Whether it's true or not the timing would make sense - unless BREXIT is a complete Horlicks then calls for a GE when May steps down may concentrate Tory minds.....
There is a chance of the 'plan' working, but I wouldn't assume it will.
It bears a certain unfortunate resemblance to the way in which Cameron screwed up the renegotiation and referendum, and immediately washed his hands of the mess and walked away, which will not be lost on the Tories opponents.
Not convinced that Theresa stepping down will 'soak up the toxicity' It's not as if the new Tory leader - who is likely in cabinet now - will be campaigning against the Brexit deal just agreed/the exit bill just paid... The Tories own this process.
For another - support for a deal may be higher just after its signed - especially if people worried about not getting one at all?
Not convinced that Theresa stepping down will 'soak up the toxicity' It's not as if the new Tory leader - who is likely in cabinet now - will be campaigning against the Brexit deal just agreed/the exit bill just paid... The Tories own this process.
For another - support for a deal may be higher just after its signed - especially if people worried about not getting one at all?
Explicitly planning to 'soak up the toxicity' two years in advance does not look good from outside. As a way of selling the plan to the public it's utterly tin eared.
Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator David Davis is set to reach out this week to British business leaders by hosting a day-long conference at his private country residence.
That 4/1 sounds reasonable, 2019 is the obvious time for the PM to stand down if she survives the next few weeks.
What does need to happen though is for a reasonably long contest to happen, as in 2005, rather than a coronation. This is more diffficult in government than opposition, but the Tories need to have their discussions in public over a few months then decide what they want to offer at the next election in 2020 or 2022.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
If I were Theresa May and I wanted to stay in office (the second part of that hypothetical is nearly as much of a stretch as the first) I would ignore this kindly suggestion. By the party conference she can expect to have clawed back fragments of her authority. What are the thwarted grandees going to do? Plot against her even more separately and even more furiously?
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
I think 15 of them see themselves as the Michael Howard de nos jours, whilst the other 15 see themselves as the David Cameron/Margaret Thatcher de nos jours.
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
I think 15 of them see themselves as the Michael Howard de nos jours, whilst the other 15 see themselves as David Cameron/Margaret Thatcher de nos jours.
While in fact all 30 are the John Redwood de nos jours.
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
I think 15 of them see themselves as the Michael Howard de nos jours, whilst the other 15 see themselves as David Cameron/Margaret Thatcher de nos jours.
While in fact all 30 are the John Redwood de nos jours.
Personally I would still see May go now. She is damaged goods and her tin ear promises further damage to the party. But it looks increasingly unlikely that will happen. The lack of an obvious successor that people are willing to coalesce around means any challenge would be messy and inconsistent with government let alone negotiating Brexit.
Will she survive to 2019? That is a different question. The absolute maelstrom that she endured immediately after the election seems to have dissipated somewhat but it will just take another cloth eared remark to stir it all up again. She has almost no natural supporters or friends in the party and is vulnerable.
In the meantime we have a largely hamstrung PM. This probably means relatively little activity in most of the departments other than Brexit. Not necessarily a bad thing of course but it will make it more difficult for those not involved in that process to make any kind of a mark or maintain a media profile.
Personally I would still see May go now. She is damaged goods and her tin ear promises further damage to the party. But it looks increasingly unlikely that will happen. The lack of an obvious successor that people are willing to coalesce around means any challenge would be messy and inconsistent with government let alone negotiating Brexit.
Will she survive to 2019? That is a different question. The absolute maelstrom that she endured immediately after the election seems to have dissipated somewhat but it will just take another cloth eared remark to stir it all up again. She has almost no natural supporters or friends in the party and is vulnerable.
In the meantime we have a largely hamstrung PM. This probably means relatively little activity in most of the departments other than Brexit. Not necessarily a bad thing of course but it will make it more difficult for those not involved in that process to make any kind of a mark or maintain a media profile.
her problem is all the media have decided she's a lame duck
whatever she does they will put a negative slant on it
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
Having 30 of them wanting the job leaves May in a better position than if there were just a couple.
Personally I would still see May go now. She is damaged goods and her tin ear promises further damage to the party. But it looks increasingly unlikely that will happen. The lack of an obvious successor that people are willing to coalesce around means any challenge would be messy and inconsistent with government let alone negotiating Brexit.
Will she survive to 2019? That is a different question. The absolute maelstrom that she endured immediately after the election seems to have dissipated somewhat but it will just take another cloth eared remark to stir it all up again. She has almost no natural supporters or friends in the party and is vulnerable.
In the meantime we have a largely hamstrung PM. This probably means relatively little activity in most of the departments other than Brexit. Not necessarily a bad thing of course but it will make it more difficult for those not involved in that process to make any kind of a mark or maintain a media profile.
her problem is all the media have decided she's a lame duck
whatever she does they will put a negative slant on it
Yep, and that hardly gives the government a dynamic look does it? I think there is a real risk of the Tory party slipping badly led by a loser with a negative press. Only the idiocy of Corbyn is keeping them in contention at the moment.
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
I recommend the variety "Autumn Bliss" for home growing.
They don't need support, just prune back to six inches from the ground each year, they have a long fruiting season, from now until the first frosts and have good flavour.
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
Having 30 of them wanting the job leaves May in a better position than if there were just a couple.
It's hard to see beyond Boris Johnson, David Davis, Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd as realistic possibilities. Presumably Andrea Leadsom also has a shout given that she appeals to the headbangers, though she'd be a disastrous choice. The rest need to get real.
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
raspberries have been pricy for the last few years - hard to explain given theyre easier to pick than strawberries
When I picked berries during the school holidays you made about 50% more money picking strawberries. There is a lot more rasps in a punnet than strawberries although it was more comfortable work and less of a strain on the back.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
raspberries have been pricy for the last few years - hard to explain given theyre easier to pick than strawberries
When I picked berries during the school holidays you made about 50% more money picking strawberries. There is a lot more rasps in a punnet than strawberries although it was more comfortable work and less of a strain on the back.
when younger PYO raspeberries were always easy to do strawberries as you say gave you back ache
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
raspberries have been pricy for the last few years - hard to explain given theyre easier to pick than strawberries
When I picked berries during the school holidays you made about 50% more money picking strawberries. There is a lot more rasps in a punnet than strawberries although it was more comfortable work and less of a strain on the back.
when younger PYO raspeberries were always easy to do strawberries as you say gave you back ache
If there are a good 30 Tory MPs actively campaigning to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, at least 25 of them need close personal friends to grab them by the lapels and tell them not to be so bloody stupid.
Having 30 of them wanting the job leaves May in a better position than if there were just a couple.
It's hard to see beyond Boris Johnson, David Davis, Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd as realistic possibilities. Presumably Andrea Leadsom also has a shout given that she appeals to the headbangers, though she'd be a disastrous choice. The rest need to get real.
But of them Boris is just too flaky, Davis is old and flaky, Hammond is stunningly dull and Rudd has a tiny majority and needs to work her seat too much.
Its not surprising that some others think the party just might turn to them in their hour of need. Jim Hacker is a great role model.
Not sure this is wise. May's authority is damaged, but if she announces she's going then all eyes will be on either becoming her successor or currying favour with her successor.
A private agreement rather than a public announcement would make more sense.
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
raspberries have been pricy for the last few years - hard to explain given theyre easier to pick than strawberries
When I picked berries during the school holidays you made about 50% more money picking strawberries. There is a lot more rasps in a punnet than strawberries although it was more comfortable work and less of a strain on the back.
when younger PYO raspeberries were always easy to do strawberries as you say gave you back ache
Bring back PYO!
yup
PYO seems to have disappeared in the last 15 years. Where I live there used to be loads of them now you really have to go searching for them
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
The other question about cladding is whether flammability is the only relevant test. There were suggestions early on that gaps between the cladding and the wall acted as chimneys spreading the fire upwards to higher floors. This chimney effect, if still thought significant, would be independent of the cladding itself burning.
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
I recommend the variety "Autumn Bliss" for home growing.
They don't need support, just prune back to six inches from the ground each year, they have a long fruiting season, from now until the first frosts and have good flavour.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
My understanding is that the new test is much more severe but much more realistic in that it exposes the material to the sort of heat and flames that might come lipping out of a broken window onto the surface of the panel as per Grenfell. It seems that the exterior of the cladding cannot resist this and exposes the flammable interior. The original test just seems to have involved exposure to flames without the intensity. I agree that the differences are not being well explained in the MSM.
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Not my party.
Are you for real?
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
The other question about cladding is whether flammability is the only relevant test. There were suggestions early on that gaps between the cladding and the wall acted as chimneys spreading the fire upwards to higher floors. This chimney effect, if still thought significant, would be independent of the cladding itself burning.
Well, yes. But that's the sort of thing that material tests cannot really account for: it's a design factor. As is the allegation that there may have been holes in the walls that allowed flames to enter individual apartments: that should have been picked u a many stages, including building control.
Boris Johnson will be Tory leader and PM by the Tory party conference in October 2017 ! Michael Gove will be Chancellor, with Hammond sent to the back benches. Both of these are already in campaigning mode.
Theresa May does not have 100% support of her cabinet and will decide that the longer she stays the more damage will be done. Most senior Tories will be thinking the same and the sooner a new leader takes over, the more chance the Tories have of securing Brexit and winning the next election.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
My understanding is that the new test is much more severe but much more realistic in that it exposes the material to the sort of heat and flames that might come lipping out of a broken window onto the surface of the panel as per Grenfell. It seems that the exterior of the cladding cannot resist this and exposes the flammable interior. The original test just seems to have involved exposure to flames without the intensity. I agree that the differences are not being well explained in the MSM.
They should be doing at least two sets of tests: the old tests to see if a material matches the original test specification, and a new, harsher one.
The current reporting makes it sound as though every panel has failed the original tests, and therefore should not have been installed and someone is to blame!. Whereas if the panels passed the original tests, the blame might partially belong with a very different set: those who specified those tests.
And sadly, in the process the truth is being lost.
There's also a question about whether these new tests are valid. After all, it appears they mucked up the definition of the original tests, so why should they be believed these new tests are representative of real-world conditions?
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
My understanding is that the new test is much more severe but much more realistic in that it exposes the material to the sort of heat and flames that might come lipping out of a broken window onto the surface of the panel as per Grenfell. It seems that the exterior of the cladding cannot resist this and exposes the flammable interior. The original test just seems to have involved exposure to flames without the intensity. I agree that the differences are not being well explained in the MSM.
The new test certainly does appear to be new (indeed much of previous "testing" was actually desktop work by engineers, rather than actual testing). But if the government has introduced a new approach to testing, they have effectively changed the regulations without doing the formalities. Tighter requirements for fire-proof materials are surely a good thing, but by imposing a stricter test and then *failing* every sample sent in, isn't the government trying to pass the blame onto councils and builders for the loopholes in its own existing rules and testing regime?
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Not my party.
Are you for real?
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
She was ripped off!
NHS nurses and other allied professions were entitled to bursaries until this year:
"Student nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, including occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, podiatrists and radiographers, currently do not pay tuition fees. They receive a mixture of a non-means-tested bursary, a means-tested bursary and a reduced-rate student loan to help with their living costs."
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Not my party.
Are you for real?
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
But previously nurses got bursaries for living costs; now they need to get loans. This has increased the costs of study for a 3 year course by over £10k, which added to the £27k tuition fees leads to a total debt of £40k.
Simply not sustainable for a career that pays sub-£35k
If I were Theresa May and I wanted to stay in office (the second part of that hypothetical is nearly as much of a stretch as the first) I would ignore this kindly suggestion. By the party conference she can expect to have clawed back fragments of her authority. What are the thwarted grandees going to do? Plot against her even more separately and even more furiously?
Yes. Tony Blair discovered the hideosity, if that's a word, of governing with an announced departure date. Your authority just seeps away. Two years of it hardly bears thinking about. What I'd do as Theresa is what Tony did with Gordon - vaguely say yes, I'll probably need to step down in a couple of years, but avoid a firm written promise - then in 20109 with a deal of som kind under her belt, say it'd be daft to suddenly pick a new leader. If they want to get rid of her, they need to do it now, or shut up.
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
My understanding is that the new test is much more severe but much more realistic in that it exposes the material to the sort of heat and flames that might come lipping out of a broken window onto the surface of the panel as per Grenfell. It seems that the exterior of the cladding cannot resist this and exposes the flammable interior. The original test just seems to have involved exposure to flames without the intensity. I agree that the differences are not being well explained in the MSM.
The new test certainly does appear to be new (indeed much of previous "testing" was actually desktop work by engineers, rather than actual testing). But if the government has introduced a new approach to testing, they have effectively changed the regulations without doing the formalities. Tighter requirements for fire-proof materials are surely a good thing, but by imposing a stricter test and then *failing* every sample sent in, isn't the government trying to pass the blame onto councils and builders for the loopholes in its own existing rules and testing regime?
"(indeed much of previous "testing" was actually desktop work by engineers, rather than actual testing)."
That's interesting, thanks. Do you have a source for that?
Not sure this is wise. May's authority is damaged, but if she announces she's going then all eyes will be on either becoming her successor or currying favour with her successor.
A private agreement rather than a public announcement would make more sense.
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
raspberries have been pricy for the last few years - hard to explain given theyre easier to pick than strawberries
When I picked berries during the school holidays you made about 50% more money picking strawberries. There is a lot more rasps in a punnet than strawberries although it was more comfortable work and less of a strain on the back.
Day 1 - gorge on berries Day 2 - rest of summer - never want to eat another berry again.....
< Day 1 - gorge on berries Day 2 - rest of summer - never want to eat another berry again.....
Yes, it's said that chocolate shops let their staff eat freely, because of the same experience.
On raspberries, I agree with SquareRoot (not something I often say) that they're nicer (not least as you don't have to fiddle with them like strawberries to avoid the nasty hard stem), but the price - £2 a punnet - has stayed the same for years in every supermnarket that I go to, and the punnets don't seem to be getting smaller. Seems fair enough - far less hassle than growing the things (sorry, Jeremy).
A chartered surveyor and fire expert on BBC Breakfast calling into question the testing procedure that's failed 100% of cladding samples tested since the Grenfell fire.
That's been a theme for a few days now. The obvious question is whether the test they are doing now is the original test they would have performed pre-Grenfell, or a new one developed because the original tests were seen as being too lax. If it's the latter then the reporting's a bit naughty.
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
My understanding is that the new test is much more severe but much more realistic in that it exposes the material to the sort of heat and flames that might come lipping out of a broken window onto the surface of the panel as per Grenfell. It seems that the exterior of the cladding cannot resist this and exposes the flammable interior. The original test just seems to have involved exposure to flames without the intensity. I agree that the differences are not being well explained in the MSM.
The new test certainly does appear to be new (indeed much of previous "testing" was actually desktop work by engineers, rather than actual testing). But if the government has introduced a new approach to testing, they have effectively changed the regulations without doing the formalities. Tighter requirements for fire-proof materials are surely a good thing, but by imposing a stricter test and then *failing* every sample sent in, isn't the government trying to pass the blame onto councils and builders for the loopholes in its own existing rules and testing regime?
"(indeed much of previous "testing" was actually desktop work by engineers, rather than actual testing)."
That's interesting, thanks. Do you have a source for that?
I have decided on the perfect analogy for Brexit: an SAP R/3 implementation from about 1997. SAP R/3 is – somewhat ironically – by far Europe’s most successful software creation. It is the back-end accounting, inventory and process system used by the world’s largest companies.
Now, the reason R/3 sold so well is that it made great promises for how it could change and improve organisations. And, by and large, those promises were true. When a firm had moved to SAP, things did work better.
But installing (implementing) SAP could be a complex logistical nightmare that destroyed the careers of anyone who touched it. Budgets were blown out, with firms often spending more than 10x the cost of the software on “experts” (consultants) who helped with the implementation. Plans to get software installed in a six months often proved laughably optimistic, with go live often delayed years.
It turned out that changing the entire software system on which your organisation run was a greater challenge that the SAP salespeople let on when they were showing you fancy Powerpoint slides.
Brexit is like installing R/3. It’s a complex process with many dependencies.
Later, when post-mortems were done on R/3 implementations, it turned out that (while all of them were late and over budget), there were clear common factors between those that worked and those that didn’t.
Failed implementations usually had no greater plan than “install SAP”, and usually had a big bang mentality “on the first of January, we will go live on SAP worldwide!”. Successful ones had a tight plan with limited scope: “first we implement SAP Accounts Receivable on our Belgian subsidiary, and run it for three months to understand all the issues”.
Proponents of SAP implementation as a series of baby-steps were rarely popular. Their proposals usually involved spending a lot more money, and taking a lot more time. But their proposals actually worked. The big bang guys crashed and burned. And the fallout from their crashes often resulted in profit warnings, CEO resignations, and the end of more than one company.
Personally I would still see May go now. She is damaged goods and her tin ear promises further damage to the party. But it looks increasingly unlikely that will happen. The lack of an obvious successor that people are willing to coalesce around means any challenge would be messy and inconsistent with government let alone negotiating Brexit.
Will she survive to 2019? That is a different question. The absolute maelstrom that she endured immediately after the election seems to have dissipated somewhat but it will just take another cloth eared remark to stir it all up again. She has almost no natural supporters or friends in the party and is vulnerable.
In the meantime we have a largely hamstrung PM. This probably means relatively little activity in most of the departments other than Brexit. Not necessarily a bad thing of course but it will make it more difficult for those not involved in that process to make any kind of a mark or maintain a media profile.
her problem is all the media have decided she's a lame duck
whatever she does they will put a negative slant on it
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
raspberries have been pricy for the last few years - hard to explain given theyre easier to pick than strawberries
When I picked berries during the school holidays you made about 50% more money picking strawberries. There is a lot more rasps in a punnet than strawberries although it was more comfortable work and less of a strain on the back.
when younger PYO raspeberries were always easy to do strawberries as you say gave you back ache
Bring back PYO!
yup
PYO seems to have disappeared in the last 15 years. Where I live there used to be loads of them now you really have to go searching for them
Child safety: PYO farms that allow kids need to make sure all adults (even customers) have CRB checks or are supervised. Which rather defeats the object...
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Not my party.
Are you for real?
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
More to the point: *should* you need a degree to be a nurse?
On the Theresa May leadership thing. The mood of the electorate seems to be to pick exactly the outcome that most humiliates the professional commentators. So going into an election with a leader that everyone says is certain to lose might be the smartest strategy.
Boris Johnson will be Tory leader and PM by the Tory party conference in October 2017 ! Michael Gove will be Chancellor, with Hammond sent to the back benches. Both of these are already in campaigning mode.
Theresa May does not have 100% support of her cabinet and will decide that the longer she stays the more damage will be done. Most senior Tories will be thinking the same and the sooner a new leader takes over, the more chance the Tories have of securing Brexit and winning the next election.
Gove wouldn't be credible given some of his previous comments
Somehow I can't see McKinsey putting posters in airports up any time soon proclaiming, "The UK runs 'Brexit'".
Joking aside, it's an awful analogy. Brexit is not an never was analogous to a back-office migration. It was a bet the company shift to a whole new business model - one that had already been tried in the company's past and failed, but no-one was around anymore who understand how and why so the new management had to learn the same mistakes all over again.
Boris Johnson will be Tory leader and PM by the Tory party conference in October 2017 ! Michael Gove will be Chancellor, with Hammond sent to the back benches. Both of these are already in campaigning mode.
Theresa May does not have 100% support of her cabinet and will decide that the longer she stays the more damage will be done. Most senior Tories will be thinking the same and the sooner a new leader takes over, the more chance the Tories have of securing Brexit and winning the next election.
Isn’t our country in enough mess without having those two at the helm?
Boris Johnson will be Tory leader and PM by the Tory party conference in October 2017 ! Michael Gove will be Chancellor, with Hammond sent to the back benches. Both of these are already in campaigning mode.
Theresa May does not have 100% support of her cabinet and will decide that the longer she stays the more damage will be done. Most senior Tories will be thinking the same and the sooner a new leader takes over, the more chance the Tories have of securing Brexit and winning the next election.
Gove wouldn't be credible given some of his previous comments
If Gove ever made it to leader his honeymoon would end whilst he still had his clothes on.
Somehow I can't see McKinsey putting posters in airports up any time soon proclaiming, "The UK runs 'Brexit'".
Joking aside, it's an awful analogy. Brexit is not an never was analogous to a back-office migration. It was a bet the company shift to a whole new business model - one that had already been tried in the company's past and failed, but no-one was around anymore who understand how and why so the new management had to learn the same mistakes all over again.
It's not McKinsey that puts up those adverts, its SAP!
If I were Theresa May and I wanted to stay in office (the second part of that hypothetical is nearly as much of a stretch as the first) I would ignore this kindly suggestion. By the party conference she can expect to have clawed back fragments of her authority. What are the thwarted grandees going to do? Plot against her even more separately and even more furiously?
Yes. Tony Blair discovered the hideosity, if that's a word, of governing with an announced departure date. Your authority just seeps away. Two years of it hardly bears thinking about. What I'd do as Theresa is what Tony did with Gordon - vaguely say yes, I'll probably need to step down in a couple of years, but avoid a firm written promise - then in 20109 with a deal of som kind under her belt, say it'd be daft to suddenly pick a new leader. If they want to get rid of her, they need to do it now, or shut up.
Wasn't the Blair/Brown problem just the opposite -- that Blair had committed to a date but then changed his mind?
We are already at that stage in the Conservative Party's crisis when all of the obvious current leadership options have been discounted and so thoughts turn to an (unnamed, perhaps non-existent) bright young thing who will suddenly appear in March 2019 and save the party and the country.
He or she might begin by saying that some optimism is needed after the long, hard slog of Brexit. He or she might say that for too long the Tories have been having a different conversation to the one ordinary voters have been having.
"Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most.
"While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life - we were banging on about Europe.
"As they worried about standards in thousands of secondary schools, we obsessed about a handful more grammar schools.
"As rising expectations demanded a better NHS for everyone, we put our faith in opt-outs for a few.
"While people wanted, more than anything, stability and low mortgage rates, the first thing we talked about was tax cuts."
What an electrifying intervention this would be, refreshing and new. Except not new.
It was first delivered by David Cameron on October 1, 2006 at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth. Almost every sentence now echoes down the years as a warning against exactly what Theresa May offered the country. What goes around comes around.
Somehow I can't see McKinsey putting posters in airports up any time soon proclaiming, "The UK runs 'Brexit'".
Joking aside, it's an awful analogy. Brexit is not an never was analogous to a back-office migration. It was a bet the company shift to a whole new business model - one that had already been tried in the company's past and failed, but no-one was around anymore who understand how and why so the new management had to learn the same mistakes all over again.
It's not McKinsey that puts up those adverts, its SAP!
I know that, but DExEU seems to have been sold their equivalent of 'R/3' by McKinsey so I was stretching the analogy.
Thanks. Although that's an option only available if the same materials have already been extensively tested: " The report should be supported by test data which the test-house already has in its possession and so this option may not be of benefit if the products have not already been tested in multiple situations / arrangements. The report should also specifically reference the tests which they have carried out on the product. "
In fact, that seems more than reasonable given that some of these materials will be used many times in similar environments. But this would not pick up on where the materials have altered over time, or manufacturing defects.
I still like my idea of a client (e.g. council, HA) being able to take random samples during construction and send them in for testing.
I also wonder if there is a large gap in the study of fire safety in structures: you will have the fire brigade, who understand fire causes and propagation very well, but not necessarily structural engineering; and architects / surveyors who understand structural engineering very well but not fire propagation.
Boris Johnson will be Tory leader and PM by the Tory party conference in October 2017 ! Michael Gove will be Chancellor, with Hammond sent to the back benches. Both of these are already in campaigning mode.
Theresa May does not have 100% support of her cabinet and will decide that the longer she stays the more damage will be done. Most senior Tories will be thinking the same and the sooner a new leader takes over, the more chance the Tories have of securing Brexit and winning the next election.
Gove wouldn't be credible given some of his previous comments
If Gove ever made it to leader his honeymoon would end whilst he still had his clothes on.
I agree.
The only thing less credible is @Richard_H suggestion of Gove as #2 to Boris...
If I were Theresa May and I wanted to stay in office (the second part of that hypothetical is nearly as much of a stretch as the first) I would ignore this kindly suggestion. By the party conference she can expect to have clawed back fragments of her authority. What are the thwarted grandees going to do? Plot against her even more separately and even more furiously?
If I were Boris Johnson - would I rather run for leader and have to defend a deal negotiated by someone else? Or run for leader and then defend a deal I negotiated?
I have decided on the perfect analogy for Brexit: an SAP R/3 implementation from about 1997. SAP R/3 is – somewhat ironically – by far Europe’s most successful software creation. It is the back-end accounting, inventory and process system used by the world’s largest companies.
Now, the reason R/3 sold so well is that it made great promises for how it could change and improve organisations. And, by and large, those promises were true. When a firm had moved to SAP, things did work better.
But installing (implementing) SAP could be a complex logistical nightmare that destroyed the careers of anyone who touched it. Budgets were blown out, with firms often spending more than 10x the cost of the software on “experts” (consultants) who helped with the implementation. Plans to get software installed in a six months often proved laughably optimistic, with go live often delayed years.
It turned out that changing the entire software system on which your organisation run was a greater challenge that the SAP salespeople let on when they were showing you fancy Powerpoint slides.
Brexit is like installing R/3. It’s a complex process with many dependencies.
Later, when post-mortems were done on R/3 implementations, it turned out that (while all of them were late and over budget), there were clear common factors between those that worked and those that didn’t.
Failed implementations usually had no greater plan than “install SAP”, and usually had a big bang mentality “on the first of January, we will go live on SAP worldwide!”. Successful ones had a tight plan with limited scope: “first we implement SAP Accounts Receivable on our Belgian subsidiary, and run it for three months to understand all the issues”.
Proponents of SAP implementation as a series of baby-steps were rarely popular. Their proposals usually involved spending a lot more money, and taking a lot more time. But their proposals actually worked. The big bang guys crashed and burned. And the fallout from their crashes often resulted in profit warnings, CEO resignations, and the end of more than one company.
Perhaps the unpicked strawberries, with the help of robot technology, can fill these posts.
Last week I was in Waitrose, Aldi and Coop all of them had loads of fresh british strawberries I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
I prefer raspberries but they are getting really expensive... its time to plant my own source
I recommend the variety "Autumn Bliss" for home growing.
They don't need support, just prune back to six inches from the ground each year, they have a long fruiting season, from now until the first frosts and have good flavour.
Agree re Autumn Bliss (I prune to the ground in February). I planted 5 a few years ago and now have hundreds. I also get runners cropping up in the lawn 10 metres from the plants. Unfortunately a few weeks ago I was harvesting the first fruit, then a deer cleared the entire tops off all the plants. I'm hoping they will re-sprout and flower again.
Less success with summer raspberries. This is the first year I have had a proper crop, but I don't think I have supported them properly and pigeons are landing on then and because they grow on brittle old wood the plants snap and I lose most of the fruit. The deer also cropped the new growth for next year!
We are already at that stage in the Conservative Party's crisis when all of the obvious current leadership options have been discounted and so thoughts turn to an (unnamed, perhaps non-existent) bright young thing who will suddenly appear in March 2019 and save the party and the country.
He or she might begin by saying that some optimism is needed after the long, hard slog of Brexit. He or she might say that for too long the Tories have been having a different conversation to the one ordinary voters have been having.
"Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most.
"While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life - we were banging on about Europe.
"As they worried about standards in thousands of secondary schools, we obsessed about a handful more grammar schools.
"As rising expectations demanded a better NHS for everyone, we put our faith in opt-outs for a few.
"While people wanted, more than anything, stability and low mortgage rates, the first thing we talked about was tax cuts."
What an electrifying intervention this would be, refreshing and new. Except not new.
It was first delivered by David Cameron on October 1, 2006 at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth. Almost every sentence now echoes down the years as a warning against exactly what Theresa May offered the country. What goes around comes around.
We are already at that stage in the Conservative Party's crisis when all of the obvious current leadership options have been discounted and so thoughts turn to an (unnamed, perhaps non-existent) bright young thing who will suddenly appear in March 2019 and save the party and the country.
He or she might begin by saying that some optimism is needed after the long, hard slog of Brexit. He or she might say that for too long the Tories have been having a different conversation to the one ordinary voters have been having.
"Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most.
"While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life - we were banging on about Europe.
"As they worried about standards in thousands of secondary schools, we obsessed about a handful more grammar schools.
"As rising expectations demanded a better NHS for everyone, we put our faith in opt-outs for a few.
"While people wanted, more than anything, stability and low mortgage rates, the first thing we talked about was tax cuts."
What an electrifying intervention this would be, refreshing and new. Except not new.
It was first delivered by David Cameron on October 1, 2006 at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth. Almost every sentence now echoes down the years as a warning against exactly what Theresa May offered the country. What goes around comes around.
The problem would be convincing the country that the rest of the Tory party meant it. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Not my party.
Are you for real?
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
More to the point: *should* you need a degree to be a nurse?
With how advanced modern medicine, definitely. If someone's going to be sticking a drip in my arm I want them to have a full understanding of what it does
Thanks. Although that's an option only available if the same materials have already been extensively tested: " The report should be supported by test data which the test-house already has in its possession and so this option may not be of benefit if the products have not already been tested in multiple situations / arrangements. The report should also specifically reference the tests which they have carried out on the product. "
In fact, that seems more than reasonable given that some of these materials will be used many times in similar environments. But this would not pick up on where the materials have altered over time, or manufacturing defects.
I still like my idea of a client (e.g. council, HA) being able to take random samples during construction and send them in for testing.
I also wonder if there is a large gap in the study of fire safety in structures: you will have the fire brigade, who understand fire causes and propagation very well, but not necessarily structural engineering; and architects / surveyors who understand structural engineering very well but not fire propagation.
Nevertheless Options 2 and 3 are essentially loopholes that allow the use of sub-A2 standard materials in the cladding. Option 3 is opaque since the desktop studies are not recorded or lodged anywhere that any interested party can inspect or verify.
Also worth noting that the NHBC guidance allows use of sub-A2 insulation boards with B-grade external cladding, without even a desktop study, on the basis that they had reviewed lots of data from other tests and desktop studies. This guidance has now been withdrawn - this was on Newsnight recently. It had said that the specific insulation material at Grenfell (Celotex RS 5000) could be used with B-grade cladding, yet the manufacturer says it was only tested for use with A2 cladding.
The bottom line is that the intent of the regulations has been diluted by an inspection regime that has taken the job away from local authorities and allowed contractors to hire their own "approved inspectors", so there is no single body or arm of government upholding standards, and because sector bodies like the BCA and NHBC have issued guidance interpreting (and effectively watering down and/or introducing loopholes into) the regulations.
This is what happens when we charge people to train as nurses rather than pay them to train as nurses.
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
The effect of introducing fees is not yet in these figures. These are people who have finished their 3 year course.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
Yep, market forces will never be beaten, you're right.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
Fees for Nursing courses were introduced last year by the Tories, prior to that nursing students had NHS bursaries.
Not my party.
Are you for real?
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
More to the point: *should* you need a degree to be a nurse?
With how advanced modern medicine, definitely. If someone's going to be sticking a drip in my arm I want them to have a full understanding of what it does
We are already at that stage in the Conservative Party's crisis when all of the obvious current leadership options have been discounted and so thoughts turn to an (unnamed, perhaps non-existent) bright young thing who will suddenly appear in March 2019 and save the party and the country.
He or she might begin by saying that some optimism is needed after the long, hard slog of Brexit. He or she might say that for too long the Tories have been having a different conversation to the one ordinary voters have been having.
"Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most.
"While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life - we were banging on about Europe.
"As they worried about standards in thousands of secondary schools, we obsessed about a handful more grammar schools.
"As rising expectations demanded a better NHS for everyone, we put our faith in opt-outs for a few.
"While people wanted, more than anything, stability and low mortgage rates, the first thing we talked about was tax cuts."
What an electrifying intervention this would be, refreshing and new. Except not new.
It was first delivered by David Cameron on October 1, 2006 at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth. Almost every sentence now echoes down the years as a warning against exactly what Theresa May offered the country. What goes around comes around.
The problem would be convincing the country that the rest of the Tory party meant it. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
Even more bizarrely, May was one of the very first to openly tell her party it needed to change. Way before Cameron.
The problem would be convincing the country that the rest of the Tory party meant it. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
Even more bizarrely, May was one of the very first to openly tell her party it needed to change. Way before Cameron.
What happened?
The pound shop Gordon Brown and her staff believed their own hype and concluded that the Tories made so many net gains in 2010 and 2015 in spite of Cameron not because of Cameron.
Mr. Borough, I'm still on the Roger Mortimer biography. Edward II's reliance on favourites that split the kingdom is not entirely dissimilar to May being led astray by the terrible twosome.
The problem would be convincing the country that the rest of the Tory party meant it. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
Even more bizarrely, May was one of the very first to openly tell her party it needed to change. Way before Cameron.
What happened?
The pound shop Gordon Brown and her staff believed their own hype and concluded that the Tories made so many net gains in 2010 and 2015 in spite of Cameron not because of Cameron.
Ths fucking twats.
But, she was already banging on about grammar schools months before the clusterf*** that was the campaign. She told Osborne to go out and discover his own party - the implication being that most members didn't believe in a word of what Cam/Os were on about and wanted a return to banging on about grammar schools, the birch, fox hunting, tax cuts at the expense of the disabled etc etc.
Comments
It bears a certain unfortunate resemblance to the way in which Cameron screwed up the renegotiation and referendum, and immediately washed his hands of the mess and walked away, which will not be lost on the Tories opponents.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/02/cabinet-war-tax-calls-end-austerity-spark-row-extra-money-will/
While Labour appear to be equally confused and divided over policy, being in opposition gives you that luxury without paying quite the same penalty:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/02/labour-chaos-corbyn-campaign-chief-suggests-left-wing-mps-may/
Unless the party decides to split completely....
And there is a large void in the political centre, only marginally occupied by the LibDems.
As I said a couple of days back, British politics is a complete mess.
It's not as if the new Tory leader - who is likely in cabinet now - will be campaigning against the Brexit deal just agreed/the exit bill just paid... The Tories own this process.
For another - support for a deal may be higher just after its signed - especially if people worried about not getting one at all?
http://www.politico.eu/article/david-davis-to-engage-business-leaders-on-brexit/
Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator David Davis is set to reach out this week to British business leaders by hosting a day-long conference at his private country residence.
There is still a question over whether she can last that long, what ever her or her grandees' intentions.
Linking her departure to Brexit just adds to reasons why Brextit might take a lot longer than some eager leavers appear to think.
What does need to happen though is for a reasonably long contest to happen, as in 2005, rather than a coronation. This is more diffficult in government than opposition, but the Tories need to have their discussions in public over a few months then decide what they want to offer at the next election in 2020 or 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/02/ukip-members-anne-marie-waters-anti-islam-far-right-fears
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40432921
What do the Tories do now? One question, three solutions
Matthew d'Ancona
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/03/tories-dup-deal-thatcherites-philip-hammond-ruth-davidson?CMP=twt_gu
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/03/more-nurses-and-midwives-leaving-uk-profession-than-joining-figures-reveal
All very depressing Monday morning news.
NHS cant plan it's staff requirements shock
Lady on TV quoted Uni fees as one of the major reasons people are being put off
I bought 3 kilos over the course of the week
Will she survive to 2019? That is a different question. The absolute maelstrom that she endured immediately after the election seems to have dissipated somewhat but it will just take another cloth eared remark to stir it all up again. She has almost no natural supporters or friends in the party and is vulnerable.
In the meantime we have a largely hamstrung PM. This probably means relatively little activity in most of the departments other than Brexit. Not necessarily a bad thing of course but it will make it more difficult for those not involved in that process to make any kind of a mark or maintain a media profile.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/The_Devil_Wears_Prada_main_onesheet.jpg
whatever she does they will put a negative slant on it
I've forgotten who introduced this nonsense, no doubt you'll remind me.
They don't need support, just prune back to six inches from the ground each year, they have a long fruiting season, from now until the first frosts and have good flavour.
Ain't market forces wonderful?
On another note, I was talking to an acquaintance this weekend who said to expect far more sprinkler systems to be retrofitted to tall buildings. One organisation had the task priced up for several buildings last year, only for it not to go ahead because of the cost. They're now trying to get the work scheduled, as their insurers have informed them of a rather large hike in insurance premiums ...
Its not surprising that some others think the party just might turn to them in their hour of need. Jim Hacker is a great role model.
Not sure this is wise. May's authority is damaged, but if she announces she's going then all eyes will be on either becoming her successor or currying favour with her successor.
A private agreement rather than a public announcement would make more sense.
Its why an ever decreasing number of people are deciding not to pay to train as a nurse.
Its taken a while but you're beginning to understand how it works, and that the party you belong to introduced. Its a bizarre world where we look upon media studies students as important as young nurses.
PYO seems to have disappeared in the last 15 years. Where I live there used to be loads of them now you really have to go searching for them
Not my party.
ty
To become a nurse you need a degree, to get a degree you pay tuition fees. Ask my friend's daughter who went through this a few years back.
The lib dems treat media studies students the same as aspiring nurses then you come on here bleating about staff shortages in the NHS.
Theresa May does not have 100% support of her cabinet and will decide that the longer she stays the more damage will be done. Most senior Tories will be thinking the same and the sooner a new leader takes over, the more chance the Tories have of securing Brexit and winning the next election.
The current reporting makes it sound as though every panel has failed the original tests, and therefore should not have been installed and someone is to blame!. Whereas if the panels passed the original tests, the blame might partially belong with a very different set: those who specified those tests.
And sadly, in the process the truth is being lost.
There's also a question about whether these new tests are valid. After all, it appears they mucked up the definition of the original tests, so why should they be believed these new tests are representative of real-world conditions?
It's all a blooming mess.
NHS nurses and other allied professions were entitled to bursaries until this year:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/21/nhs-bursaries-for-student-nurses-will-end-in-2017-government-confirms
"Student nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, including occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, podiatrists and radiographers, currently do not pay tuition fees. They receive a mixture of a non-means-tested bursary, a means-tested bursary and a reduced-rate student loan to help with their living costs."
Simply not sustainable for a career that pays sub-£35k
That's interesting, thanks. Do you have a source for that?
Day 2 - rest of summer - never want to eat another berry again.....
On raspberries, I agree with SquareRoot (not something I often say) that they're nicer (not least as you don't have to fiddle with them like strawberries to avoid the nasty hard stem), but the price - £2 a punnet - has stayed the same for years in every supermnarket that I go to, and the punnets don't seem to be getting smaller. Seems fair enough - far less hassle than growing the things (sorry, Jeremy).
https://www.allerdale.gov.uk/downloads/bca_guidance_note_18_use_of_combustible_cladding_materials_on_residential_buildings.pdf
Now, the reason R/3 sold so well is that it made great promises for how it could change and improve organisations. And, by and large, those promises were true. When a firm had moved to SAP, things did work better.
But installing (implementing) SAP could be a complex logistical nightmare that destroyed the careers of anyone who touched it. Budgets were blown out, with firms often spending more than 10x the cost of the software on “experts” (consultants) who helped with the implementation. Plans to get software installed in a six months often proved laughably optimistic, with go live often delayed years.
It turned out that changing the entire software system on which your organisation run was a greater challenge that the SAP salespeople let on when they were showing you fancy Powerpoint slides.
Brexit is like installing R/3. It’s a complex process with many dependencies.
Later, when post-mortems were done on R/3 implementations, it turned out that (while all of them were late and over budget), there were clear common factors between those that worked and those that didn’t.
Failed implementations usually had no greater plan than “install SAP”, and usually had a big bang mentality “on the first of January, we will go live on SAP worldwide!”. Successful ones had a tight plan with limited scope: “first we implement SAP Accounts Receivable on our Belgian subsidiary, and run it for three months to understand all the issues”.
Proponents of SAP implementation as a series of baby-steps were rarely popular. Their proposals usually involved spending a lot more money, and taking a lot more time. But their proposals actually worked. The big bang guys crashed and burned. And the fallout from their crashes often resulted in profit warnings, CEO resignations, and the end of more than one company.
Politicians: take note.
Joking aside, it's an awful analogy. Brexit is not an never was analogous to a back-office migration. It was a bet the company shift to a whole new business model - one that had already been tried in the company's past and failed, but no-one was around anymore who understand how and why so the new management had to learn the same mistakes all over again.
We are already at that stage in the Conservative Party's crisis when all of the obvious current leadership options have been discounted and so thoughts turn to an (unnamed, perhaps non-existent) bright young thing who will suddenly appear in March 2019 and save the party and the country.
He or she might begin by saying that some optimism is needed after the long, hard slog of Brexit. He or she might say that for too long the Tories have been having a different conversation to the one ordinary voters have been having.
"Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most.
"While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life - we were banging on about Europe.
"As they worried about standards in thousands of secondary schools, we obsessed about a handful more grammar schools.
"As rising expectations demanded a better NHS for everyone, we put our faith in opt-outs for a few.
"While people wanted, more than anything, stability and low mortgage rates, the first thing we talked about was tax cuts."
What an electrifying intervention this would be, refreshing and new. Except not new.
It was first delivered by David Cameron on October 1, 2006 at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth. Almost every sentence now echoes down the years as a warning against exactly what Theresa May offered the country. What goes around comes around.
In fact, that seems more than reasonable given that some of these materials will be used many times in similar environments. But this would not pick up on where the materials have altered over time, or manufacturing defects.
I still like my idea of a client (e.g. council, HA) being able to take random samples during construction and send them in for testing.
I also wonder if there is a large gap in the study of fire safety in structures: you will have the fire brigade, who understand fire causes and propagation very well, but not necessarily structural engineering; and architects / surveyors who understand structural engineering very well but not fire propagation.
The only thing less credible is @Richard_H suggestion of Gove as #2 to Boris...
Less success with summer raspberries. This is the first year I have had a proper crop, but I don't think I have supported them properly and pigeons are landing on then and because they grow on brittle old wood the plants snap and I lose most of the fruit. The deer also cropped the new growth for next year!
Frustrating growing fruit.
The problem would be convincing the country that the rest of the Tory party meant it. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
Also worth noting that the NHBC guidance allows use of sub-A2 insulation boards with B-grade external cladding, without even a desktop study, on the basis that they had reviewed lots of data from other tests and desktop studies. This guidance has now been withdrawn - this was on Newsnight recently. It had said that the specific insulation material at Grenfell (Celotex RS 5000) could be used with B-grade cladding, yet the manufacturer says it was only tested for use with A2 cladding.
The bottom line is that the intent of the regulations has been diluted by an inspection regime that has taken the job away from local authorities and allowed contractors to hire their own "approved inspectors", so there is no single body or arm of government upholding standards, and because sector bodies like the BCA and NHBC have issued guidance interpreting (and effectively watering down and/or introducing loopholes into) the regulations.
What happened?
The problem would be convincing the country that the rest of the Tory party meant it. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
Even more bizarrely, May was one of the very first to openly tell her party it needed to change. Way before Cameron.
What happened?
The pound shop Gordon Brown and her staff believed their own hype and concluded that the Tories made so many net gains in 2010 and 2015 in spite of Cameron not because of Cameron.
Ths fucking twats.
What happened?
The pound shop Gordon Brown and her staff believed their own hype and concluded that the Tories made so many net gains in 2010 and 2015 in spite of Cameron not because of Cameron.
Ths fucking twats.
But, she was already banging on about grammar schools months before the clusterf*** that was the campaign. She told Osborne to go out and discover his own party - the implication being that most members didn't believe in a word of what Cam/Os were on about and wanted a return to banging on about grammar schools, the birch, fox hunting, tax cuts at the expense of the disabled etc etc.