TBF they have the defence that they intended their terrorism law to be used against terrorists, and nobody could possibly have predicted that it would be used to harass journalists.
Obviously every non-bonkers person knew that once people in authority got a power they could abuse they'd abuse it, but the Labour people have plausible deniability here.
The party political angle aside, everyone should be able to agree that once the law has been abused like this it obviously needs to be fixed so it only does what it says on the tin.
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
This article will help understand the situation
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth
Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Dammit. All those point scoring during the last month when Ed was away and has "no policies" and it ends with the Tories losing 4 points
Last month? That's four points since Friday. Before that we had Populus Con scores of 33, 33, 29, 34, 32, 32, 31, 31. So today's figure is more in line with those, last week's looks like a bit of an outlier. The Labour score is the joint lowest since Populus reappeared, it has been 38-40 since mid July. labour leads have been 6, 3, 6, 5, 11, 5, 7, 7, 8, 7, so allowing for the outliers (3 and 11) it looks like the Labour lead might have softened by a point or two. The average lead from all pollers over the last week seems to be settling out at just under 6 (or just over if we include the IPSOS MORI poll).
I think you will find that if we really had a proper PR system both the Tories and labour will lose support. Greens would definitely benefit. I think there is a 8 - 10% hidden Green support which does not necessarily manifest itself due to the "wasted vote" syndrome. UKIP will also occupy a significant proportion. I would put it at about 8 - 10%. Again they would benefit from getting rid of the wasted vote argument.
In fact, the LD's could also suffer as I believe many of their current votes are [ were ] current Labour or Tory supporters trying to deny the other getting in.
At least, PR would make an honest voter out of me !
Of course, under PR everything would change.
However, I was referring to how the campaign would be framed, not to the reality of what would happen if we did have PR.
I agree with you that 80% of the Tory party and 20% of the Labour Party would have a powerful slogan: "If you want to keep Clegg permanently, vote PR"
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Richard, Thought you were one of the more intelligent PB Tories
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Why dont the local council do something about this, these houses have been empty for years, It is horrendous around there, to see the fortunes being spent on football against the surrounding area (some derelict houses within 2 metres of the Shankley gates) is madness
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Richard, Thought you were one of the more intelligent PB Tories
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Why dont the local council do something about this, these houses have been empty for years, It is horrendous around there, to see the fortunes being spent on football against the surrounding area (some derelict houses within 2 metres of the Shankley gates) is madness
The new plans to redevelop Anfield will see those houses demolished.
TBF they have the defence that they intended their terrorism law to be used against terrorists, and nobody could possibly have predicted that it would be used to harass journalists.
The implication of the article is that Miranda was detained in order to harrass his partner, Greenwald. However, Miranda seems to be involved "While in Berlin, Miranda had visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian. The Guardian paid for Miranda's flights." Given that they confiscated all his electronic equipment, they might have suspected he might have information that could be of use to terrorists.
Having said that, it seems neither reasonable nor proportionate to me.
Sadly true. That happens when we try to out-Tory the Tories.
There are presumably some authoritarians in the Tory party, but a true conservative would oppose this on the grounds that it violates traditional civil liberties and the rule of law - concepts that you lefties don't even have in your lexicon.
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Richard, Thought you were one of the more intelligent PB Tories
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Why dont the local council do something about this, these houses have been empty for years, It is horrendous around there, to see the fortunes being spent on football against the surrounding area (some derelict houses within 2 metres of the Shankley gates) is madness
Liverpool and Everton should have built a shared 70,000 seater stadium a decade ago on the waterfront, but English football is run by self indulgent destructive cretins.
They tried, but in those days, Everton didn't have a pot to piss in, and wanted Liverpool to pay for the the Stadium, and Everton would repay Liverpool over fifty years.
David Moores quite rightly told Everton no way.
Edit: They also tried to get the council to pay for it, who also said no way, if only Derek Hatton was in charge when they asked
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Richard, Thought you were one of the more intelligent PB Tories
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Why dont the local council do something about this, these houses have been empty for years, It is horrendous around there, to see the fortunes being spent on football against the surrounding area (some derelict houses within 2 metres of the Shankley gates) is madness
Liverpool and Everton should have built a shared 70,000 seater stadium a decade ago on the waterfront, but English football is run by self indulgent, hubristic, destructive cretins.
It's sad then we after lose to of the oldest grounds in football with great history.
Goodison park and Dixie Dean,will always go together.
Perhaps Liverpool council could ape the plans of their brothas and sistas at Camden, who are planning a 'ghost town' tax on empty properties in their borough (Telegraph)??
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Richard, Thought you were one of the more intelligent PB Tories
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Why dont the local council do something about this, these houses have been empty for years, It is horrendous around there, to see the fortunes being spent on football against the surrounding area (some derelict houses within 2 metres of the Shankley gates) is madness
The new plans to redevelop Anfield will see those houses demolished.
The redevelopment is years away, to my mind it is truly awful that an area that should be a major tourist destination and has such incredible heritage is being left to rot in this manner. Liverpool FC and the local council should be ashamed.
Totally o/t, I had a trip to Anfield on Saturday (free ticket). This was my first visit to Liverpool. I was flabbergasted by the state of the area around Anfield, Row upon row of boarded up and derelict houses. Right next to the Shankley gates overlooking where £100 grand a week footballers get out of the team coach was a three story derelict building, smashed windows etc. There were loads of foreign tourists there and they were looking pretty shocked by the state of the place. Its madness, how can Liverpool FC and the local council allow this situation to continue. It would look much better if they just knocked all the houses down. Very weird.
You don't have to look very far to discover what happened:
Richard, Thought you were one of the more intelligent PB Tories
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
Why dont the local council do something about this, these houses have been empty for years, It is horrendous around there, to see the fortunes being spent on football against the surrounding area (some derelict houses within 2 metres of the Shankley gates) is madness
The new plans to redevelop Anfield will see those houses demolished.
The redevelopment is years away, to my mind it is truly awful that an area that should be a major tourist destination and has such incredible heritage is being left to rot in this manner. Liverpool FC and the local council should be ashamed.
All being well, the redevelopment will be begng and be completed within 3 to 4 years.
Regardless to the specifics of the Anfield mess, Pathfinder was an absolute disaster.
Any Labour supporter talking about new policies for housing should address Pathfinder first: will they admit that Pathfinder was a terrible policy, and will they address its failures in any new policy?
Shocking X-ray: Doctors remove fork from penis of 70-year-old Australian man
The case is considered so unusual it has been written-up by three doctors in the International Journal of Surgery Case Report
....The Canberra Times says he told doctors he had inserted the piece of cutlery into his urethra almost 12 hours earlier in an attempt to achieve sexual gratification, but the fork - perhaps unsurprisingly - became stuck.......
By-election in Brighton Pavilion? the Times says Caroline Lucas says she is prepared to be arrested today over the fracking protests.
IIUC being in prison isn't traditionally considered incompatible with representing your constituency as a member of parliament, as long as the sentence isn't too long (a year?).
By-election in Brighton Pavilion? the Times says Caroline Lucas says she is prepared to be arrested today over the fracking protests.
IIUC being in prison isn't traditionally considered incompatible with representing your constituency as a member of parliament, as long as the sentence isn't too long (a year?).
Yup a 12 month sentence leads to a by-election, however in the expenses trials, even those sentenced to less than 12 months came under pressure to resign as an MP, and did so.
By-election in Brighton Pavilion? the Times says Caroline Lucas says she is prepared to be arrested today over the fracking protests.
IIUC being in prison isn't traditionally considered incompatible with representing your constituency as a member of parliament, as long as the sentence isn't too long (a year?).
Yup a 12 month sentence leads to a by-election, however in the expenses trials, even those sentenced to less than 12 months came under pressure to resign as an MP, and did so.
Right, so probably no by-election for somebody imprisoned on a point of principle. (As long as it isn't the principle that MPs don't get as much money as they should).
"It’s time for Labour to face an unpalatable fact. All those people who told the pollsters they couldn’t see Miliband as prime minister were telling the truth.
Labour’s leader is broken. The public have made their minds up about him, and they won’t be changing them this side of an election. It’s not a matter of more time, or getting to know him better, or him shouting louder, or listening harder. He has joined the ranks of those politicians that voters look at and think: “Nah, hasn’t got it”."
Ouch, LOL!
I'd love to see Hodges and Tim have a bust up on PB.
Talking about ouch, from the article
"Surveys show that Ed Miliband is viewed as the new Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma. Fred Goodwin enjoys greater public trust on the economy than his Treasury team."
By-election in Brighton Pavilion? the Times says Caroline Lucas says she is prepared to be arrested today over the fracking protests.
IIUC being in prison isn't traditionally considered incompatible with representing your constituency as a member of parliament, as long as the sentence isn't too long (a year?).
Yup a 12 month sentence leads to a by-election, however in the expenses trials, even those sentenced to less than 12 months came under pressure to resign as an MP, and did so.
Right, so probably no by-election for somebody imprisoned on a point of principle. (As long as it isn't the principle that MPs don't get as much money as they should).
Depends what she does/is charged with.
IIRC - George Foulkes continued as an MP after punching a policewoman.
When I want to go for an extremely quiet and relaxing walk, I sometimes stroll round Stowe Pool in Lichfield. Now it turns out Cuadrilla's headquarters are located right next to it. Hopefully the protests will be short-lived.
This really is beyond the pale - the RPSCA has access to the police national computer database and the firearms licensing section. There is a campaign by animal rights activists to identify these people and get their licences revoked.
"...But Sadiq’s reported plans are significant beyond the actual policy itself. It had barely been announced when a breathless Lib Dem spokesman started hyperventilating about how great this all was, and that this made a post-election deal with Labour all the more likely. And suddenly the light dawned, and the broader strategy was illuminated.
Votes at 16 isn’t being demanded by anyone, least of all 16-year-olds who, oddly, have more important things to do with their time than worry about who to vote for. Teenagers, eh? Tch! But it’s exactly the kind of middle-class dinner party issue that tofu eaters throughout the country get really excited about. And that certainly includes Nick Clegg’s minions. Not for them the irritating and, frankly, dull issues of unemployment and the cost of living. If Labour is starting to move away from talking about real life issues to talking instead about irrelevant, niche subjects that will impress and affect nobody, then that’s sending a very clear message to the Lib Dems: you can do business with us.
Cue much talk of the “realignment of the Left”, as mythological a beast as the Loch Ness Monster, only far less believable. Setting aside the paradox that a party that has spent the last three years keeping David Cameron in Downing Street can still be considered as remotely “Left”, there are some in Labour’s own ranks who yearn for the chance to reshape British politics by uniting the “progressive” (there’s that word again) forces against the evil Tories. Perhaps they might even prefer a Lab-Lib coalition to an outright Labour majority. When you start drawing up policies to impress the Lib Dems, it certainly gives the impression that you’re planning for failure, rather than preparing for majority rule post-2015..."
We're going to continue using fossil fuels for a long time. The only question is whether or not we carry on enriching Saudi Arabia or get it ourselves.
Mr. M, not fracking only makes sense if others do likewise.
If we don't frack and everyone else does whilst China and India and Brazil continue to industrialise at a fantastic rate then global carbon dioxide emissions will soar. All not fracking in the UK would achieve would be to damage our economy.
Climate experts have been repeatedly proven to be wrong yet each mistake only seems to enlarge their hubris. Whatever happened to snowfall becoming a rarity, with children asking their parents what snow was?
"I'd like to know what Dan Hodges' motives are. He's a good and entertaining writer but he really does appear viscerally bitter towards Ed Miliband.
Is he a crypto-Tory? If he is, then fair enough. His pieces are a huge help to the Tories; a supposed Labour supporter, with a Labour MP mother, so implacably against Ed Miliband's leadership.
Is he a Labour supporter? If he is, then surely he needs to wind his neck in, because every week he abuses his leader and Ed Miliband could do without it.
My guess is that he is a New Labour supporter so bitter at the usurping of David Miliband's leadership ......................"
Interesting muse. I suspect like a lot of careerists his interest is in what he thinks will impress his employers. I think seanT has spelt out the motivation of Hodges very articulately (with regard to himself). Looking for the sort of motivation which fires up posters on here is way too high minded.
Mr. M, not fracking only makes sense if others do likewise.
If we don't frack and everyone else does whilst China and India and Brazil continue to industrialise at a fantastic rate then global carbon dioxide emissions will soar. All not fracking in the UK would achieve would be to damage our economy.
Climate experts have been repeatedly proven to be wrong yet each mistake only seems to enlarge their hubris. Whatever happened to snowfall becoming a rarity, with children asking their parents what snow was?
Thanks to the location of the British Isles, we are uniquely well placed to develop wind, wave and tidal renewable energy technology, which we could then sell to other countries when they exhaust their hydrocarbon supplies.
As it is, we've messed things up so badly over the last few decades that we are paying other countries for the few wind turbines that we are putting up.
If you play around with these average maps, you will see that the number of days on which snow has fallen, or been lying on the ground, has declined over recent decades.
The Dr famously quoted in the Independent was being a trifle over-dramatic, but that does not refute the diligent work of many other scientists over many other years.
.. and therefore burn more coal (which releases more CO2 for a given energy output, as well as SO2 and other nasties) instead.
Was there ever a more utterly off-the-wall, swivel-eyed bonkers, argument than those opposing drilling for natural gas on climate-change grounds?
You've forgotten methane leakage and the gargantuan amount of water required in the process.
The water issue alone pretty much kills fracking as a solution in the South, while I wonder why the northern fields have seen no activity yet despite Osborne's desperate attempts to woo frackers?
This is why it was grossly irresponsible - as well as typically shortsighted - of Osborne to attack subsidies for investment in renewables.
Was there ever a more utterly off-the-wall, swivel-eyed bonkers, argument than opposing drilling for natural gas on climate-change grounds?
On whatever grounds fracking is being opposed, a rag tag rent-a-mob have been able to shut down the activities of a legitimate company going about its lawful business.
Mr. Me, a trifle over-dramatic? He reckoned snowfall would practically cease to happen within a decade or so. That's not a trifle, that's as accurate a prediction as Blair's WMD.
Decades and centuries earlier the Thames completely froze, and we had a nice warm period in the Middle Ages. Such variance happens naturally, as part of the climate change that has always occurred and will always occur.
I agree, incidentally, that we should look at developing tidal (and hydroelectric). Wind's rubbish, but tidal/hydroelectric sounds like a much better bet (being a river-covered island with plenty of rain).
Missed the morning threads so wondered if anyone has yet posted this damning indictment by Dan Hodges of "weak, weak, weak" Ed Miliband?
"Surveys show that Ed Miliband is viewed as the new Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma. Fred Goodwin enjoys greater public trust on the economy than his Treasury team."
My apologies if it has been posted before.
"Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma".
There is no option but to keep repeating it is there?
"Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma"
.. and therefore burn more coal (which releases more CO2 for a given energy output, as well as SO2 and other nasties) instead.
Was there ever a more utterly off-the-wall, swivel-eyed bonkers, argument than opposing drilling for natural gas on climate-change grounds?
It is not a forced choice between coal and gas.
If we don't develop the technology to generate energy without burning hydrocarbons, we will still end up burning the coal anyway, once we've used up the gas.
Yes, and I may have been understating the case slightly. You will end up chasing shadows for eternity if you will forever fail to recognise nuance and hyperbole. Though I will grant that sometimes it is unintended, but this simply makes it more amusing.
Decades and centuries earlier the Thames completely froze, and we had a nice warm period in the Middle Ages. Such variance happens naturally, as part of the climate change that has always occurred and will always occur.
You are making an error of logic. The climate does not change by a process of magic - there is some cause.
It is possible for the climate to change because of different causes at different points in time.
The fact that the climate has changed in the past means that it is possible for causes to have the effect of changing the climate - and now there is a new cause that is changing the climate (our burning of fossil fuels), to add to a number of natural causes (volcanoes, solar variation, etc).
You've forgotten methane leakage and the gargantuan amount of water required in the process.
The water issue alone pretty much kills fracking as a solution in the South, while I wonder why the northern fields have seen no activity yet despite Osborne's desperate attempts to woo frackers?
This is why it was grossly irresponsible - as well as typically shortsighted - of Osborne to attack subsidies for investment in renewables.
I haven't forgotten anything. The plain, irrefutable fact, is that gas-fired power generation is produces less CO2 than coal-fired power generation, which we still have. Therefore, those who argue against shale gas exploitation on the grounds that they want us to reduce CO2 emissions are plain bonkers.
Of course there may be other grounds to argue against it, but, on climate-change grounds, we should be speeding up the conversion to gas, not slowing it down and therefore retaining coal-fired capacity.
Since this is so clear and so irrefutable, the only remaining question is what bizarre piece of irrationality posseses those who claim to be using climate-change as an argument against fracking.
Of course it is. The coal-fired stations are running, today. Every extra MW we produce by gas is one less MW we need to produce from coal.
If you're worried about CO2 emissions, you should be directing your protest at the lack of progress in replacing coal with gas, or, in the longer term, nuclear, and to a small extent wind, tide etc. But no-one even remotely close to being in their right mind thinks we can do without coal & gas in the shortish term ( a few years).
Of course it is. The coal-fired stations are running, today. Every extra MW we produce by gas is one less MW we need to produce from coal.
If you're worried about CO2 emissions, you should be directing your protest at the lack of progress in replacing coal with gas, or, in the longer term, nuclear, and to a small extent wind, tide etc. But no-one even remotely close to being in their right mind thinks we can do without coal & gas in the shortish term ( a few years).
The company that builds a new gas-fired power station today will want assurances that they can continue to burn gas in it for the whole of its lifespan - about 30 years? - in order that they can get a return on their investment.
Switching from coal to gas now simply locks us in to burning gas for a long time, which makes it harder to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the extent of global warming. We should replace coal and gas with as wide a variety of other energy sources as possible.
Protestors put a wind turbine blade on Francis Maude's constituency office, temporarily bringing the average age of premises visitors down below 70. It's a lot bigger than Dave's tiny posing turbine, do we know what happened to that?
I think someone worked out how many years it would take for the tiny rooftop turbine to produce enough electricity to make a cup of tea for his driver, and they gave up on it.
The company that builds a new gas-fired power station today will want assurances that they can continue to burn gas in it for the whole of its lifespan - about 30 years? - in order that they can get a return on their investment.
Switching from coal to gas now simply locks us in to burning gas for a long time, which makes it harder to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the extent of global warming. We should replace coal and gas with as wide a variety of other energy sources as possible.
We're already putting massive investment into burning gas, using imported LNG from areas of the world which are not necessarily going to be stable for 30 years:
The choice isn't between nasty shale gas and clean cuddly wind. It's between shale gas and either nastier coal, or imported natural gas, or both (assuming of course that the shale gas is there and exploitable reasonably easily, which remains to be seen).
That should read pictures of camera men trying to take pictures of Ms Lucas, who is nowhere to be seen.
I walked past Bell Pottinger's HQ on High Holborn earlier and saw the anti-frack protest there. I couldn't see the idiots who'd glued themselves to whatever, there was a a tiny crowd of (about 10) protesters, a reasonable crowd of photographers (20ish) all outnumbered by cops (more than 30)
The choice isn't between nasty shale gas and clean cuddly wind.
My contention is that we should work out how to generate the energy we need without hydrocarbons. Some time ago the British Government agreed, and they asked the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution to work out how this could be done. This body produced a report, more than a decade ago, setting out a number of different alternative ways this could be done - with minimal use of coal or gas, imported or otherwise.
Since then little has happened. One assumes that the Government of the day decided that commissioning a report was progress enough for that decade, and they distracted themselves with borrowing money at ruinously high interest rates so they could have photo opportunities opening new buildings.
Nevertheless, we continue to possess alternatives to hydrocarbons, including wind, which I actually find a bit scary close to, with the tips of the blades spinning round at more than 70mph, but also a variety of other technologies.
For what it is worth, I'm tired of the protesting paradigm of opposing things, and think campaigners would be more successful advocating for superior alternatives. Given the way the energy market is set up at the moment the likely effect of not fracking in the UK will be money leaving the country to pay for imported gas or coal, and no net benefit for carbon emissions.
""For what it is worth, I'm tired of the protesting paradigm of opposing things, and think campaigners would be more successful advocating for superior alternatives.""
The protestors mentality is 'no energy to be produced by methods we don't like, regardless of demand'
Words cannot express my contempt for that attitude.
Cole Moreton @ColeMoreton There is no fracking for gas at #Balcombe. Protesting against it there is like going to a pig farm and shouting, "Stop the seal cull!"
""For what it is worth, I'm tired of the protesting paradigm of opposing things, and think campaigners would be more successful advocating for superior alternatives.""
The protestors mentality is 'no energy to be produced by methods we don't like, regardless of demand'
Words cannot express my contempt for that attitude.
I've had a bunch of angry messages from Islington Balcombites who appear to be against something they really know nothing about - are anti nuclear - but won't knock coal mining and are tweeting from their iPhones.
""For what it is worth, I'm tired of the protesting paradigm of opposing things, and think campaigners would be more successful advocating for superior alternatives.""
The protestors mentality is 'no energy to be produced by methods we don't like, regardless of demand'
Words cannot express my contempt for that attitude.
I've had a bunch of angry messages from Islington Balcombites who appear to be against something they really know nothing about - are anti nuclear - but won't knock coal mining and are tweeting from their iPhones.
The inconsistency of their position is epic.
Arguably the most elegant lefty conundrum of all is the coal mining/climate change paradox.
Oh look there is another article by Dan Hodges saying Ed is crap.
Oh look in the article it says Labours lead is crumbling.
Oh look there is yet another poll where Labour is in the 36%-40% bracket.
Repeat ad nauseum until election day :-)
Using every poll, from all the pollsters and all the different ways they work them out between today and 25th August 2010, 95.43 % of polls have shown Labour in the 36%-40% bracket.
Comments
Obviously every non-bonkers person knew that once people in authority got a power they could abuse they'd abuse it, but the Labour people have plausible deniability here.
The party political angle aside, everyone should be able to agree that once the law has been abused like this it obviously needs to be fixed so it only does what it says on the tin.
I guess if my plans for a Directly elected Dictator happened, that too would reduce the betting market.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/27/liverpool-rotting-housing-renewal-pathfinder
Labour, and John Prescott in particular.
Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth
Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline
http://www.theguardian.com/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2013/may/06/anfield-liverpool-david-conn
Sometimes, it did work though. CCTV cameras are hugely popular in difficult areas an dhas cut crime.
That's why they are being left as they are.
http://www.thisisanfield.com/2013/06/anfield-project-redevelopment-plans-revealed/
Having said that, it seems neither reasonable nor proportionate to me.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/5221188/Iceland-votes-after-the-economic-meltdown.html
David Moores quite rightly told Everton no way.
Edit: They also tried to get the council to pay for it, who also said no way, if only Derek Hatton was in charge when they asked
Goodison park and Dixie Dean,will always go together.
Perhaps Liverpool council could ape the plans of their brothas and sistas at Camden, who are planning a 'ghost town' tax on empty properties in their borough (Telegraph)??
The new stadium funding deal was the reason for Moores selling the club, to Hicks and Gillette, a decision that club has yet to recover from.
Liverpool are more interested in supporters in Singapore than Speke.
Any Labour supporter talking about new policies for housing should address Pathfinder first: will they admit that Pathfinder was a terrible policy, and will they address its failures in any new policy?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/19/slum-clearance-housing-failed
http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/campaign.php?id=144
http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/campaign.php?id=193
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3313642/MPs-condemn-disastrous-pathfinder-scheme.html
http://www.rudi.net/node/19846
As I have said passim, we do not need to be building new houses. We need to be building new communities.
The case is considered so unusual it has been written-up by three doctors in the International Journal of Surgery Case Report
....The Canberra Times says he told doctors he had inserted the piece of cutlery into his urethra almost 12 hours earlier in an attempt to achieve sexual gratification, but the fork - perhaps unsurprisingly - became stuck.......
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/shocking-xray-doctors-remove-fork-from-penis-of-70yearold-australian-man-8774501.html
Good for her. Standing up for what she believes in.
Thing is, the atmosphere that the supporters create is a big part of the premiership product.
Maybe one day clubs will pay supporters to turn up and hate each other.
siobhan kennedy @siobhankennedy4 1h
Caroline Lucas MP for brighton pavilion tells me she's prepared to be arrested today over #fracking pic.twitter.com/y2YT1GMzaK
"Surveys show that Ed Miliband is viewed as the new Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma. Fred Goodwin enjoys greater public trust on the economy than his Treasury team."
IIRC - George Foulkes continued as an MP after punching a policewoman.
Here's Owen Jones
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BSCGJxBCIAAJuGz.jpg:large
Given the RSPCA's rather dubious lurch into the whole animal rights movement - this is a very unwelcome precident http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/19/rscpa_firearms_info/
http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2013/08/19/bbc-bias-and-statistical-nonsense/
"...But Sadiq’s reported plans are significant beyond the actual policy itself. It had barely been announced when a breathless Lib Dem spokesman started hyperventilating about how great this all was, and that this made a post-election deal with Labour all the more likely. And suddenly the light dawned, and the broader strategy was illuminated.
Votes at 16 isn’t being demanded by anyone, least of all 16-year-olds who, oddly, have more important things to do with their time than worry about who to vote for. Teenagers, eh? Tch! But it’s exactly the kind of middle-class dinner party issue that tofu eaters throughout the country get really excited about. And that certainly includes Nick Clegg’s minions. Not for them the irritating and, frankly, dull issues of unemployment and the cost of living. If Labour is starting to move away from talking about real life issues to talking instead about irrelevant, niche subjects that will impress and affect nobody, then that’s sending a very clear message to the Lib Dems: you can do business with us.
Cue much talk of the “realignment of the Left”, as mythological a beast as the Loch Ness Monster, only far less believable. Setting aside the paradox that a party that has spent the last three years keeping David Cameron in Downing Street can still be considered as remotely “Left”, there are some in Labour’s own ranks who yearn for the chance to reshape British politics by uniting the “progressive” (there’s that word again) forces against the evil Tories. Perhaps they might even prefer a Lab-Lib coalition to an outright Labour majority. When you start drawing up policies to impress the Lib Dems, it certainly gives the impression that you’re planning for failure, rather than preparing for majority rule post-2015..."
'Climate experts “surer than ever”: It’s our fault' by Lindsay Abrams (@readingirl) at @Salon #IPCC #AR5 http://fb.me/1sbwDmyo9
So keep shale gas in the ground.
If we don't frack and everyone else does whilst China and India and Brazil continue to industrialise at a fantastic rate then global carbon dioxide emissions will soar. All not fracking in the UK would achieve would be to damage our economy.
Climate experts have been repeatedly proven to be wrong yet each mistake only seems to enlarge their hubris. Whatever happened to snowfall becoming a rarity, with children asking their parents what snow was?
"I'd like to know what Dan Hodges' motives are. He's a good and entertaining writer but he really does appear viscerally bitter towards Ed Miliband.
Is he a crypto-Tory? If he is, then fair enough. His pieces are a huge help to the Tories; a supposed Labour supporter, with a Labour MP mother, so implacably against Ed Miliband's leadership.
Is he a Labour supporter? If he is, then surely he needs to wind his neck in, because every week he abuses his leader and Ed Miliband could do without it.
My guess is that he is a New Labour supporter so bitter at the usurping of David Miliband's leadership ......................"
Interesting muse. I suspect like a lot of careerists his interest is in what he thinks will impress his employers. I think seanT has spelt out the motivation of Hodges very articulately (with regard to himself). Looking for the sort of motivation which fires up posters on here is way too high minded.
Think Shylock.
Was there ever a more utterly off-the-wall, swivel-eyed bonkers, argument than opposing drilling for natural gas on climate-change grounds?
As it is, we've messed things up so badly over the last few decades that we are paying other countries for the few wind turbines that we are putting up.
If you play around with these average maps, you will see that the number of days on which snow has fallen, or been lying on the ground, has declined over recent decades.
The Dr famously quoted in the Independent was being a trifle over-dramatic, but that does not refute the diligent work of many other scientists over many other years.
The water issue alone pretty much kills fracking as a solution in the South, while I wonder why the northern fields have seen no activity yet despite Osborne's desperate attempts to woo frackers?
This is why it was grossly irresponsible - as well as typically shortsighted - of Osborne to attack subsidies for investment in renewables.
On whatever grounds fracking is being opposed, a rag tag rent-a-mob have been able to shut down the activities of a legitimate company going about its lawful business.
What is the government doing about it?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
Decades and centuries earlier the Thames completely froze, and we had a nice warm period in the Middle Ages. Such variance happens naturally, as part of the climate change that has always occurred and will always occur.
I agree, incidentally, that we should look at developing tidal (and hydroelectric). Wind's rubbish, but tidal/hydroelectric sounds like a much better bet (being a river-covered island with plenty of rain).
Missed the morning threads so wondered if anyone has yet posted this damning indictment by Dan Hodges of "weak, weak, weak" Ed Miliband?
"Surveys show that Ed Miliband is viewed as the new Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma. Fred Goodwin enjoys greater public trust on the economy than his Treasury team."
My apologies if it has been posted before.
"Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma".
There is no option but to keep repeating it is there?
"Nick Clegg, but without the gravitas and charisma"
My, oh, my!
If we don't develop the technology to generate energy without burning hydrocarbons, we will still end up burning the coal anyway, once we've used up the gas.
It is possible for the climate to change because of different causes at different points in time.
The fact that the climate has changed in the past means that it is possible for causes to have the effect of changing the climate - and now there is a new cause that is changing the climate (our burning of fossil fuels), to add to a number of natural causes (volcanoes, solar variation, etc).
Of course there may be other grounds to argue against it, but, on climate-change grounds, we should be speeding up the conversion to gas, not slowing it down and therefore retaining coal-fired capacity.
Since this is so clear and so irrefutable, the only remaining question is what bizarre piece of irrationality posseses those who claim to be using climate-change as an argument against fracking.
http://www.total.com/en/special-reports/shale-gas/environmental-challenges-201958.html
If you're worried about CO2 emissions, you should be directing your protest at the lack of progress in replacing coal with gas, or, in the longer term, nuclear, and to a small extent wind, tide etc. But no-one even remotely close to being in their right mind thinks we can do without coal & gas in the shortish term ( a few years).
Switching from coal to gas now simply locks us in to burning gas for a long time, which makes it harder to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the extent of global warming. We should replace coal and gas with as wide a variety of other energy sources as possible.
Huzzah !!
And here I was thinking her heart wasn't in it.
http://gcaptain.com/britains-import-prices-rival/
http://www.euractiv.com/energy/europes-largest-lng-terminal-ope-news-221844
The choice isn't between nasty shale gas and clean cuddly wind. It's between shale gas and either nastier coal, or imported natural gas, or both (assuming of course that the shale gas is there and exploitable reasonably easily, which remains to be seen).
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has been arrested at anti-fracking protest in Balcombe in West Sussex
Predictable...
That should read pictures of camera men trying to take pictures of Ms Lucas, who is nowhere to be seen.
http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2013-08-19/pictures-mp-caroline-lucas-arrested/
The Greens need to smarten up.
Conviction politics, (no pun intended) is always to be admired imho – even if the reasoning behind it is barmy.
Since then little has happened. One assumes that the Government of the day decided that commissioning a report was progress enough for that decade, and they distracted themselves with borrowing money at ruinously high interest rates so they could have photo opportunities opening new buildings.
Nevertheless, we continue to possess alternatives to hydrocarbons, including wind, which I actually find a bit scary close to, with the tips of the blades spinning round at more than 70mph, but also a variety of other technologies.
For what it is worth, I'm tired of the protesting paradigm of opposing things, and think campaigners would be more successful advocating for superior alternatives. Given the way the energy market is set up at the moment the likely effect of not fracking in the UK will be money leaving the country to pay for imported gas or coal, and no net benefit for carbon emissions.
Caroline was desperate to get arrested so she could posture about it. Sitting in the middle of the road and announcing 'I'm willing to be arrested'
Pfft.
The protestors mentality is 'no energy to be produced by methods we don't like, regardless of demand'
Words cannot express my contempt for that attitude.
There is no fracking for gas at #Balcombe. Protesting against it there is like going to a pig farm and shouting, "Stop the seal cull!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q9yDfJturtw
both btl commentators and editorial (as evidenced by graun contributors and "top picks") not thrilled with Chuka's master strategy.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/insecurity-zero-hours-contracts
The inconsistency of their position is epic.
Oh look in the article it says Labours lead is crumbling.
Oh look there is yet another poll where Labour is in the 36%-40% bracket.
Repeat ad nauseum until election day :-)
Using every poll, from all the pollsters and all the different ways they work them out between today and 25th August 2010, 95.43 % of polls have shown Labour in the 36%-40% bracket.
If that is not steady……what is?