This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
Papers reporting that his wife will accuse him of being a serial adulterer
She reads the papers then? Of course Boris is a serial adulterer. Everyone knows that, including his wife, and everyone knows his wife knows. Wasn't it Max Hastings who, when Boris asked him about running for Mayor, told him to keep his trousers zipped up?
As I said a moment ago, people will generally forgive someone martial infidelity as it is often human frailty, and lets face it, it happens to some people. Serial adultery is a different matter though. To continuously cheat on someone says something very bad about an individual's character, and suggests (if we need any further evidence) that he is an excessively flawed man with an overinflated ego and lacking a sense of decency and honesty. Add to that he is also a buffoon and has shown complete incompetence when Foreign Secretary. Would you give him a job? I certainly wouldn't.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
Papers reporting that his wife will accuse him of being a serial adulterer
And Steve Baker saying upto 80 conservative mps will take Chequers down and split the party while 12 colleagues have said they will resign from the party if Boris becomes leader ( and I would join them)
If Baker and ERG vote down TM's deal I will join the demand for a second referendum
But, why now? Why was this affair that broke the camel’s back?
Boris is a narcissist. Could it be he blamed his wife for talking him into supporting Brexit, and thus “ruining” his career? Nothing to do with him. Did she take umbrage at that and there were several flaming stand-up rows?
It wouldn’t surprise me. I trust May more than Boris on Brexit.
I imagine she stayed as long as she could, he’s probably told her he’d behave himself once too often, and she can’t take the humiliation of seeing him on the front pages with his trousers down again.
They’ve also recently packed the youngest child off to university which is a huge inflexion point for many parents, she may feel it’s now or never.
Ignorance of NI Secretaries is nothing new. There was a good story of one of the multitude of NI Secretaries under Blair being shown a map which showed the areas of Catholic and Protestant strength. He asked what the large blue bit was. Oh, that's lough neagh came the answer.
NI has always been different and has become more so over the years. When the SDLP sat with Labour and the Ulster Unionists sat with the Tories the fact that they had different political parties wasn't so obvious but with the virtual collapse of those two and the domination of the DUP and Sinn Fein their role in UK politics is normally much diminished. The Catholics are pretty much excluded altogether by the decisions of Sinn Fein not to sit in the Commons.
Add in the NI assembly by which they are making their own laws and the largely incomprehensible (to anyone in the UK outside west Scotland) obsession of division by religion and we have a country of which we know little and understand less. At the moment the DUP are playing an important role in the Commons and the Assembly is not sitting but when we return to more normal times it is not hard to see NI drifting away from a country it has limited amounts in common with.
Agree with most of what you say except the last sentence. I went to school in Northern Ireland although it was quite a few years ago, has it really changed that much that the Protestant majority would meekly acquiesce in a united Ireland?
You are in a much better position to judge than me. I was rather focusing on the British viewpoint. The Northern Irish are not integrated into the UK in the way that Scotland and Wales are and have chosen to be different. I agree with Keiran that on this side of the water there is likely to be more than a fair amount of indifference. Whether this would last if, say, 200k NI protestants decided they were leaving and coming to the mainland who can tell?
An interesting question is whether the Irish republic has the civil or military apparatus to control and maintain peace in Northern Ireland, particularly in the solidly Unionist areas that on these numbers would (still) wish 75%+ to stay in the UK.
Not a problem I’d like to have as Taioseach.
They dont
the Garda struggle to control the drug gangs of North Dublin
Logical fallacy. That is akin to saying, “they don’t, the Met struggle to control the drug gangs of East London.”
I suggest you read up on whats going on in Dublin, it's probably the biggest law and order the RoI faces
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
I have repeatedly said that Javid would make a good Tory leader. Alright he’s a bit boring but he would be up against Corbyn so that would be fine. It would also make a compelling story for the BBC, who it is important to get on board. The road in Bristol where he grew up doesn’t really chime with the normal image of Tories. I think we would need to see him in a media glare to get a real idea, but he seemed to handle Windrush well, although he came in at the end.
oh if we're talking about Boris does it really need saying that he is an utter, utter tw&t and says utterly tw*tish things this latest being just one of them.
I have repeatedly said that Javid would make a good Tory leader. Alright he’s a bit boring but he would be up against Corbyn so that would be fine. It would also make a compelling story for the BBC, who it is important to get on board. The road in Bristol where he grew up doesn’t really chime with the normal image of Tories. I think we would need to see him in a media glare to get a real idea, but he seemed to handle Windrush well, although he came in at the end.
I have repeatedly said that Javid would make a good Tory leader. Alright he’s a bit boring but he would be up against Corbyn so that would be fine. It would also make a compelling story for the BBC, who it is important to get on board. The road in Bristol where he grew up doesn’t really chime with the normal image of Tories. I think we would need to see him in a media glare to get a real idea, but he seemed to handle Windrush well, although he came in at the end.
Or he successfully silenced it quickly before it continued...
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
I have repeatedly said that Javid would make a good Tory leader. Alright he’s a bit boring but he would be up against Corbyn so that would be fine. It would also make a compelling story for the BBC, who it is important to get on board. The road in Bristol where he grew up doesn’t really chime with the normal image of Tories. I think we would need to see him in a media glare to get a real idea, but he seemed to handle Windrush well, although he came in at the end.
Javid is the best option at the moment.
Boring might be fine next to Corbyn, as people might have had enough excitement by then. From what I can tell of his politics is he’s economically liberal and socially liberal, but pragmatic on the rest.
The question is how able he is to understand and appeal to the new 2017GE Conservatives and the social conservatives.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
Papers reporting that his wife will accuse him of being a serial adulterer
And Steve Baker saying upto 80 conservative mps will take Chequers down and split the party while 12 colleagues have said they will resign from the party if Boris becomes leader ( and I would join them)
If Baker and ERG vote down TM's deal I will join the demand for a second referendum
But, why now? Why was this affair that broke the camel’s back?
Boris is a narcissist. Could it be he blamed his wife for talking him into supporting Brexit, and thus “ruining” his career? Nothing to do with him. Did she take umbrage at that and there were several flaming stand-up rows?
It wouldn’t surprise me. I trust May more than Boris on Brexit.
I imagine she stayed as long as she could, he’s probably told her he’d behave himself once too often, and she can’t take the humiliation of seeing him on the front pages with his trousers down again.
They’ve also recently packed the youngest child off to university which is a huge inflexion point for many parents, she may feel it’s now or never.
His wife talked him into Brexit? First time I've heard that theory.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
I think a lot of people sympathise with that view, but when the cheerleaders for Brexit are the Conservative and Unionist Party enabled by the Democratic Unionist Party it's a bit hard to see it as an acceptable outcome.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
Papers reporting that his wife will accuse him of being a serial adulterer
She reads the papers then? Of course Boris is a serial adulterer. Everyone knows that, including his wife, and everyone knows his wife knows. Wasn't it Max Hastings who, when Boris asked him about running for Mayor, told him to keep his trousers zipped up?
As I said a moment ago, people will generally forgive someone martial infidelity as it is often human frailty, and lets face it, it happens to some people. Serial adultery is a different matter though. To continuously cheat on someone says something very bad about an individual's character, and suggests (if we need any further evidence) that he is an excessively flawed man with an overinflated ego and lacking a sense of decency and honesty. Add to that he is also a buffoon and has shown complete incompetence when Foreign Secretary. Would you give him a job? I certainly wouldn't.
I've been saying for aeons that Boris will never be Conservative leader, but because he (and by extension any party he leads) is vulnerable to the same sort of campaign against antisemitism in Labour so backbenchers will not vote for him, not because he's a philandering bluffer. And not because we've read the Sunday papers and suddenly realised he has no plan for Brexit, because while that is true, it is also true of everyone else.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Hmm. Oxfordshire chose Remain. I don't want to delegate my choice to Clacton or Cleethorpes.
Leave voters need Remain-supporting areas on board for their project to be a success. You can draw a map and compare the GDPs of Brexitania and Bremainia if you like, but you probably won't like the answer.
Does Northern Ireland have to be considered a single entity here ?
There are a large number of Unionists who will never signup to a united Ireland, can we have a mini unionist state-let comprised of Antrim, Lisburn & North Down?
With the west around derry, fermanagh and south down joining the republic
The problem of course, is the increasingly nationalist belfast stuck in the middle of a unionist hinterland
Any idea when the Swedish election results become official. Betfair Sportsboom hasn't settled yet.
Wednesday. There are still some tens of thousands of postal votes which arrived at the last moment, many of them from abroad, to be counted. Traditionally, these votes tend to favour the Moderates (M) slightly (typically changing the result by 0.1-0.2%), so as last night's provisional result gives a centre-left lead of 0.3% and 1 seat, it could change the position.
Apart from the psychological boost of one bloc coming first, it doesn't, of course, change the choices of government. The Sweden Democrats (SD) are complaining that no other party has made any contact with them, and it's clear that everyone else is unwilling to work with them. The four choices seem to be:
1. Social Democrats (S) government with Greens and some small opposition parties. This would break open the blocs. S likes it, nobody else does, and there are moderately significsant policy differences on taxes and welfare.
2. Continuation of the current government as a minority. The Moderates said they would strongly oppose that throughout the campaign, and it might push the centre-right into talking with the SD. Possibly a change in S leader to give a new PM might work, but this doesn't seem to be under discussion.
3. M minority government. This would split the difference and might be more stable that it sounds - the Left and Greens are unlikely to vote on many issues with the SD. But here psychology matters - if M's bloc has fewest seats, it just looks wrong to form a government.
4. Coalition of S,M and smaller centre-right parties plus maybe Greens. Grand coalition a la Germany, difficult as the blocs have been very fixed in opposing each other - and it might be a gift to SD and Left.
New elections are unlikely - the basic arithmetic isn't going to change, and turnout at 86% means there isn't a pool of non-voters to change anything dramatically. Because policy differences aren't that huge, nobody is panicking, but it's acknowledged as a difficult puzzle.
Can anyone explain to me why Unionists in Northern Ireland were in favour of Brexit? Did they not think about any of this or did their leaders simply lie to them?
can you point me to the left wing crusade to keep the UK together ?
Labour is no better than the conservatives
Not sure how typical I am, but I'd like them to setrtle in peaceful amity, and don't care if it's as part of the UK or part of Eire or independence. I'd be sorry to see a split with Scotland, but NI seems a distinctively different political culture from England or Wales or Scotland - to be provocative, I'd say we have in some ways more in common with, say, the Netherlands.
Mr. Polruan, the decision to leave was taken by the British electorate at the ballot box. It's the British position, not a particular party's.
True, but due to the constitutional incompetence displayed in the structuring of the referendum, the government of the day has to resolve the unanswered questions left by a "not-X" outcome - so the actual Brexit, rather than the form of Brexit, is driven by a particular party's (or particular parties') views.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
Precisely. We can’t be a global trading hub without the infrastructure.
New trains planned for the East Coast mainline do not work properly with track-side equipment, it has emerged.
The Azuma trains cause electromagnetic interference to older signals and points in the north of England.
This means the electro-diesel trains can only run on diesel, travelling much more slowly than their promised speed.
Network Rail said it was working with Japanese train manufacturer Hitachi to fix the problem but it was too early to identify a solution.
What's interesting about this is that as I understand it, the Class 91s and Mark 4 coaches are being replaced by electric only IETs. But the article implies that, as on the GWML, the IETs will just have to run on diesel if the electric is a problem.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
Build HS2 and its successors, and you can axe the flights from Heathrow to Manchester and Edinburgh, then use the freed-up slots for China flights without the expense of a third runway.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
You wouldn’t say that if you lived in the North.
I’d much rather see the HS2 money spent on Northern intercity train routes which desperately need them.
Northern improvements get cancelled if they go over budget by a few million but HS2 is fine when it overshoots by billions.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Classic Boris stuff.
I am in favour of big infrastructure like new airports, but in this one particular case, after a bit of digging around, I found it is an exception and so should be stopped (this has nothing to do with stopping it being popular with a certain tranche of backbenchers whose votes I need, no siree).
By the way one of the reasons I don't like it is that the project is a mish-mash of contracts and subcontracts.
Now, I know that this kind of private sector-driven project is exactly how we Tories think everything should be run because private is always better than public, and in general a mish-mash of subcontractors is better than the state doing anything. But in this one particular case, I find that that general principle suddenly doesn't apply.
Erm, cripes, is that the time, I have to hand this in now.
... please PayPal me the £5K fee, I have lawyers to pay on Monday.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
Build HS2 and its successors, and you can axe the flights from Heathrow to Manchester and Edinburgh, then use the freed-up slots for China flights without the expense of a third runway.
This is what angers me about HS2. The reason the Tories ran with it was so that they could oppose a third runway at Heathrow in the 2010 GE. And now they are in favour of a third runway at Heathrow.
Those flights from London to Manchester and Edinburgh will not cease with HS2. I went to Paris in 2016 and it was far cheaper to fly from Luton than to get the train. Railways are expensive. HS2 will be extortionately priced.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
I make it 10 direct flights on a randomly chosen day in October (Beijing, Shanghai, Xi An, Qingdao, Wuhan, Changsha) excluding HK - so not doing too badly. There have been a few direct routes added from LHR to other Chinese cities and a couple of regional airports (MAN and EDI I think) which have generally lasted less than a year before being cancelled due to lack of interest. There seems to be a mismatch between the perceived need for more direct flights to grow business and the actual desire of businesses to use those flights, although to be fair there might be an argument that you don't get take-up on a route unless it operates daily to fit specific travel plans.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Classic Boris stuff.
I am in favour of big infrastructure like new airports, but in this one particular case, after a bit of digging around, I found it is an exception and so should be stopped (this has nothing to do with stopping it being popular with a certain tranche of backbenchers whose votes I need, no siree).
By the way one of the reasons I don't like it is that the project is a mish-mash of contracts and subcontracts.
Now, I know that this kind of private sector-driven project is exactly how we Tories think everything should be run because private is always better than public, and in general a mish-mash of subcontractors is better than the state doing anything. But in this one particular case, I find that that general principle suddenly doesn't apply.
Erm, cripes, is that the time, I have to hand this in now.
... please PayPal me the £5K fee, I have lawyers to pay on Monday.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
You wouldn’t say that if you lived in the North.
I’d much rather see the HS2 money spent on Northern intercity train routes which desperately need them.
Northern improvements get cancelled if they go over budget by a few million but HS2 is fine when it overshoots by billions.
Wasn’t that the HS3 plan, to link up the northern cities? Liverpool>Manchester then split to Leeds and Sheffield?
We should have put the Crossrail tunnelling team digging between Manchester and Sheffield as soon as they’d finished in London, also need to build a proper road on the same route - the Snake Pass is great on a Sunday morning, but not so much for daily commuting.
Mr. Rentool, I cannot fathom the reasoning that would lead someone of sound mind to support Corbyn. From economics of Venezuela to the morality of Iran, it's insane.
[I do sympathise with some, such as Mr. Observer, who wants to fight for his party's soul but suspect that will be in vain].
That said, I support the right of people to vote for what they wish. In the same way I support Mr. Eagles' right to be completely wrong about Hannibal and Caesar. Or the right of people to put milk in first (although that will become a criminal offence if I become PM).
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
You recall utterly incorrectly. Further, if you include Hong Kong as part of China (and let's face it, Beijing does), the number goes higher.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
You wouldn’t say that if you lived in the North.
I’d much rather see the HS2 money spent on Northern intercity train routes which desperately need them.
Northern improvements get cancelled if they go over budget by a few million but HS2 is fine when it overshoots by billions.
I'd rather it be spent in the east, where it is desperately needed. And people in Devon and Cornwall want it spent there, where it is desperately needed. And people in Scotland there. And people in London there. Etc, etc.
And in the meantime, the place it is really needed won't get it because of effing idiots screeching that they're not getting the money in their region. And nobody else will get the money, because if one area gets it everyone else will scream.
Believe me, I would *love* to have a train service as good as the one you lambaste. Or indeed, any train service ...
(BTW, are we sure the Northern electrification has been cancelled? It seems to be in a slightly odd state atm.)
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
Build HS2 and its successors, and you can axe the flights from Heathrow to Manchester and Edinburgh, then use the freed-up slots for China flights without the expense of a third runway.
IMO the decision to not route HS2 via LHR was a big mistake, but the third runway is needed anyway. Better rail links to other airports may negate the need for a fourth though.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Conservative and Unionist Party, eh?
I may be a Conservative but I am not a Unionist. People should stay together because they want to not because they are together. That applies equally to the UK and the EU.
Any idea when the Swedish election results become official. Betfair Sportsboom hasn't settled yet.
Wednesday. There are still some tens of thousands of postal votes which arrived at the last moment, many of them from abroad, to be counted. Traditionally, these votes tend to favour the Moderates (M) slightly (typically changing the result by 0.1-0.2%), so as last night's provisional result gives a centre-left lead of 0.3% and 1 seat, it could change the position.
Apart from the psychological boost of one bloc coming first, it doesn't, of course, change the choices of government. The Sweden Democrats (SD) are complaining that no other party has made any contact with them, and it's clear that everyone else is unwilling to work with them. The four choices seem to be:
1. Social Democrats (S) government with Greens and some small opposition parties. This would break open the blocs. S likes it, nobody else does, and there are moderately significsant policy differences on taxes and welfare.
2. Continuation of the current government as a minority. The Moderates said they would strongly oppose that throughout the campaign, and it might push the centre-right into talking with the SD. Possibly a change in S leader to give a new PM might work, but this doesn't seem to be under discussion.
3. M minority government. This would split the difference and might be more stable that it sounds - the Left and Greens are unlikely to vote on many issues with the SD. But here psychology matters - if M's bloc has fewest seats, it just looks wrong to form a government.
4. Coalition of S,M and smaller centre-right parties plus maybe Greens. Grand coalition a la Germany, difficult as the blocs have been very fixed in opposing each other - and it might be a gift to SD and Left.
New elections are unlikely - the basic arithmetic isn't going to change, and turnout at 86% means there isn't a pool of non-voters to change anything dramatically. Because policy differences aren't that huge, nobody is panicking, but it's acknowledged as a difficult puzzle.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
You wouldn’t say that if you lived in the North.
I’d much rather see the HS2 money spent on Northern intercity train routes which desperately need them.
Northern improvements get cancelled if they go over budget by a few million but HS2 is fine when it overshoots by billions.
Wasn’t that the HS3 plan, to link up the northern cities? Liverpool>Manchester then split to Leeds and Sheffield?
We should have put the Crossrail tunnelling team digging between Manchester and Sheffield as soon as they’d finished in London, also need to build a proper road on the same route - the Snake Pass is great on a Sunday morning, but not so much for daily commuting.
It'll be interesting to see what the NIC come up with for HS3. However I can foresee massive anger and protests if it impinges in any way on the Peak District NP.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
You recall utterly incorrectly. Further, if you include Hong Kong as part of China (and let's face it, Beijing does), the number goes higher.
It's not just Beijing that does. We do too. Hong Kong itself does. One country, two systems.
I'd rather it be spent in the east, where it is desperately needed. And people in Devon and Cornwall want it spent there, where it is desperately needed. And people in Scotland there. And people in London there. Etc, etc.
And in the meantime, the place it is really needed won't get it because of effing idiots screeching that they're not getting the money in their region. And nobody else will get the money, because if one area gets it everyone else will scream.
Believe me, I would *love* to have a train service as good as the one you lambaste. Or indeed, any train service ...
(BTW, are we sure the Northern electrification has been cancelled? It seems to be in a slightly odd state atm.)
Mr. Urquhart, I believe ice used to be transported to the British Isles simply by loading the largest block of it possible on a ship and sailing there. It works surprisingly well, if the block is large enough.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
I make it 10 direct flights on a randomly chosen day in October (Beijing, Shanghai, Xi An, Qingdao, Wuhan, Changsha) excluding HK - so not doing too badly. There have been a few direct routes added from LHR to other Chinese cities and a couple of regional airports (MAN and EDI I think) which have generally lasted less than a year before being cancelled due to lack of interest. There seems to be a mismatch between the perceived need for more direct flights to grow business and the actual desire of businesses to use those flights, although to be fair there might be an argument that you don't get take-up on a route unless it operates daily to fit specific travel plans.
I meant to Beijing, not China in total. My bad. The problem with LHR is that it’s already so far over capacity that it’s difficult to experiment with routes and use them to grow demand. There’s a fair amount of chicken and egg at play, business travellers don’t want to see one flight a day, they want to see at least three or four as it allows for flexibility of schedule and dealing with eventualities. A British businessman with a meeting in Beijing is more likely to route through Amsterdam or Dubai, where he has options if plans change or flights get cancelled.
"It may not happen overnight, but it is a realistic prospect in the medium term in a world where the Tories increasingly prioritise Brexit over the Union and Jeremy Corbyn edges closer to Number 10."
If politicians hold a vote and promise to enact the result, and then don't, that renders democracy rather pointless.
I never wanted Scotland to leave the UK, but the voters there opted for the SNP and had the right to a referendum, and to have the result respected. Freedom of self-determination, whether for the Scots staying in the UK or the UK leaving the EU, is a cornerstone of democratic society.
Edited extra bit: caught enough last night to see that the Moderates didn't appear to have topped the poll but thought I'd check for the detail. Quite remarkable that a BBC article on the Swedish election manages not to include party results (there are some voting bloc figures).
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Conservative and Unionist Party, eh?
I may be a Conservative but I am not a Unionist. People should stay together because they want to not because they are together. That applies equally to the UK and the EU.
Whatever you may or not be, it is the party that you are a member of or support that matters.
Otherwise go ahead and create your own Conservative But Not Unionist Party.
This one comes around every year or two, it’s never going to happen no matter how many people think it’s a brilliant idea. A nuclear/solar/oil powered desalination plant does the same job for at least one order of magnitude less cost.
"It may not happen overnight, but it is a realistic prospect in the medium term in a world where the Tories increasingly prioritise Brexit over the Union and Jeremy Corbyn edges closer to Number 10."
If politicians hold a vote and promise to enact the result, and then don't, that renders democracy rather pointless.
I never wanted Scotland to leave the UK, but the voters there opted for the SNP and had the right to a referendum, and to have the result respected. Freedom of self-determination, whether for the Scots staying in the UK or the UK leaving the EU, is a cornerstone of democratic society.
Edited extra bit: caught enough last night to see that the Moderates didn't appear to have topped the poll but thought I'd check for the detail. Quite remarkable that a BBC article on the Swedish election manages not to include party results (there are some voting bloc figures).
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
They fly to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and have been looking at X’ian and Shenzhou.
I’d be surprised if it’s 2 flights a day. 2 flights a day to Beijing would be possible
Does Northern Ireland have to be considered a single entity here ?
There are a large number of Unionists who will never signup to a united Ireland, can we have a mini unionist state-let comprised of Antrim, Lisburn & North Down?
With the west around derry, fermanagh and south down joining the republic
The problem of course, is the increasingly nationalist belfast stuck in the middle of a unionist hinterland
Belfast the new Jerusalem (and not in a good way).
Mentioning a suicide vest is now 'offensive'? Really? It might be silly and a little over the top, but offensive? I think politicians need to meet real people more.
Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah.
On that bombshell, there will be no more reporting of car crash interviews
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
They fly to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and have been looking at X’ian and Shenzhou.
I’d be surprised if it’s 2 flights a day. 2 flights a day to Beijing would be possible
Yes I was wrong, I meant Beijing. It’s been a long day already and it’s now beer o’clock!
When talking about electrification, it is important to realise what a mess the DfT and Network Rail have made of the Great Western electrification.
In 2012 it was expected to cost around £700 million and be completed by 2016. In 2015 costs were around £1.7 billion and would be completed by 2018. Later in 2015, it was costed at £2.8 billion and would be completed by 2019.
This is a similar mess to the West Coast Upgrade of 15-20 years ago, which cost about eight to ten times the budgeted cost, delivered far less than promised, and was massively late.
In addition, of other electrification schemes have run into significant problems, e.g. the Blackpool to Preston line.
I fail to see what the government can do except to cancel and pause future electrification schemes whilst the DfT and NR work out what the heck went wrong with the GW scheme and how they can properly plan and budget future schemes.
The problem is that in the meantime, plans for rolling stocks are thrown into the air, which can somewhat force hands: there is no point in buying electric trains for a route that won't be electrified for five years ...
It'll be interesting to see what the NIC come up with for HS3. However I can foresee massive anger and protests if it impinges in any way on the Peak District NP.
I'd rather it be spent in the east, where it is desperately needed. And people in Devon and Cornwall want it spent there, where it is desperately needed. And people in Scotland there. And people in London there. Etc, etc.
And in the meantime, the place it is really needed won't get it because of effing idiots screeching that they're not getting the money in their region. And nobody else will get the money, because if one area gets it everyone else will scream.
Believe me, I would *love* to have a train service as good as the one you lambaste. Or indeed, any train service ...
(BTW, are we sure the Northern electrification has been cancelled? It seems to be in a slightly odd state atm.)
"In fact, the plans to modernise the line from Cardiff to Swansea, the Midland mainline and tracks in the Lake District were dropped after Network Rail spent huge sums on engineering works, said a report by the National Audit Office."
That does not refer to the Trans-Pennine route, which was primarily what I was referring to.
On Transport and Grayling: there are plans for some sort of bypass near Saltaire (a heritage site, it was set up by the philanthropist Titus Salt as a sort of model village for his mill workers). Concerns abound it'll bugger up the site.
Given Grayling's involved, one fears the question will be how the embuggerance occurs rather than if.
It'll be interesting to see what the NIC come up with for HS3. However I can foresee massive anger and protests if it impinges in any way on the Peak District NP.
This ss all of Theresa May's own making. She was under no obligation to appoint Boris Foreign Secretary. He was finished at that time and for reasons only known to herself she gave him a platform and made him important again. He's killing her government.
She gave Boris enough rope to hang himself. He proved himself totally unsuitable for high office even before he was in the papers again this weekend for the wrong reasons. Why should he expect us to trust him, when his own wife doesn’t?
The give him enough rope theory only works if Johnson has, indeed, hanged himself. We do not know that right now. He seems very popular among grassroots Tories, for some reason. But then I could never see Corbyn's appeal either!
I think that he has hanged himself, I don’t see that he has the numbers to challenge the PM in a vote of confidence. His recent actions blatantly undermining the PM haven’t endeared many MPs towards him as the Brexit crunch comes up, even before his recent extramarital dalliances.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
They fly to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and have been looking at X’ian and Shenzhou.
I’d be surprised if it’s 2 flights a day. 2 flights a day to Beijing would be possible
Yes I was wrong, I meant Beijing. It’s been a long day already and it’s now beer o’clock!
I still fancy Canelo (2.52) vs GGG (1.76) this weekend. Canelo showed he could take everything that GGG could throw at him, and although less flashy, did the better work IMO on the counter. Given he now thinks that GGG can't put him down, he might be more aggressive.
I have also backed the draw (25) because, well, if it is nip and tuck again, there's no reason why they shouldn't win half a dozen rounds each.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Conservative and Unionist Party, eh?
I may be a Conservative but I am not a Unionist. People should stay together because they want to not because they are together. That applies equally to the UK and the EU.
Whatever you may or not be, it is the party that you are a member of or support that matters.
Otherwise go ahead and create your own Conservative But Not Unionist Party.
No. I'll give the same answer to you as I do to HYUFD and Corbynistas. Parties are broad churches not for true believers only.
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
.
I meant to Beijing, not China in total. My bad. The problem with LHR is that it’s already so far over capacity that it’s difficult to experiment with routes and use them to grow demand. There’s a fair amount of chicken and egg at play, business travellers don’t want to see one flight a day, they want to see at least three or four as it allows for flexibility of schedule and dealing with eventualities. A British businessman with a meeting in Beijing is more likely to route through Amsterdam or Dubai, where he has options if plans change or flights get cancelled.
Fair enough, that makes sense (though I think Beijing is 3-4 daily most of the time). I'm not sure that direct flights make a whole lot of difference though - connecting through a European or ME hub in order to be able to depart from your preferred UK airport and get the exact flight times is always going to be attractive. If you're closer to LGW it can be much of a muchness to connect via one of the more efficient hubs vs travelling round to LHR for example. Would the (say) 1.5hr saving of a load more direct flights really make much difference to the UK's ability to trade with China?
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Conservative and Unionist Party, eh?
I may be a Conservative but I am not a Unionist. People should stay together because they want to not because they are together. That applies equally to the UK and the EU.
Whatever you may or not be, it is the party that you are a member of or support that matters.
Otherwise go ahead and create your own Conservative But Not Unionist Party.
No. I'll give the same answer to you as I do to HYUFD and Corbynistas. Parties are broad churches not for true believers only.
Indeed but if the Party's policy is X, then by being a member of the Party you are supporting X. Now of course you can say but I prefer Y but it doesn't matter; you are supporting X by being a member of the Party.
OT a google image search on the Meeks avatar suggests as a visually similar image, one J Corbyn, Esq. (tbh I wanted to check my recollection that TSE's is Cromwell but clicked on the wrong one.)
Mr. Urquhart, I believe ice used to be transported to the British Isles simply by loading the largest block of it possible on a ship and sailing there. It works surprisingly well, if the block is large enough.
Churchill and Mountbatten wanted to build a giant ice aircraft carrier in WW2 which would float around the mid-Atlantic for ops against das Boot.
Saner heads prevailed and it was never built which was just as well as it would have turned into the ultimate disciplinary posting.
If it is reasonable that the Northern Irish can choose their future ... If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Conservative and Unionist Party, eh?
I may be a Conservative but I am not a Unionist. People should stay together because they want to not because they are together. That applies equally to the UK and the EU.
Whatever you may or not be, it is the party that you are a member of or support that matters.
Otherwise go ahead and create your own Conservative But Not Unionist Party.
No. I'll give the same answer to you as I do to HYUFD and Corbynistas. Parties are broad churches not for true believers only.
Indeed but if the Party's policy is X, then by being a member of the Party you are supporting X. Now of course you can say but I prefer Y but it doesn't matter; you are supporting X by being a member of the Party.
And what policy of the Conservatives contradicts any of what I wrote? The Conservatives have agreed to the Scots and Northern Irish being able to control their own destiny. Of course the Scots have already had their vote for this generation. So why can't the Welsh and English control our own?
Boris is today trying to wow the Thatcherites in the Telegraph with a piece about scrapping HS2 and low tax and Laffer Curve.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
.
I meant to Beijing, not China in total. My bad. The problem with LHR is that it’s already so far over capacity that it’s difficult to experiment with routes and use them to grow demand. There’s a fair amount of chicken and egg at play, business travellers don’t want to see one flight a day, they want to see at least three or four as it allows for flexibility of schedule and dealing with eventualities. A British businessman with a meeting in Beijing is more likely to route through Amsterdam or Dubai, where he has options if plans change or flights get cancelled.
Fair enough, that makes sense (though I think Beijing is 3-4 daily most of the time). I'm not sure that direct flights make a whole lot of difference though - connecting through a European or ME hub in order to be able to depart from your preferred UK airport and get the exact flight times is always going to be attractive. If you're closer to LGW it can be much of a muchness to connect via one of the more efficient hubs vs travelling round to LHR for example. Would the (say) 1.5hr saving of a load more direct flights really make much difference to the UK's ability to trade with China?
Acquaintances who do business with SE Asia and live in Essex would rather travel to LHR than go Stansted>Amsterdam>Bangkok. I think it’s Stansted that puts them off.
Mr. Urquhart, I believe ice used to be transported to the British Isles simply by loading the largest block of it possible on a ship and sailing there. It works surprisingly well, if the block is large enough.
Churchill and Mountbatten wanted to build a giant ice aircraft carrier in WW2 which would float around the mid-Atlantic for ops against das Boot.
Saner heads prevailed and it was never built which was just as well as it would have turned into the ultimate disciplinary posting.
Pykrete might be quite an interesting building material, were it not for global warming...
It really is remarkable how exercised the Right of the Conservative Party get by HS2.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Quite. I’m all for setting taxes to maximise revenue, but the attitude of many to infrastructure is as astonishing as it is perplexing. It’s the foundation on which future economic growth is built, we need to bloody get on with it and face down the NIMBYs.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
.
I meant to Beijing, not China in total. My bad. The problem with LHR is that it’s already so far over capacity that it’s difficult to experiment with routes and use them to grow demand. There’s a fair amount of chicken and egg at play, business travellers don’t want to see one flight a day, they want to see at least three or four as it allows for flexibility of schedule and dealing with eventualities. A British businessman with a meeting in Beijing is more likely to route through Amsterdam or Dubai, where he has options if plans change or flights get cancelled.
Fair enough, that makes sense (though I think Beijing is 3-4 daily most of the time). I'm not sure that direct flights make a whole lot of difference though - connecting through a European or ME hub in order to be able to depart from your preferred UK airport and get the exact flight times is always going to be attractive. If you're closer to LGW it can be much of a muchness to connect via one of the more efficient hubs vs travelling round to LHR for example. Would the (say) 1.5hr saving of a load more direct flights really make much difference to the UK's ability to trade with China?
Acquaintances who do business with SE Asia and live in Essex would rather travel to LHR than go Stansted>Amsterdam>Bangkok. I think it’s Stansted that puts them off.
Isn't it difficult to through-ticket from STN anyway because mostly low-cost/P2P carriers? I'd have thought LCY-AMS would be massively preferable to trekking over to LHR, certainly pre-crossrail.
Mr. Ace, for some reason an ice aircraft carrier makes me wonder if it could house a gin and tonic swimming pool.
That's probably what it would take to get the RAF to deploy aboard...
It doesn't get much more remote than RAF Mount Pleasant (clearly a Tory project, looking at its motto...). A floating slab of Pykrete sounds almost inviting in comparison, given it would likely be a few thousand miles nearer home.
Mr. Urquhart, I believe ice used to be transported to the British Isles simply by loading the largest block of it possible on a ship and sailing there. It works surprisingly well, if the block is large enough.
Churchill and Mountbatten wanted to build a giant ice aircraft carrier in WW2 which would float around the mid-Atlantic for ops against das Boot.
Mr D is quite correct. See 'The Ice Cart", by Wilfred Gibson. When I was young I knew a man who had made a good living importing ice to London.
It's the main danger of Brexit to be honest, letting Corbyn (Or McD) get his hands on the levers of power and wrecking the generally good current economic work of the government.
Mr. Urquhart, I believe ice used to be transported to the British Isles simply by loading the largest block of it possible on a ship and sailing there. It works surprisingly well, if the block is large enough.
Churchill and Mountbatten wanted to build a giant ice aircraft carrier in WW2 which would float around the mid-Atlantic for ops against das Boot.
Saner heads prevailed and it was never built which was just as well as it would have turned into the ultimate disciplinary posting.
Trouble with icebergs is that they roll over.....
Otherwise it might be quite feasble to put massive sails on them and steer them towards Abu Dhabi. (Although it would make shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz even dicier than normal, having to be on iceberg watch....)
I've been in Antarctica in a force 11. Icebergs don't half shift with the wind pushing them.
This one comes around every year or two, it’s never going to happen no matter how many people think it’s a brilliant idea. A nuclear/solar/oil powered desalination plant does the same job for at least one order of magnitude less cost.
Personally, whatever the impressive engineering accomplishment, there is something grotesque about planning to tow an iceberg past a large number of impoverished water stressed African countries, so that Dubai can continue to consume the most water per capita globally and play golf in the dessert.
Comments
They’ve also recently packed the youngest child off to university which is a huge inflexion point for many parents, she may feel it’s now or never.
Thankfully the leadership selection system for the blue team is somewhat more robust than for the red team, anyone sent to the membership will have a reasonable support base among MPs unlike Corbyn.
Brexit was always a means to an end. The question is: what comes next? If Javid can set out an answer, he will be worth listening to.
Mind you I suspect only Javid and Gove would be able to give answers that last 5 seconds of scrutiny...
https://twitter.com/wallaceme/status/1039053985871749120
We either Brexit gently and carefully, or not at all. The biggest obstacles to Brexit are the ultra-Remainers and the ultra-Brexiteers.
It beggars believe for me that they aren’t able to compromise to achieve a strategic victory.
Think Redwood, with occasional joke.
If it is reasonable that the Scottish can choose their future ...
Then it should be reasonable that the English and Welsh can choose their future.
The English (and Welsh which tends to be forgotten) have chosen Brexit. If the Northern Irish want to stay in the union that's their choice. If they want to leave that's their choice. I don't want to delegate my choice to either Brussels or Belfast.
Boring might be fine next to Corbyn, as people might have had enough excitement by then. From what I can tell of his politics is he’s economically liberal and socially liberal, but pragmatic on the rest.
The question is how able he is to understand and appeal to the new 2017GE Conservatives and the social conservatives.
It’s a new railway line, not the march of the Red Army.
Leave voters need Remain-supporting areas on board for their project to be a success. You can draw a map and compare the GDPs of Brexitania and Bremainia if you like, but you probably won't like the answer.
There are a large number of Unionists who will never signup to a united Ireland, can we have a mini unionist state-let comprised of Antrim, Lisburn & North Down?
With the west around derry, fermanagh and south down joining the republic
The problem of course, is the increasingly nationalist belfast stuck in the middle of a unionist hinterland
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1039033714632744960
The hard left are a minority only in the PLP. Corbyn has the NEC and the membership. Sane Labour is the minority.
IIRC there’s two flights a day between Heathrow and China, as opposed to a dozen from Paris and two dozen from Amsterdam. We can’t afford to spend another decade talking about the bloody third runway, we need to have had spades in the ground years ago and should be on the fourth by now.
New trains planned for the East Coast mainline do not work properly with track-side equipment, it has emerged.
The Azuma trains cause electromagnetic interference to older signals and points in the north of England.
This means the electro-diesel trains can only run on diesel, travelling much more slowly than their promised speed.
Network Rail said it was working with Japanese train manufacturer Hitachi to fix the problem but it was too early to identify a solution.
What's interesting about this is that as I understand it, the Class 91s and Mark 4 coaches are being replaced by electric only IETs. But the article implies that, as on the GWML, the IETs will just have to run on diesel if the electric is a problem.
I’d much rather see the HS2 money spent on Northern intercity train routes which desperately need them.
Northern improvements get cancelled if they go over budget by a few million but HS2 is fine when it overshoots by billions.
I am in favour of big infrastructure like new airports, but in this one particular case, after a bit of digging around, I found it is an exception and so should be stopped (this has nothing to do with stopping it being popular with a certain tranche of backbenchers whose votes I need, no siree).
By the way one of the reasons I don't like it is that the project is a mish-mash of contracts and subcontracts.
Now, I know that this kind of private sector-driven project is exactly how we Tories think everything should be run because private is always better than public, and in general a mish-mash of subcontractors is better than the state doing anything. But in this one particular case, I find that that general principle suddenly doesn't apply.
Erm, cripes, is that the time, I have to hand this in now.
... please PayPal me the £5K fee, I have lawyers to pay on Monday.
Those flights from London to Manchester and Edinburgh will not cease with HS2. I went to Paris in 2016 and it was far cheaper to fly from Luton than to get the train. Railways are expensive. HS2 will be extortionately priced.
We should have put the Crossrail tunnelling team digging between Manchester and Sheffield as soon as they’d finished in London, also need to build a proper road on the same route - the Snake Pass is great on a Sunday morning, but not so much for daily commuting.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/106941489/plan-to-tow-icebergs-from-antarctica-to-parched-dubai
[I do sympathise with some, such as Mr. Observer, who wants to fight for his party's soul but suspect that will be in vain].
That said, I support the right of people to vote for what they wish. In the same way I support Mr. Eagles' right to be completely wrong about Hannibal and Caesar. Or the right of people to put milk in first (although that will become a criminal offence if I become PM).
The insane are the ones snug in Corbyn's rectum.
The deluded are those who think they can wait it out until they get their Party back.
And in the meantime, the place it is really needed won't get it because of effing idiots screeching that they're not getting the money in their region. And nobody else will get the money, because if one area gets it everyone else will scream.
Believe me, I would *love* to have a train service as good as the one you lambaste. Or indeed, any train service ...
(BTW, are we sure the Northern electrification has been cancelled? It seems to be in a slightly odd state atm.)
Otherwise go ahead and create your own Conservative But Not Unionist Party.
I’d be surprised if it’s 2 flights a day. 2 flights a day to Beijing would be possible
In 2012 it was expected to cost around £700 million and be completed by 2016.
In 2015 costs were around £1.7 billion and would be completed by 2018.
Later in 2015, it was costed at £2.8 billion and would be completed by 2019.
This is a similar mess to the West Coast Upgrade of 15-20 years ago, which cost about eight to ten times the budgeted cost, delivered far less than promised, and was massively late.
In addition, of other electrification schemes have run into significant problems, e.g. the Blackpool to Preston line.
I fail to see what the government can do except to cancel and pause future electrification schemes whilst the DfT and NR work out what the heck went wrong with the GW scheme and how they can properly plan and budget future schemes.
The problem is that in the meantime, plans for rolling stocks are thrown into the air, which can somewhat force hands: there is no point in buying electric trains for a route that won't be electrified for five years ...
It's an absolute mess.
https://twitter.com/Pulpstar/status/1039071736040501248
Was done ages ago for Newbury !
That does not refer to the Trans-Pennine route, which was primarily what I was referring to.
Given Grayling's involved, one fears the question will be how the embuggerance occurs rather than if.
It feels like I’ve spent most of my adult life in a car stuck in Tintwistle.
I still fancy Canelo (2.52) vs GGG (1.76) this weekend. Canelo showed he could take everything that GGG could throw at him, and although less flashy, did the better work IMO on the counter. Given he now thinks that GGG can't put him down, he might be more aggressive.
I have also backed the draw (25) because, well, if it is nip and tuck again, there's no reason why they shouldn't win half a dozen rounds each.
DYOR obvs.
Saner heads prevailed and it was never built which was just as well as it would have turned into the ultimate disciplinary posting.
Or is it always difficult to distinguish between 2 very small numbers ?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45470689
#despitebrexit
A floating slab of Pykrete sounds almost inviting in comparison, given it would likely be a few thousand miles nearer home.
When I was young I knew a man who had made a good living importing ice to London.
Otherwise it might be quite feasble to put massive sails on them and steer them towards Abu Dhabi. (Although it would make shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz even dicier than normal, having to be on iceberg watch....)
I've been in Antarctica in a force 11. Icebergs don't half shift with the wind pushing them.