I suspect that whatever the current cost benefit analysis we will be glad that HS2 was built. The tube lines all bancrupted the people who dug them, but have been useful for 100 years. We need more rail capacity, and it's less disruptive to build a new line than to try to upgrade the existing lines with the same capacity - and cost overruns on the latter would almost certainly be even greater. Plus if you are adding capacity you may as well use the latest technology and benefit from the additional speed. But it has to be extended to the northern English conurbations to get the full benefit, plus Scotland's central belt ideally. There should be no domestic flights in a country the UK's size. And it should be just the start - we should be aiming at a massive infrastructure spend to transform the economic geography of the UK to bring more of the country inside the arc of trade and prosperity that runs from Northern Italy to SE England. (Brexit is profoundly unhelpful in this regard by the way - it will simply shrink that arc to exclude even the part of the UK that currently benefits).
That's almost certainly a loss-of-crew event. On the positive side, it was the capsule that was used in the recent flight to the ISS, so it could be a problem due to impact with the water, or saltwater dunking.
But until they know, and fix the problem, the capsules aren't going anywhere. And it's pointless to do an in-flight abort - the next milestone - as that's probably the system that's failed.
At best a three-month delay in my decidedly non-expert opinion. Probably six months or more. :;(
On the other hand, SpaceX have shown the ability to diagnose and remedy failure pretty quickly - and given their low costs, an inflight abort test isn’t a huge financial risk. I would guess nearer three than six months’ delay.
No - in the case of CRS-7, they blamed their supplier (in fact, threw their supplier to the wolves), when in fact NASA's investigation showed it was a series of design and manufacturing errors by SpaceX:
" SpaceX chose to use an industrial grade (as opposed to aerospace grade) 17-4 PH SS (precipitation-hardening stainless steel) cast part (the “Rod End”) in a critical load path under cryogenic conditions and strenuous flight environments. The implementation was done without adequate screening or testing of the industrial grade part, without regard to the manufacturer’s recommendations for a 4:1 factor of safety when using their industrial grade part in an application, and without proper modeling or adequate load testing of the part under predicted flight conditions. "
Too difficult a choice. Labour offers a small chance of remaining but a big chance of getting it through. The lib Dems offer a 100% chance of Remaining but with no chance of getting it through. The Tigs are somewhere in the middle. The Brexiteers have no such dilemma. They have the Tories to push it through and the Brexit Party to kick them up the backside.
If you are on the centre left there is no point voting LD. They’re too weak to achieve anything and there is always that suspicion if they were to do well they would prop up the Tories.
Best avoided until they reform and regroup. Hence TIG was a lost opportunity.
I really, really don't think the LibDems will prop up the Tories again for at least 20 years.
Of course they would given the right leader, circumstances and offer. It would be done in the ‘national interest’ again. They won’t resist being ‘important’ again.
Why can’t the LD leadership say that then and - given the mess we’re in - say ‘you know what we did our best in coalition , but we made a mistake when we let the Tory genie out of the bottle ‘.
While mistakes were made in coalition, notably tuition fees, broadly I support what we did. We see increasingly that it was a golden period of good government, and I think history will be very kind to it. We see from 2015 how without the tempering and moderating influence of the LDs how incompetent a looney and ideological Tory government is.
However the circumstances of 2010 are unlikely to be repeated, as is that election result. You forget too how impossible any other government was after the 2010 result.
I liked the coalition and it would really put me off if the lds disavowed it as many want them to. Parties working together making compromises is good, even if people will disagree if it was worth it.
I liked the idea and subsequent progress of the coalition as well. It did get the economy back on the straight and narrow. Sadly, the larger party took advantage by forcing the libdems to "own" the tuition fees decision. They even took credit for the personal allowance hike which they didn't want in the first place! They then actively worked against their "partners" in the next election marginal contests to stab them in the back. After that point I think things went belly-up for the Tories, Libdems, and has marooned us in the doldrums of Brexit.
I get that all these Conservative Buffon Tuftons are very unhappy. What actually do they want the government to do now, bearing in mind the maths of the House of Commons?
May should have no-dealed when she had the chance. We'd be at the last 30 minutes of On the Beach phase by now but the tories rank and ranker would be happy.
Loved the film and the book when I was a teenager, truly scary.
Presumably you'd be the Fred Astaire character sitting in his Ferrari in the garage.
That was a 750 Monza which is a $5m+ car now. I also like the Porsche 356 in the movie.
I'm in a slightly awkward position as I think of a couple of the TIGers as friends, but the party seems likely merely to drain a modest amount of support from other parties in roughly equal numbers, which is pointless, and to weaken the Remainerish side overall, which is actively damaging to what they claim to want - there is a real danger in areas like the East Mids with a smaller number of MEPs that they inadvertently help Farage by diverting enough votes from Labour, without getting enough votes to win seats themselves.
PB has a disproportionate number of people like me who are active in other parties, and there is a TIGger launch on Tuesday, so we may be underestimating them, but even if they get say 8% in the Euros, what next? A probable early test is whether they stand in Peterborough if the recall succeeds.
From your experience in the House, is there an institutional reason why TIG seems so incompetent?
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how were they bounced into becoming a party?
I'm in a slightly awkward position as I think of a couple of the TIGers as friends, but the party seems likely merely to drain a modest amount of support from other parties in roughly equal numbers, which is pointless, and to weaken the Remainerish side overall, which is actively damaging to what they claim to want - there is a real danger in areas like the East Mids with a smaller number of MEPs that they inadvertently help Farage by diverting enough votes from Labour, without getting enough votes to win seats themselves.
PB has a disproportionate number of people like me who are active in other parties, and there is a TIGger launch on Tuesday, so we may be underestimating them, but even if they get say 8% in the Euros, what next? A probable early test is whether they stand in Peterborough if the recall succeeds.
From your experience in the House, is there an institutional reason why TIG seems so incompetent?
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how did they become a party?
TIG/CUK just seems bizarre from every angle.
It’s trying too hard to be different and radical, when what they want is to preserve the metropolitan elite hegemony. Focus groups probably told them that Brexit and Corbyn happened because disadvantaged people were angry, so they should try to hook into that kind of passion. But a load of wealthy middle aged centrists being slightly put out doesn’t cut it in the same way, it’s too corporate and synthetic
The Brexit Party on the other hand is the Ronseal of politics "it does exactly what it says on the tin".
If you had to explain these two parties to someone who had been asleep for a year, which one do you think they'd understand first?
Neither.
The problem with Ronseal Brexit is even now Brexiteers can't agree what Brexit means, so a party dedicated to delivering it doesn't mean anything.
May's deal is Brexit. Will the Brexit party deliver it?
Ummmmm, no....
Trouble is May's deal is no longer seen as Brexit. The insidious nature of the deadly B virus and the echo chambers of social media have led vast swathes of the tory membership to believe only No Deal is now really Brexit.
3 years ago they would have bitten your hand off to be out of EU, out of CAP, out of SM etc etc.
Regardless of who is responsible these are atrocities quite as evil as the Christchurch massacre. To slaughter Christians worshipping in church on the most important day in their religious year is deliberately evil violence.
And it is not that infrequent. Christians have been murdered while worshipping in churches in Pakistan and Egypt and have been targeted in Iraq too.
Will we see the same reaction as to Christchurch? My guess is no - it’s all too far away, the people involved are brown and Christian so not a fashionable victim group and there is no recognisably nice boy who wouldn’t harm a fly when young growing up into evil killer story for the newspapers to ventilate over.
And yet we should not turn away. These murdered people matter. The reasons why this evil happens matter. We should spare a thought for those mourning today.
Regardless of who is responsible these are atrocities quite as evil as the Christchurch massacre. To slaughter Christians worshipping in church on the most important day in their religious year is deliberately evil violence.
And it is not that infrequent. Christians have been murdered while worshipping in churches in Pakistan and Egypt and have been targeted in Iraq too.
Will we see the same reaction as to Christchurch? My guess is no - it’s all too far away, the people involved are brown and Christian so not a fashionable victim group and there is no recognisably nice boy who wouldn’t harm a fly when young growing up into evil killer story for the newspapers to ventilate over.
And yet we should not turn away. These murdered people matter. The reasons why this evil happens matter. We should spare a thought for those mourning today.
You can't use murdered Christians abroad as a pretext to attack your political opponents at home.
Despite all this I have just said, that’s really just what I think of them... they haven’t actually failed at anything yet, so can’t really write them off
I'm in a slightly awkward position as I think of a couple of the TIGers as friends, but the party seems likely merely to drain a modest amount of support from other parties in roughly equal numbers, which is pointless, and to weaken the Remainerish side overall, which is actively damaging to what they claim to want - there is a real danger in areas like the East Mids with a smaller number of MEPs that they inadvertently help Farage by diverting enough votes from Labour, without getting enough votes to win seats themselves.
PB has a disproportionate number of people like me who are active in other parties, and there is a TIGger launch on Tuesday, so we may be underestimating them, but even if they get say 8% in the Euros, what next? A probable early test is whether they stand in Peterborough if the recall succeeds.
From your experience in the House, is there an institutional reason why TIG seems so incompetent?
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how did they become a party?
TIG/CUK just seems bizarre from every angle.
It’s trying too hard to be different and radical, when what they want is to preserve the metropolitan elite hegemony. Focus groups probably told them that Brexit and Corbyn happened because disadvantaged people were angry, so they should try to hook into that kind of passion. But a load of wealthy middle aged centrists being slightly put out doesn’t cut it in the same way, it’s too corporate and synthetic
Yes, I get that, but it does not explain the rank incompetence, like the zero-policy launch event in the local Nando's, the changing name with the unfortunate acronym, the lack of logo, the apparent unawareness even that elections were due. I can see why TIGgers might hanker for Blairite or Cameroonian pasts but surely the hard part is explaining why they've gone about it so badly. Worse, so stupidly.
I'm in a slightly awkward position as I think of a couple of the TIGers as friends, but the party seems likely merely to drain a modest amount of support from other parties in roughly equal numbers, which is pointless, and to weaken the Remainerish side overall, which is actively damaging to what they claim to want - there is a real danger in areas like the East Mids with a smaller number of MEPs that they inadvertently help Farage by diverting enough votes from Labour, without getting enough votes to win seats themselves.
PB has a disproportionate number of people like me who are active in other parties, and there is a TIGger launch on Tuesday, so we may be underestimating them, but even if they get say 8% in the Euros, what next? A probable early test is whether they stand in Peterborough if the recall succeeds.
From your experience in the House, is there an institutional reason why TIG seems so incompetent?
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how did they become a party?
TIG/CUK just seems bizarre from every angle.
It’s trying too hard to be different and radical, when what they want is to preserve the metropolitan elite hegemony. Focus groups probably told them that Brexit and Corbyn happened because disadvantaged people were angry, so they should try to hook into that kind of passion. But a load of wealthy middle aged centrists being slightly put out doesn’t cut it in the same way, it’s too corporate and synthetic
Hmmmmm. Metropolitan elite hegemony. Wealthy middle aged centrists. Enemies of the people no doubt. Beyond the pale, of no account.
If you cannot challenge your opponents ideas you attempt to turn them into class enemies, Lenin would be proud.
Regardless of who is responsible these are atrocities quite as evil as the Christchurch massacre. To slaughter Christians worshipping in church on the most important day in their religious year is deliberately evil violence.
And it is not that infrequent. Christians have been murdered while worshipping in churches in Pakistan and Egypt and have been targeted in Iraq too.
Will we see the same reaction as to Christchurch? My guess is no - it’s all too far away, the people involved are brown and Christian so not a fashionable victim group and there is no recognisably nice boy who wouldn’t harm a fly when young growing up into evil killer story for the newspapers to ventilate over.
And yet we should not turn away. These murdered people matter. The reasons why this evil happens matter. We should spare a thought for those mourning today.
You can't use murdered Christians abroad as a pretext to attack your political opponents at home.
From your experience in the House, is there an institutional reason why TIG seems so incompetent?
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how were they bounced into becoming a party?
TIG/CUK just seems bizarre from every angle.
I'd expect some of the TIGgers to be quite good on policy, and in fairness that does take time (though it might have been wise to do it before splitting). I don't know them all but I wouldn't see them as brilliant grass-roots campaigners. Soubry is certainly unafraid to take people on, but has always had the party organisation behind her - I'm only aware of one Broxtowe councillor who has joined her, and he's an ex-Labour man whose main job is working for Gavin Shuker, another TIGer, so a bit of a special case.
I think (though I'm speculating) that they thought it'd be a domino strategy and by now they'd have 50 MPs and real momentum, at which point donors and members would flood in and the organisational side would come naturally. Setting up a national organisation when you're 15 people in a room with a couple of thousand emails from potential supporters must be an intimidating task.
Their real potential may be to be an option for Tory defectors if Boris makes it to leadership. I can imagine BigG switching for one in that case.
They were/are arrogant, they didn't want the Lib Dems dragging them down or holding them back.
I wonder if they believed many in the press about how everyone really wanted a centrist alternative. People who wanted to push this theory were able to ignore the last election on the basis that people didn't have a decent centrist alternative because the Lib Dems reputation discounted them.
If you believe the majority did want centrism and the only reason the Lib Dems didn't make a big breakthrough is because their reputation held them back then CUKs actions make sense. If you read some newspapers and listened to some journalists you would have assumed that all this would have happened quite easily and CUK MPs would be riding a huge wave of popular support just by not being in Corbyn's Labour or the pro Brexit Tories.
It turns out reality is rather more complicated than some imagine.
Edit: I enjoyed Ians comment, we should ask(force) him to write a whole thread on the subject!
Aren’t you so funny calling them ‘CUKs’ all the time. Ha ha ha.
Parties with long names can get called by their initials, they were the TIGs previously (although not actually a party then) any complaints about their name should be directed at the smart people who came up with it.
I don’t see the Tories being called the CAUPs though...
I think they were always going to be a failure. They have no big names, no novelty factor and no space on the political spectrum to themselves. When you consider that the SDP had all of those and still flopped at the 1983 election, it is obvious how difficult it is to start a non-regionally-based new party under FPTP.
The other thing is the personnel (that was the comment I made day one)
When you think about the SDP, no one can sensibly argue that Jenkins, Williams and Owen (sorry Bill) were big hitters
None of the TIGs are anywhere near that level (TBF there are very few MPs of any party that are)
You can’t build a new party around placemen and women
They were/are arrogant, they didn't want the Lib Dems dragging them down or holding them back.
I wonder if they believed many in the press about how everyone really wanted a centrist alternative. People who wanted to push this theory were able to ignore the last election on the basis that people didn't have a decent centrist alternative because the Lib Dems reputation discounted them.
If you believe the majority did want centrism and the only reason the Lib Dems didn't make a big breakthrough is because their reputation held them back then CUKs actions make sense. If you read some newspapers and listened to some journalists you would have assumed that all this would have happened quite easily and CUK MPs would be riding a huge wave of popular support just by not being in Corbyn's Labour or the pro Brexit Tories.
It turns out reality is rather more complicated than some imagine.
Edit: I enjoyed Ians comment, we should ask(force) him to write a whole thread on the subject!
Aren’t you so funny calling them ‘CUKs’ all the time. Ha ha ha.
Parties with long names can get called by their initials, they were the TIGs previously (although not actually a party then) any complaints about their name should be directed at the smart people who came up with it.
I don’t see the Tories being called the CAUPs though...
I think they were always going to be a failure. They have no big names, no novelty factor and no space on the political spectrum to themselves. When you consider that the SDP had all of those and still flopped at the 1983 election, it is obvious how difficult it is to start a non-regionally-based new party under FPTP.
The other thing is the personnel (that was the comment I made day one)
When you think about the SDP, no one can sensibly argue that Jenkins, Williams and Owen (sorry Bill) were big hitters
None of the TIGs are anywhere near that level (TBF there are very few MPs of any party that are)
You can’t build a new party around placemen and women
My memory may be at fault, but I think some of the SDP's 'pre-walk' local parties included quite a few supporters. I've seen little evidence of that for TIG's.
I'm in a slightly awkward position as I think of a couple of the TIGers as friends, but the party seems likely merely to drain a modest amount of support from other parties in roughly equal numbers, which is pointless, and to weaken the Remainerish side overall, which is actively damaging to what they claim to want - there is a real danger in areas like the East Mids with a smaller number of MEPs that they inadvertently help Farage by diverting enough votes from Labour, without getting enough votes to win seats themselves.
PB has a disproportionate number of people like me who are active in other parties, and there is a TIGger launch on Tuesday, so we may be underestimating them, but even if they get say 8% in the Euros, what next? A probable early test is whether they stand in Peterborough if the recall succeeds.
From your experience in the House, is there an institutional reason why TIG seems so incompetent?
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how did they become a party?
TIG/CUK just seems bizarre from every angle.
It’s trying too hard to be different and radical, when what they want is to preserve the metropolitan elite hegemony. Focus groups probably told them that Brexit and Corbyn happened because disadvantaged people were angry, so they should try to hook into that kind of passion. But a load of wealthy middle aged centrists being slightly put out doesn’t cut it in the same way, it’s too corporate and synthetic
Hmmmmm. Metropolitan elite hegemony. Wealthy middle aged centrists. Enemies of the people no doubt. Beyond the pale, of no account.
If you cannot challenge your opponents ideas you attempt to turn them into class enemies, Lenin would be proud.
Well I have challenged their ideas further upthread, so smearing me and making stuff up on my behalf is unnecessary on this ocassion.
None of the words I used to describe them are pejorative, many people would aspire to be described so
I would caveat my own criticisms by remembering that it was nine months between the Limehouse Declaration and the formal launch of the SDP. Judged against that timescale, TIG has come a long way in a very short time.
However that period did give the Gang of Four time to do the politics - make the speeches, build the support, stake out their territory - and by the time of launch then had critical mass in many constituencies, with funding and staff ready to go.
I do wonder to what extent the TIG MPs and their personal caseworkers have been dragged immediately into all the admin of founding a new party. For example this weekend TIG says it is interviewing the couple of thousand aspirant MEP candidates (hopefully after some shortlisting!) - how much of a burden is this on the MPs themselves, already tired from the pressure cooker of the Brexit debates. If they aren't making much political impact in the media (and between them they've been appearing on all the usual shows), maybe they are just busy?
The Limehouse Declaration by the Gang of Four took place on 25th January 1981 with the SDP being formally launched on 26th March that year. That amounted to less than nine weeks - rather than nine months!
I think they were always going to be a failure. They have no big names, no novelty factor and no space on the political spectrum to themselves. When you consider that the SDP had all of those and still flopped at the 1983 election, it is obvious how difficult it is to start a non-regionally-based new party under FPTP.
The other thing is the personnel (that was the comment I made day one)
When you think about the SDP, no one can sensibly argue that Jenkins, Williams and Owen (sorry Bill) were big hitters
None of the TIGs are anywhere near that level (TBF there are very few MPs of any party that are)
You can’t build a new party around placemen and women
My memory may be at fault, but I think some of the SDP's 'pre-walk' local parties included quite a few supporters. I've seen little evidence of that for TIG's.
Your memory is not at fault, the SDP had a precursor group, which I think was called the Council for Social Democracy, which had lists of supporters all over the country and when the party formally launched there were people in place to set up branches in most constituencies.
TIG has nothing on the ground, my MP is one of the Labour defectors but I dont know of any party members who have gone with him, there is no activity on the ground and no attempt seems to have been made to set up a local branch.
Regardless of who is responsible these are atrocities quite as evil as the Christchurch massacre. To slaughter Christians worshipping in church on the most important day in their religious year is deliberately evil violence.
And it is not that infrequent. Christians have been murdered while worshipping in churches in Pakistan and Egypt and have been targeted in Iraq too.
Will we see the same reaction as to Christchurch? My guess is no - it’s all too far away, the people involved are brown and Christian so not a fashionable victim group and there is no recognisably nice boy who wouldn’t harm a fly when young growing up into evil killer story for the newspapers to ventilate over.
And yet we should not turn away. These murdered people matter. The reasons why this evil happens matter. We should spare a thought for those mourning today.
You can't use murdered Christians abroad as a pretext to attack your political opponents at home.
They were/are arrogant, they didn't want the Lib Dems dragging them down or holding them back.
I wonder if they believed many in the press about how everyone really wanted a centrist alternative. People who wanted to push this theory were able to ignore the last election on the basis that people didn't have a decent centrist alternative because the Lib Dems reputation discounted them.
If you believe the majority did want centrism and the only reason the Lib Dems didn't make a big breakthrough is because their reputation held them back then CUKs actions make sense. If you read some newspapers and listened to some journalists you would have assumed that all this would have happened quite easily and CUK MPs would be riding a huge wave of popular support just by not being in Corbyn's Labour or the pro Brexit Tories.
It turns out reality is rather more complicated than some imagine.
Edit: I enjoyed Ians comment, we should ask(force) him to write a whole thread on the subject!
Aren’t you so funny calling them ‘CUKs’ all the time. Ha ha ha.
Parties with long names can get called by their initials, they were the TIGs previously (although not actually a party then) any complaints about their name should be directed at the smart people who came up with it.
I don’t see the Tories being called the CAUPs though...
I’d agree with that critique. Extra capacity is needed, but HS2 probably wasn’t the way to do it.
On the other hand, there are foolhardier projects, as Boris Johnson has demonstrated.
Where I live - North London, Hampstead area - it is the default to be against HS2 because the work is disruptive to the locale. Many well-argued and knowledgeable pieces are written around here, all of them demonstrating compellingly that the project is ill advised and ought to be cancelled, and all of them, I strongly suspect, hopelessly biased and despite the superficial 'expertise' more animated by NIMBY than anything else, NIMBY in the hands of the affluent classes being one of this country's very defining forces.
Me, I'm in favour. It's never the right time for major infrastructure spend. There is always a good reason not to do it. It will always fail a test on some spreadsheet or other. But if you don't do it, one day, not next week, not next year, but one day hence you wake up and realize that you should have and it is now too late. It is analogous to never upgrading your tech. That never makes sense either. You will always be fine with the older model. Until the day dawns when you realize you have been left behind and cannot understand the world you live in.
I don’t have a real problem with the disruption, or the idea of major infrastructure projects. I simply think this is the wrong one, and its cost will jeopardise better ones. The tendency to gold plate anything connected with London, and cheese pare everywhere else is undeniable.
Yes, that's the point, its spending on the right infrastructure projects and goodness knows there are enough candidates. The benefits of HS2 are minimal compared to those that could be delivered across the North and Midlands from the same level of spending. Since the costs are reported now to be about three times the official cost of £56bn, whatever dubious cost-benefit analysis used to justify the project in the first place should be junked.
That makes the rather dramatic assumption that the money spent on HS2 would be spent on other projects on the network - and that's not a given, especially as billions are being spent on the rest of the network anyway.
In addition, you really need to critically read that link you keep on posting, as it's (ahem) rubbish ...
Don't worry, that link wasn't for you. I realise that you couldn't care less about the wealth of evidence that HS2's costs are spiralling out of control and will dismiss anything to that effect as "rubbish".
I think they were always going to be a failure. They have no big names, no novelty factor and no space on the political spectrum to themselves. When you consider that the SDP had all of those and still flopped at the 1983 election, it is obvious how difficult it is to start a non-regionally-based new party under FPTP.
The other thing is the personnel (that was the comment I made day one)
When you think about the SDP, no one can sensibly argue that Jenkins, Williams and Owen (sorry Bill) were big hitters
None of the TIGs are anywhere near that level (TBF there are very few MPs of any party that are)
You can’t build a new party around placemen and women
My memory may be at fault, but I think some of the SDP's 'pre-walk' local parties included quite a few supporters. I've seen little evidence of that for TIG's.
Your memory is not at fault, the SDP had a precursor group, which I think was called the Council for Social Democracy, which had lists of supporters all over the country and when the party formally launched there were people in place to set up branches in most constituencies.
TIG has nothing on the ground, my MP is one of the Labour defectors but I dont know of any party members who have gone with him, there is no activity on the ground and no attempt seems to have been made to set up a local branch.
Hmm. Best make an appointment at the JobCentre as soon as the election is called, then, most of them. Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston might be able to do a deal with the local LD's, if the latter are feeling kindly disposed but that's I suspect, will be that. Of course, given the shortage of GP's in the SW Dr Wollaston will probably be OK.
Pretty selfish of him. The security he will need as PM if he continues to live at home may be impossible to give him and will very seriously inconvenience his neighbours.
Not really. Plenty of PMs have kept up their private homes in addition to living in Number 10 - what would be unusual would be sleeping there every night, but the security issue arises anyway. I met one of Tony Blair's neighbours in Sedgefield - he said wryly that his attempt to get a lower insurance premium because there were armed police on duty 24*7 had been rejected because it "wasn't an approved Neighbourhood Watch scheme"!
The article is helpful in a minor way in the same way as TM's invitation to help solve Brexit was helpful in a major way - it gets people used to the idea of Jeremy in Number 10 as a reasonable option.
I think they were always going to be a failure. They have no big names, no novelty factor and no space on the political spectrum to themselves. When you consider that the SDP had all of those and still flopped at the 1983 election, it is obvious how difficult it is to start a non-regionally-based new party under FPTP.
Nigel Farage seems to be doing a good job of it.
He is not running in FPTP elections. When he has, he has lost 7 times.
Indeed, but the Euro elections are not FPTP either.
Also watch for the Peterborough by-election, I think the Brexit Party will be standing someone well-known there. The electorate will be in the mood to give the regular politicians a kicking given the reasons behind it.
Labour MPs opposed to a second vote are still peddling the myth of their seats having a vast majority of Labour voters who want to leave .
Stephen Kinnock and the rest need to wake up . Labour is now more pro strongly Remain than 2016 . Poll after poll shows barely even 20% of Labour voters still thinking Leave was the right thing to do .
Putting her Brexit stance to one side, she is an archetypal Tory. She isn't a Social Democrat who stumbled into the wrong party.
Anyone in Labour who had been thinking of jumping now has to ask themself if they could be in the same party as Soubry. And as we've seen, the answer has been a resounding 'No'.
Don't worry, that link wasn't for you. I realise that you couldn't care less about the wealth of evidence that HS2's costs are spiralling out of control and will dismiss anything to that effect as "rubbish".
(Sighs theatrically) Read the link, and see how they got to such an inflated figure. Then apply that same thinking to whatever infrastructure projects *you* want to go ahead, and see what happens...
The media is the epitome of middle-class know-it-alls, so it's hardly like to ignore itself. I wouldn't be surprised if most of their kids are on gap-years promoting the cause.
It's become a fashion accessory rather then a cause. The new quinoa.
Tories under estimate them at their own peril! A times ER are rather foolish, but increasingly over the next decade or so peoples are going to be confronted by the realities of climate change. The Tories are on the wrong side of history on this one.
The gardeners I spoke to have noticed the seasons changing. That matters to conservatives more than just scientific evidence. It’s the feeling that “something’s wrong” that makes them open to the argument
In other news, Ukraine today may elect a president whose claim to fame is being a comic actor on a popular TV show who played being a teacher that got elected to the presidency.
This timeline is best timeline.
Incidentally the rise of his party strikes me as similar in some ways to the rise of Grillo and M5S in Italy. So how about we get in on the act, Ricky Gervais for PM?
Labour MPs opposed to a second vote are still peddling the myth of their seats having a vast majority of Labour voters who want to leave .
Stephen Kinnock and the rest need to wake up . Labour is now more pro strongly Remain than 2016 . Poll after poll shows barely even 20% of Labour voters still thinking Leave was the right thing to do .
I would think given those opposed to a second referendum have, outside a bare handful, not backed alternatives, that they are just posturing and certainly would go nowhere if there was a referendum. The labour brand is strong for remain and they are just appearing reluctant to gain try to protect against the leave votes on their seats, just in case
In other news, Ukraine today may elect a president whose claim to fame is being a comic actor on a popular TV show who played being a teacher that got elected to the presidency.
This timeline is best timeline.
Incidentally the rise of his party strikes me as similar in some ways to the rise of Grillo and M5S in Italy. So how about we get in on the act, Ricky Gervais for PM?
The way Engla..er..the UK is going, Jim Davidson surely?
I think they were always going to be a failure. They have no big names, no novelty factor and no space on the political spectrum to themselves. When you consider that the SDP had all of those and still flopped at the 1983 election, it is obvious how difficult it is to start a non-regionally-based new party under FPTP.
Nigel Farage seems to be doing a good job of it.
He is not running in FPTP elections. When he has, he has lost 7 times.
Indeed, but the Euro elections are not FPTP either.
Also watch for the Peterborough by-election, I think the Brexit Party will be standing someone well-known there. The electorate will be in the mood to give the regular politicians a kicking given the reasons behind it.
If they stand there that is very useful for Labour, no worry about an embarrassing defeat.
Pretty selfish of him. The security he will need as PM if he continues to live at home may be impossible to give him and will very seriously inconvenience his neighbours.
Not really. Harold Wilson did not live in No 10 during his second stint as PM from March 1974, but continued residing at Lord North Street. I don't think Callaghan moved there either upon taking office in April 1976.
Your memory is not at fault, the SDP had a precursor group, which I think was called the Council for Social Democracy, which had lists of supporters all over the country and when the party formally launched there were people in place to set up branches in most constituencies.
TIG has nothing on the ground, my MP is one of the Labour defectors but I dont know of any party members who have gone with him, there is no activity on the ground and no attempt seems to have been made to set up a local branch.
MY recollection of 1981 was at least two thirds of those joining the SDP had not been a member of any political party. The first SDP people I encountered were a former Labour Councillor and activist and four completely naïve but very pleasant and well-meaning middle aged people (two couples) who wanted to get out and knock on doors but didn't have a clue.
I lived in a very Conservative area and even then there was a clear sense some of those joining the SDP were "wet" Conservatives who had become alienated by Thatcher and her policies. That wasn't necessarily where Jenkins and Williams were but the strands of "liberal conservatism" and "social democracy" were brought together by their mutual opposition to her policies and agreement over Europe.
Pretty selfish of him. The security he will need as PM if he continues to live at home may be impossible to give him and will very seriously inconvenience his neighbours.
Not really. Plenty of PMs have kept up their private homes in addition to living in Number 10 - what would be unusual would be sleeping there every night, but the security issue arises anyway. I met one of Tony Blair's neighbours in Sedgefield - he said wryly that his attempt to get a lower insurance premium because there were armed police on duty 24*7 had been rejected because it "wasn't an approved Neighbourhood Watch scheme"!
The article is helpful in a minor way in the same way as TM's invitation to help solve Brexit was helpful in a major way - it gets people used to the idea of Jeremy in Number 10 as a reasonable option.
IIRC Harold Wilson did not live at No 10 in 1974-76. And possibly Jim Callaghan did not in 1976-79? Security was not so tight in those days, it was possible to walk into the central lobby at Westminster without any security check. And Downing Street was a public road.
Don't worry, that link wasn't for you. I realise that you couldn't care less about the wealth of evidence that HS2's costs are spiralling out of control and will dismiss anything to that effect as "rubbish".
(Sighs theatrically) Read the link, and see how they got to such an inflated figure. Then apply that same thinking to whatever infrastructure projects *you* want to go ahead, and see what happens...
And a newspaper article is hardly 'evidence'.
The study by the Midlands Economic Forum is the evidence, the newspaper is reporting its findings. I chose only that one because it had come out in the last couple of days.
There is copious other evidence out there, to which you appear to be blind. Enough for there to be a "Panorama" special in December 2018 for example.
You are incapable of debating points here without resorting to such condescending crap as the insertion of the likes of "sighs theatrically" and "ahem", so goodbye.
The media is the epitome of middle-class know-it-alls, so it's hardly like to ignore itself. I wouldn't be surprised if most of their kids are on gap-years promoting the cause.
It's become a fashion accessory rather then a cause. The new quinoa.
Tories under estimate them at their own peril! A times ER are rather foolish, but increasingly over the next decade or so peoples are going to be confronted by the realities of climate change. The Tories are on the wrong side of history on this one.
The gardeners I spoke to have noticed the seasons changing. That matters to conservatives more than just scientific evidence. It’s the feeling that “something’s wrong” that makes them open to the argument
I have visions of Ralph and Ted from 'The Fast Show'...
Your memory is not at fault, the SDP had a precursor group, which I think was called the Council for Social Democracy, which had lists of supporters all over the country and when the party formally launched there were people in place to set up branches in most constituencies.
TIG has nothing on the ground, my MP is one of the Labour defectors but I dont know of any party members who have gone with him, there is no activity on the ground and no attempt seems to have been made to set up a local branch.
MY recollection of 1981 was at least two thirds of those joining the SDP had not been a member of any political party. The first SDP people I encountered were a former Labour Councillor and activist and four completely naïve but very pleasant and well-meaning middle aged people (two couples) who wanted to get out and knock on doors but didn't have a clue.
I lived in a very Conservative area and even then there was a clear sense some of those joining the SDP were "wet" Conservatives who had become alienated by Thatcher and her policies. That wasn't necessarily where Jenkins and Williams were but the strands of "liberal conservatism" and "social democracy" were brought together by their mutual opposition to her policies and agreement over Europe.
Depended, I suspect, Mr S on where one lived. IIRC in our immediate area the SDP-ers were mainly former NOTA's, but just up the road in Southend the SDP was very definitely led by ex-Labour people.
Labour winning on 29% (Presumably against May) looks like a recipe for either a hard right takeover of the Tories or a supplantation at the next election. Very long term 29/26 ain't great for either Lab or CON whichever way it plays out...
Labour MPs opposed to a second vote are still peddling the myth of their seats having a vast majority of Labour voters who want to leave .
Stephen Kinnock and the rest need to wake up . Labour is now more pro strongly Remain than 2016 . Poll after poll shows barely even 20% of Labour voters still thinking Leave was the right thing to do .
This is also my view.
Best route to power for Labour is to place the election of a Labour government on the critical path for Ref2 and thus Remain.
Labour MPs opposed to a second vote are still peddling the myth of their seats having a vast majority of Labour voters who want to leave .
Stephen Kinnock and the rest need to wake up . Labour is now more pro strongly Remain than 2016 . Poll after poll shows barely even 20% of Labour voters still thinking Leave was the right thing to do .
This is also my view.
Best route to power for Labour is to place the election of a Labour government on the critical path for Ref2 and thus Remain.
I think they will win outright with that.
Maybe so - but I really do not believe that the public is anything like as consumed with Brexit as the commentariat clearly believes. 'Sick to death of it' - yes indeed - but it is an environment in which other issues would come to the fore in an election campaign. That would well suit Corbyn.
Pretty selfish of him. The security he will need as PM if he continues to live at home may be impossible to give him and will very seriously inconvenience his neighbours.
Not really. Plenty of PMs have kept up their private homes in addition to living in Number 10 - what would be unusual would be sleeping there every night, but the security issue arises anyway. I met one of Tony Blair's neighbours in Sedgefield - he said wryly that his attempt to get a lower insurance premium because there were armed police on duty 24*7 had been rejected because it "wasn't an approved Neighbourhood Watch scheme"!
The article is helpful in a minor way in the same way as TM's invitation to help solve Brexit was helpful in a major way - it gets people used to the idea of Jeremy in Number 10 as a reasonable option.
IIRC Harold Wilson did not live at No 10 in 1974-76. And possibly Jim Callaghan did not in 1976-79? Security was not so tight in those days, it was possible to walk into the central lobby at Westminster without any security check. And Downing Street was a public road.
In Johnson’s London, Boswell had lodgings in Downing Street for a time.
FPT - the obsession of so many Tory members and Leavers with cancelling HS2, seemingly as a test of soundness and on a par with withdrawing from the EU, is really bizzare.
I couldn't think of two more totally disconnected political issues if I tried, but I've really confused several of them by my support for both propositions and made another err.. quite cross.
They could both be seen as very expensive fantasy projects. Both can be criticised from a standpoint of applying "common sense" argumentation devoid of actual fact or analysis. And having a proper high speed rail network is a European idea, after all.
Ok, you want facts and analysis. Let’s start with this, what specifically is the economic benefit of HS2? And who sees that benefit?
And of course high speed rail matters more to continental Europe because they have a very different heavy rail network to ours; theirs being built around infrequent long distance services where the U.K. being smaller and having little in the way of external connections is more like a national metro. There’s a reason we aren’t like Europe.
The argument as I understand it is that the main north-south railway lines are already running close to full capacity and more 'bandwidth' is needed. If we are going to have to build a new railway, it might as well be a fit for purpose modern high speed one.
Yes but capacity building isn’t as sexy as faster and Osborne preferred the sizzle to the fact based argument
Putting her Brexit stance to one side, she is an archetypal Tory. She isn't a Social Democrat who stumbled into the wrong party.
Anyone in Labour who had been thinking of jumping now has to ask themself if they could be in the same party as Soubry. And as we've seen, the answer has been a resounding 'No'.
I don’t think that a problem in of itself - a significant party of the centre would necessarily be a fairly broad coalition. The problem is perhaps that there aren’t any equally feisty characters among the Labour defectors.
Or at least the British are competitive with Taiwan up to the "write a date on the powerpoint" part, maybe better to wait until it's actually built before declaring mission accomplished.
Putting her Brexit stance to one side, she is an archetypal Tory. She isn't a Social Democrat who stumbled into the wrong party.
Anyone in Labour who had been thinking of jumping now has to ask themself if they could be in the same party as Soubry. And as we've seen, the answer has been a resounding 'No'.
Yes - partly because of her ringing endorsement of austerity soon after switching. Ironically, she used to be an SDP member, so she does have centrist form, and on social issues (gay marriage etc.) she's unimpeachably centrist and quite brave about it. But on economics she's hardline Tory, much more than, say, Heidi Allen.
Or at least the British are competitive with Taiwan up to the "write a date on the powerpoint" part, maybe better to wait until it's actually built before declaring mission accomplished.
Labour activist who claimed Israeli lobby 'manufactured' anti-Semitism crisis selected as MEP candidate
Martin Mayer, a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and a Unite union activist, has been chosen to stand as MEP for Yorkshire & Humber.
The retired transport worker has been active in Labour Against the Witchunt (LAW), a group which claims accusations of anti-Semitism are a ruse to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
I find it rather amusing that Change UK has challenged the other parties to a TV Debate in the period leading up to the EU elections. It is not clear that there would be any reasonable basis for including them in such a debate! I cannot see them being granted 'major party status'.
I find it rather amusing that Change UK has challenged the other parties to a TV Debate in the period leading up to the EU elections. It is not clear that there would be any reasonable basis for including them in such a debate! I cannot see them being granted 'major party status'.
The de jure/de facto split in terms of TV time etc is UKIP/Brexit party. There is no remain "but for" party for CUK.
Labour winning on 29% (Presumably against May) looks like a recipe for either a hard right takeover of the Tories or a supplantation at the next election. Very long term 29/26 ain't great for either Lab or CON whichever way it plays out...
I don't know whether ORB conducted a poll for the EU elections. I expect that on those kinds of numbers, the Brexit Party would probably be first, or a very close second to Labour.
Regardless of who is responsible these are atrocities quite as evil as the Christchurch massacre. To slaughter Christians worshipping in church on the most important day in their religious year is deliberately evil violence.
And it is not that infrequent. Christians have been murdered while worshipping in churches in Pakistan and Egypt and have been targeted in Iraq too.
Will we see the same reaction as to Christchurch? My guess is no - it’s all too far away, the people involved are brown and Christian so not a fashionable victim group and there is no recognisably nice boy who wouldn’t harm a fly when young growing up into evil killer story for the newspapers to ventilate over.
And yet we should not turn away. These murdered people matter. The reasons why this evil happens matter. We should spare a thought for those mourning today.
You can't use murdered Christians abroad as a pretext to attack your political opponents at home.
Hmm. Best make an appointment at the JobCentre as soon as the election is called, then, most of them. Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston might be able to do a deal with the local LD's, if the latter are feeling kindly disposed
Which they won't be. Chris Leslie is doing a very good job of ensuring that.
It's notable that opinion of TIG in online Lib Dem activist groups has shifted recently from welcoming or sceptical to actively hostile.
Don't worry, that link wasn't for you. I realise that you couldn't care less about the wealth of evidence that HS2's costs are spiralling out of control and will dismiss anything to that effect as "rubbish".
(Sighs theatrically) Read the link, and see how they got to such an inflated figure. Then apply that same thinking to whatever infrastructure projects *you* want to go ahead, and see what happens...
And a newspaper article is hardly 'evidence'.
The study by the Midlands Economic Forum is the evidence, the newspaper is reporting its findings. I chose only that one because it had come out in the last couple of days.
There is copious other evidence out there, to which you appear to be blind. Enough for there to be a "Panorama" special in December 2018 for example.
You are incapable of debating points here without resorting to such condescending crap as the insertion of the likes of "sighs theatrically" and "ahem", so goodbye.
I saw that Panorama, and it was a biased joke of a program. If it's the one I think you mean, then it's description of Pacer units is fantastic for over-egging the pudding on those units - a difficult thing to do!
As for your link, it appears I need to explain more. To inflate the sum, they've added ancillary things that they think are needed to add to HS2 - like other transport links. These are not core to the HS2 project, and are not required for it.
And here's the killer: if you are going to get the advantages, you will have similar costs. For instance, if you have more trains even on a traditional network, they will require more power. If you have more people arriving in Birmingham or London, you will need transport to take them further on.
It is not an argument against HS2: it is an argument against increase in travel and business.
(At least, if it's as reported, and like similar 'estimates' done by other groups. Annoyingly the MEF want you to login to download their report.)
Pretty selfish of him. The security he will need as PM if he continues to live at home may be impossible to give him and will very seriously inconvenience his neighbours.
Not really. Harold Wilson did not live in No 10 during his second stint as PM from March 1974, but continued residing at Lord North Street. I don't think Callaghan moved there either upon taking office in April 1976.
I know nothing about the technicalities of HS2. But spending the money on really good Broadband in all the country, particularly in remote areas, and on proper bus / tram services, again in remote rural areas and smaller towns so as to give them the infrastructure they need to help them develop seems to me to be a better use of the money.
I know nothing about the technicalities of HS2. But spending the money on really good Broadband in all the country, particularly in remote areas, and on proper bus / tram services, again in remote rural areas and smaller towns so as to give them the infrastructure they need to help them develop seems to me to be a better use of the money.
Say it quietly but rural broadband has got a lot better.
It lags by a similar percentage behind urban areas, but doubling 2Mbps to 4Mbps per second makes a much bigger difference in terms of services than 40Mbps to 80Mbps.
Pretty selfish of him. The security he will need as PM if he continues to live at home may be impossible to give him and will very seriously inconvenience his neighbours.
Not really. Harold Wilson did not live in No 10 during his second stint as PM from March 1974, but continued residing at Lord North Street. I don't think Callaghan moved there either upon taking office in April 1976.
Very different times re security.
But are the threats really so much greater than in the 1970s when the IRA was attempting to blow up British politicians? Moreover , the Suffragettes were smashing windows in Downing Street before World War 1!
Putting her Brexit stance to one side, she is an archetypal Tory. She isn't a Social Democrat who stumbled into the wrong party.
Anyone in Labour who had been thinking of jumping now has to ask themself if they could be in the same party as Soubry. And as we've seen, the answer has been a resounding 'No'.
Yes - partly because of her ringing endorsement of austerity soon after switching. Ironically, she used to be an SDP member, so she does have centrist form, and on social issues (gay marriage etc.) she's unimpeachably centrist and quite brave about it. But on economics she's hardline Tory, much more than, say, Heidi Allen.
They wont join a party with one member who is right of centre economically and isn't in charge of policy but are happy in the party of anti semitism. Probably tells you why labour are sub 30% and headed downwards.
Okay, I've downloaded the MEF's report into HS2, and it's light - just three pages. But there are blaring danger signs. E.g.: "The annual running costs are currently estimated as equivalent to the total running costs of the entire Network Rail network"
That's quite a claim. In fact, I'd argue it's bullshit.
Hmm. Best make an appointment at the JobCentre as soon as the election is called, then, most of them. Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston might be able to do a deal with the local LD's, if the latter are feeling kindly disposed
Which they won't be. Chris Leslie is doing a very good job of ensuring that.
It's notable that opinion of TIG in online Lib Dem activist groups has shifted recently from welcoming or sceptical to actively hostile.
Tigs don't want to be playmates with cables zombies, they want to replace them
Hmm. Best make an appointment at the JobCentre as soon as the election is called, then, most of them. Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston might be able to do a deal with the local LD's, if the latter are feeling kindly disposed
Which they won't be. Chris Leslie is doing a very good job of ensuring that.
It's notable that opinion of TIG in online Lib Dem activist groups has shifted recently from welcoming or sceptical to actively hostile.
Tigs don't want to be playmates with cables zombies, they want to replace them
I know nothing about the technicalities of HS2. But spending the money on really good Broadband in all the country, particularly in remote areas, and on proper bus / tram services, again in remote rural areas and smaller towns so as to give them the infrastructure they need to help them develop seems to me to be a better use of the money.
The West Coast mainline is at capacity and something has to be done. HS2 is the best solution.
Hmm. Best make an appointment at the JobCentre as soon as the election is called, then, most of them. Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston might be able to do a deal with the local LD's, if the latter are feeling kindly disposed
Which they won't be. Chris Leslie is doing a very good job of ensuring that.
It's notable that opinion of TIG in online Lib Dem activist groups has shifted recently from welcoming or sceptical to actively hostile.
Tigs don't want to be playmates with cables zombies, they want to replace them
Well lets see how May 2nd turns out.
It wont tell you much about tiggers as they aren't standing but I'm sure there will be more lib dems. Doesn't alter their long term decline and irrelevance.
Comments
And it should be just the start - we should be aiming at a massive infrastructure spend to transform the economic geography of the UK to bring more of the country inside the arc of trade and prosperity that runs from Northern Italy to SE England. (Brexit is profoundly unhelpful in this regard by the way - it will simply shrink that arc to exclude even the part of the UK that currently benefits).
The problem with Ronseal Brexit is even now Brexiteers can't agree what Brexit means, so a party dedicated to delivering it doesn't mean anything.
May's deal is Brexit. Will the Brexit party deliver it?
Ummmmm, no....
" SpaceX chose to use an industrial grade (as opposed to aerospace grade) 17-4 PH SS (precipitation-hardening stainless steel) cast part (the “Rod End”) in a critical load path under cryogenic conditions and strenuous flight environments. The implementation was done without adequate screening or testing of the industrial grade part, without regard to the manufacturer’s recommendations for a 4:1 factor of safety when using their industrial grade part in an application, and without proper modeling or adequate load testing of the part under predicted flight conditions. "
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/public_summary_nasa_irt_spacex_crs-7_final.pdf
In the end it didn't matter as the design and material got changed, but SpaceX's blame-someone-else mentality was not good.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1119900079048019968
Is it that in safe seats, MPs need have no experience of campaigning? Or that backbenchers decades ago subcontracted policy deliberations to the whips' office, and parties hired management consultants to do their thinking for them? Is there a parallel with the ERG who spent 10 years or more calling for Brexit without ever wondering what it should look like?
Was TIG intended as a pressure group rather than a party? Mike Gapes seemed genuinely shocked when Labour withdrew its support for his position on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. That might also explain the absence of policy, proper name and logo. Though if that is right, then how were they bounced into becoming a party?
TIG/CUK just seems bizarre from every angle.
3 years ago they would have bitten your hand off to be out of EU, out of CAP, out of SM etc etc.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1119880326560604160
If you cannot challenge your opponents ideas you attempt to turn them into class enemies, Lenin would be proud.
It will be interesting to see who will pay for the churches to be restored, like Notre Dame.
I think (though I'm speculating) that they thought it'd be a domino strategy and by now they'd have 50 MPs and real momentum, at which point donors and members would flood in and the organisational side would come naturally. Setting up a national organisation when you're 15 people in a room with a couple of thousand emails from potential supporters must be an intimidating task.
Their real potential may be to be an option for Tory defectors if Boris makes it to leadership. I can imagine BigG switching for one in that case.
When you think about the SDP, no one can sensibly argue that Jenkins, Williams and Owen (sorry Bill) were big hitters
None of the TIGs are anywhere near that level (TBF there are very few MPs of any party that are)
You can’t build a new party around placemen and women
Myths aren’t just stories but oral traditions. Mythos preceded logos as a way to structure human thought
None of the words I used to describe them are pejorative, many people would aspire to be described so
TIG has nothing on the ground, my MP is one of the Labour defectors but I dont know of any party members who have gone with him, there is no activity on the ground and no attempt seems to have been made to set up a local branch.
Of course, given the shortage of GP's in the SW Dr Wollaston will probably be OK.
The article is helpful in a minor way in the same way as TM's invitation to help solve Brexit was helpful in a major way - it gets people used to the idea of Jeremy in Number 10 as a reasonable option.
Also watch for the Peterborough by-election, I think the Brexit Party will be standing someone well-known there. The electorate will be in the mood to give the regular politicians a kicking given the reasons behind it.
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1119867843921764352?s=20
Stephen Kinnock and the rest need to wake up . Labour is now more pro strongly Remain than 2016 . Poll after poll shows barely even 20% of Labour voters still thinking Leave was the right thing to do .
Anna Soubry.
Putting her Brexit stance to one side, she is an archetypal Tory. She isn't a Social Democrat who stumbled into the wrong party.
Anyone in Labour who had been thinking of jumping now has to ask themself if they could be in the same party as Soubry. And as we've seen, the answer has been a resounding 'No'.
Read the link, and see how they got to such an inflated figure. Then apply that same thinking to whatever infrastructure projects *you* want to go ahead, and see what happens...
And a newspaper article is hardly 'evidence'.
29% Labour
26% Con
14% Brexit
8% LD
5% TIG
5% UKIP
Question for polling buffs: When was the last opinion poll for a UK General Election that put Labour in the lead but with under 30% of the vote share?
This timeline is best timeline.
Incidentally the rise of his party strikes me as similar in some ways to the rise of Grillo and M5S in Italy. So how about we get in on the act, Ricky Gervais for PM?
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usercode.py?CON=26&LAB=29&LIB=8&UKIP=14&Green=1.7&NewLAB=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVUKIP=&TVGreen=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2017
Brexit gain Thurrock!
Also the LibDems double their representation despite getting almost exactly the same vote share.
CON: -60 258
LAB: +27 289
LIB: +16 28
Brexit (used UKIP): +1 1
Green: +0 1
SNP: +16 51
I lived in a very Conservative area and even then there was a clear sense some of those joining the SDP were "wet" Conservatives who had become alienated by Thatcher and her policies. That wasn't necessarily where Jenkins and Williams were but the strands of "liberal conservatism" and "social democracy" were brought together by their mutual opposition to her policies and agreement over Europe.
There is copious other evidence out there, to which you appear to be blind. Enough for there to be a "Panorama" special in December 2018 for example.
You are incapable of debating points here without resorting to such condescending crap as the insertion of the likes of "sighs theatrically" and "ahem", so goodbye.
Best route to power for Labour is to place the election of a Labour government on the critical path for Ref2 and thus Remain.
I think they will win outright with that.
Compare HS2 with Taiwan High Speed Rail (a similar sized project)
HS2/ Taiwan HSR
Route decided 2010 / 1991
Gov go-ahead 2012 / 1993
Construction contracts 2017 / 1998
Opened 2026 / 2007
China has built its high speed network more quickly though but they do have to worry about consultation or public scrutiny.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/20/get-ready-tory-hopefuls-jettison-hs2/
Martin Mayer, a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and a Unite union activist, has been chosen to stand as MEP for Yorkshire & Humber.
The retired transport worker has been active in Labour Against the Witchunt (LAW), a group which claims accusations of anti-Semitism are a ruse to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/04/20/labour-activist-claimed-israeli-lobby-manufactured-anti-semitism/
If you were to treat voting Labour as a proxy for voting Remain then it would be 52- 46% Remain - Leave.
It's notable that opinion of TIG in online Lib Dem activist groups has shifted recently from welcoming or sceptical to actively hostile.
As for your link, it appears I need to explain more. To inflate the sum, they've added ancillary things that they think are needed to add to HS2 - like other transport links. These are not core to the HS2 project, and are not required for it.
And here's the killer: if you are going to get the advantages, you will have similar costs. For instance, if you have more trains even on a traditional network, they will require more power. If you have more people arriving in Birmingham or London, you will need transport to take them further on.
It is not an argument against HS2: it is an argument against increase in travel and business.
(At least, if it's as reported, and like similar 'estimates' done by other groups. Annoyingly the MEF want you to login to download their report.)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-48003955
They probably all have a weeks skiing holiday booked.
It lags by a similar percentage behind urban areas, but doubling 2Mbps to 4Mbps per second makes a much bigger difference in terms of services than 40Mbps to 80Mbps.
They wont join a party with one member who is right of centre economically and isn't in charge of policy but are happy in the party of anti semitism. Probably tells you why labour are sub 30% and headed downwards.
"The annual running costs are currently estimated as equivalent to the total running costs of the entire Network Rail network"
That's quite a claim. In fact, I'd argue it's bullshit.