passenger.
Just seen racialist Britain report. One dodgy stat jumps out straight away, that black graduates earn less than other graduates.
One problem they arent comparing "like for like". Number of black peoppe at top unis is very small, due to on average inferior a-level results, therefore it isn't racialism that means they earn less it is they have worse qualifications.
Though more black pupils go to university now as a percentage than the white working class
Sure. But they aren't comparing that. As I added on my OP the real question is why some groups excel at school & others dont. WWC kids are going baxkwards, first wave of Polish kids are doing well. Black kids below average, Chinese / Indian kids way above.
I guess we aren't allowed that discussion because it's racialist, instead they reports just exaggerate grievances & the level of racism & the proposed solution will be positive discrimination rather than addressing the underlying issues.
Partly culture, in Chinese and Indian culture parents want their children to be doctors and lawyers while in black and www culture parents want them to be footballers
The reality is we honestly don't know. I suspect this is part of the reason. Another is family structure, stereotypically you have big close knit families with those from Indian sub continent where as we known single parenthood is much higher in WWC & black families.
One also has to look at class structure. Indians and Chinese are far more middle class than West Indians and Pakistanis. The UK's upper and upper middle classes are more White than the population as a whole. Children from higher social classes are far more likely to be brought up by both biological parents, exposed to a much wider vocabulary at an early age, and do homework than children from lower social classes. That gives such children a massive head start in life. "Equality Action Plans" can't really do anything to alter that.
I think that is definitely true for Indian families. But then Polish kids aren't.
This is the kind of stuff we should be researching, not some not even undergrad level of statistical analysis, picking the headline figure way down the line without considering all these factors.
Take the homicide numbers. I doubt if most murderers specifically target black people. The statistics simply reflect the fact that rates of homicide in working class urban centres are much higher than they are in the country as a whole.
What are the economics of household solar in the UK at present *without* subsidies?
If you spend £5,000 on a rooftop solar system in the South of England, and just use it to offset your electricity bill - i.e. to allow the meter to 'run backwards', then you will get £600-750/electricity a year.
Now, if you are a higher rate tax payer, this is particularly attractive. Because an offset cost is like getting money tax free. So a 12-15% return is equivalent to a 25% pre-tax one! There aren't many investments that offer that kind of return. (Legally.)
The funny bit is, no-one in their right minds will sign up for the government scheme, because the feed in tariff is now below the residential electricity rate.
Those numbers look rather exaggerated - at about 2-3x the actual figures.
According to the Energy Saving Trust estimation app, a £5k system (= 4kw Peak at current prices) in a south facing shadow free roof at Goonhilly in Cornwall will generate 3750kwH per year.
At 10p per kW typical price, that is £375 electricity generated per year, which you only get if your use is perfectly aligned to solar generation all the time and uses 100% of the electricity.
The only way you will achieve perfect alignment is with a system such as an Immersun and Heat Storage (eg a Sunamp phase change system), which will easily set you back another 2-3k.
As ever, unless the house is very well sorted already, boring things such as insulation is a far better option to do first, then think about solar.
You are absolutely right. For some reason I thought electricity was 18p KWh.
Cheers. Perhaps that was a number including standing charge?
Most people I talk it through with find they can save about 25-30% just by switching tariff. In my case our monthly bill dropped from £115 to £79 even before we did the solar (5 bed, 2009 house).
The other one that really works is 3 year old electric cars, which have grandfathered zero tax (£140 for new ones from next April), have depreciated about 75%, have more eyars of battery guarantee and a range of 80-100 miles, and cost almost nothing to fuel. Combine that with solar, and Robert is your Relative.
Comments
There was a brilliant piece on it some years ago in the Grauniad, but unfortunately I can't find it. I vividly remember the writer saying they had written a sociology paper in 2 days using Wiki. Rather more alarmingly, it was submitted and passed - as a doctoral thesis.
This is privately funded*, open to the public and creating a new landmark for London. It doesn't do everything but it's a good improvement for the area.
but we won't agree and I suspect just rehersing the same argument will bore everyone else
* No additional public money is being spent on it that would not have been spent on Temple Tube.
I suspect that the fact that it meant that he didn't become 'Sir George' was a factor in what he received (even though on the death of his father, a baronet, he will gain that title).
When I were lad, we were dropped in t'river once a week and glad of it. And heating? Wear overcoat and be glad you had one.
BTW, I'm not from Yorkshire. Sorry to interrupt your learned discussions. I will now go and soak up the sun while it's free.
It's be a rare example of joined-up infrastructure planning in the UK.
The TBM's from Crossrail are also a non-starter for several reasons:
*) the machines are only a small cost in a multi-billion pound project.
*) Some are buried, and most are fairly knackered.
*) HS2 tunnels are to be 8.8 metres in internal diameter. Crossrail's are 6.2 metres internal diameter.
One of those points might be more important than the others.
In comparison, we know for long distance pretty much all the top athletes descend from a very small area in Africa, but what we see is a domination by people born there rather than descendants.
That being said, it is right that a measure of progress, rather than raw grades, should be used to judge the school. For example, my school as a child always came out slightly below Crypt in Gloucester. So naturally you would assume that Crypt was the better school, although only by a little- until you realised that Crypt was selective and therefore to achieve slightly more highly than one of the most difficult and troubled schools in the county was a truly shocking performance.
Once energy prices really took off a few years back - I turned off all my heating and reverted to a single wood burner in my dining hall/cold water for everything bar showers. Guests would come round and complain about the thermostat showing 11C/too cold. I was in t-shirt and happily saying the place would warm up in a hour or two once the burner was roaring
Also gives some idea of what sorts of things he was getting up to (ahem) when he should have been working.
A tip: you start with requirements, then design to meet those requirements. If you do it well, you can end up with something that works and is beautiful.
Instead, the bridge is the dream of a c-list actress that has been jumped on by idiots and self-serving charlatans. I mean, they're even associating with Princess Di now, FFS. They're scraping the barrel.
Your point on Temple Tube is incomprehensibly and unusually stupid. In fact, it's one of the things that makes me think the project's trying to treat people like fools.
Oh, and I do hope you talk about the bridge helping disadvantaged youths in the area. I 'm still laughing at that.
Btw, This forms the basis behind the KIPPs programme in US.
Now, if you are a higher rate tax payer, this is particularly attractive. Because an offset cost is like getting money tax free. So a 12-15% return is equivalent to a 25% pre-tax one! There aren't many investments that offer that kind of return. (Legally.)
The funny bit is, no-one in their right minds will sign up for the government scheme, because the feed in tariff is now below the residential electricity rate.
I just looked up the cost, not massive, surely we could buy new ones and do HS2 underground. It would raise the construction cost but eliminate the land purchase costs entirely. Start two in Manchester and two in Birmingham, they can tunnel towards Crewe, within three or four years it will be done. It also allows us to run four lines from London to Birmingham without buying up swathes of the countryside, building on greenbelt land, splitting the country in half, having to build loads of bridges etc...
Again, I'm not an engineer, but if we can tunnel 26 miles in London for Crossrail, 31 miles across the channel, 100 miles from London to Birmingham should be within the realms of possibility. That also goes for the 80 miles from Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe. The Swiss just built the Gotthard Base Tunnel which is 90 miles worth of tunnelling under a bloody mountain range, it must be possible to do it under the English countryside.
(i.e. turned into razor blades or stripped)
"'Provisionally, as of the end of June 2016, overall UK solar PV capacity stood at 10,478 MW across 887,992 installations. This is an increase of 26% (2,183 MW) compared to June 2015."
The average capacity factor of solar in the UK is 9.7%, so the UK has the equivalent of an 'always on' 1GW of solar.
Obviously we can't have people who are secretly in other parties, but it's important to look at the individuals, rather than just judge them by who they supported 10 years ago.
The IPC fears that as many as 40 countries will be unable to send their athletes if the money is not paid soon
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/paralympic-events-facing-a-desperate-race-to-sell-seats-hrqlcq3vb
Another issue is that maximum speed in tunnels is, AIUI, slower due to aerodynamic effects.
Access is another problem: there would have to be regular surface buildings to allow maintenance and escape access. Also, maintenance in tunnels is more expensive than it is on on-ground or even most viaducts (I think there are figures on this buried in HS2's docs to do with the Chiltern tunnels).
So it's feasible, but it would almost certainly cost more to build and operate. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on that though.
Not necessarily so, or flat. If you look at the profile and line of the Channel Tunnel, its slightly curvy and dips and rises to follow the best tunnelling strata through the marl. One of the reasons we dug further than the French was because they had less favourable conditions.
At the moment, there is no easier way to stifle the bright but poor than persisting with comps that have a catchment area. Good ones see house prices rise beyond means of many.
https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2016-03-16/HL7063/
@afneil: Retail sales up 1.4% month-on-month in July, against expectations of just 0.1% to 0.2%. Strip out fuel sales, retail sales 1.5% higher.
Not that rare books make up much of the retail figures, I'm sure!
I was violently ill last night, and had a very poor night's sleep. We couldn't work out what I'd eaten to cause the problem. This morning I got up and had an extra-large glass of orange juice with my coffee to replace the fluids I'd lost.
I've just gone back for another, only to realise the taste was slightly odd. I then saw the best-before date on the orange-juice carton, purchased a few days ago, was the 20th July.
Oh dear. I fear for the well-being of my bottom.
As an aside, decompression sickness was first called 'caisson's disease', as people digging caissons for bridges and tunnelling in general got it. The reason: they'd pump high-pressure air in to where the men were working to decrease the water flow in.
Another useless fact brought to you by Josias Jessops.
Are you going to get Trading Standards in?
Maybe you could simply have some (very large) fans along the way that lowered the pressure to 0.9 atmospheres or thereabouts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel
According to the Energy Saving Trust estimation app, a £5k system (= 4kw Peak at current prices) in a south facing shadow free roof at Goonhilly in Cornwall will generate 3750kwH per year.
At 10p per kW typical price, that is £375 electricity generated per year, which you only get if your use is perfectly aligned to solar generation all the time and uses 100% of the electricity.
The only way you will achieve perfect alignment is with a system such as an Immersun and Heat Storage (eg a Sunamp phase change system), which will easily set you back another 2-3k.
As ever, unless the house is very well sorted already, boring things such as insulation and a betetr boiler, and switching tariff, are far better options to do first, then think about solar.
Solar has now come far enough that even the 4p or so current FiT is useful, and may make the investment acceptable.
Personally I installed a 10kwP system in January!
https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh
http://www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk/
Only in the Guardian.
But..I'd have thought putting a large ducted fan at the front piping air to thrust nozzles at the back would solve the 'slower in tunnels' problem. (Just not maybe at an effective cost or energy demand overall). However the idea of a train with a jet engine on its front appeals to me at a simple level!
This is the kind of stuff we should be researching, not some not even undergrad level of statistical analysis, picking the headline figure way down the line without considering all these factors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenzeppelin
The APT-E was powered by jet (gas) turbines.
"Diane Abbott, Clive Lewis, Owen Jones, John McDonnell and Ken Loach are among those who will all appear at Momentum’s alternative conference in Liverpool – and the programme has received endorsement from Jeremy Corbyn.
The organisation today announced the line-up for their four-day politics, art and culture festival, which has been organised to coincide with Labour Party conference in Liverpool from the 24 – 27 September.
The festival, called The World Transformed, is designed to “build a movement” around the party, and develop a new politics of participation and involvement. It is also expected to connect grassroots groups with the Labour Party more generally. It will include over 150 hours of workshops, talks, performance and activities to “empower communities and transform society”.
http://labourlist.org/2016/08/momentum-announces-alternative-conference-line-up/
I get on very well with the staff there though, so I might mention it. I might also take a sneaky look in their fridge to see if there are any more out of date.
http://joeforamerica.com/2016/07/dont-gun-problem-black-problem/
As a middle class white person, your chances of getting shot in America are vanishingly small.
It's much more charitymafia controlled than just awarding yourself a massive salary and waiting for the taxpayer funding to roll in.
I suppose it's worth pointing out May only had the support of 199 of her MPs on the ballot but that puts her streets ahead of Corbyn so it's a moot point at best.
I'm not a fan of May - I'm as big a fan of masterly inactivity as the next person but so far, apart from flying a few kites and whistling at a few dogs for the Daily Mail constituency, she's done the sum total of bugger all.
As others have noted, there are a considerable set of challenges coming and while she can bask vicariously in the success of Team GB, Conference Season is fast approaching and I imagine the Conservatives will be keen to bury the hatchet though in whom is far from clear.
The fault lines within the Party clearly remain though they have moved from "will we leave" to "how will we leave" which at least is progress. The problem is "Brexit means Brexit" is a meaningless platitude which satisfies both everyone and no one at the same time.
I think allowing six months from the Referendum is reasonable and I'd be looking for Article 50 to be triggered in the New Year but we've still to have the substantive national debate about what kind of relationship we want to have with the EU and the rest of the world.
Allowing that debate to happen wholly within the confines of the Conservative Party is what seems to be happening and that would be a mistake.
Most people I talk it through with find they can save about 25-30% just by switching tariff. In my case our monthly bill dropped from £115 to £79 even before we did the solar (5 bed, 2009 house).
The other one that really works is 3 year old electric cars, which have grandfathered zero tax (£140 for new ones from next April), have depreciated about 75%, have more eyars of battery guarantee and a range of 80-100 miles, and cost almost nothing to fuel. Combine that with solar, and Robert is your Relative.