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  • It is funny how far people will go to explain away how they repeatedly lose elections.

    If the Russians are backing both sides, my guess is they will win one and lose one.
  • DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    Austerity does not work, even when imposed by Germany. The irony is that some now believe it was austerity and not hyperinflation which fuelled the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party 100 years ago.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695

    IshmaelZ said:

    Omnium said:



    As a schoolboy in Berwick on Tweed in the late fifties I watched 'Mallard' herself come past our classrooms. Indeed we were given time off to watch this magnificient locomotive pass in full steam.

    Never to be forgotten

    What next though?

    I remember the Flying Scotsman nipping through Harrow and Wealdstone.

    I remember Concorde.

    I think I'd prefer the 0.7% or whatever it is of our money to go to something like that rather than foreign aid. If foreign aid actually was foreign aid then it'd be different.

    At the same time our local signalman allowed me to pull the levers on the signal for the Flying Scotsman to pass again in full steam. Can you imagine that happening today.

    Lifetime memories
    First time I ever flew was when I was 10 on a long flight to move to Australia. At one point in the flight the stewardess came and asked if my younger brother and I would like to go to the cockpit and speak to the Captain.

    I was very impressed with the cockpit and the amount of controls there and we had a nice brief chat with the captain.

    I couldn't imagine if they'd still offer that to kids flying today. I imagine no which is a shame. Maybe they do but it was a great opportunity either way.
    BA pilots let me sit in the cockpit whilst they were landing the plane at Heathrow when I flew as a child aged 10-12 years old.

    Wouldn't happen in a million years now.
    Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2A194yTWoQ
    Still the funniest film ever!
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695

    The fuel legislation is one of the most ill thought pieces of legislation for ages.

    This is pissing off quite a lot of people for no real gain by HMG and worse there are so many illogical aspects to the policy BoJo and his boys just look stupid.

    Must be the EU's fault, surely? :wink:
    Looks like they have lots of problems of their own to be honest

    Well, the UK leaving has caused them some problems - no one ever pretended it wouldn't - but going forward UK governments (of whatever hue) will not be able to blame the EU for our own poorly conceived legislation.
  • The fuel legislation is one of the most ill thought pieces of legislation for ages.

    This is pissing off quite a lot of people for no real gain by HMG and worse there are so many illogical aspects to the policy BoJo and his boys just look stupid.

    Must be the EU's fault, surely? :wink:
    Looks like they have lots of problems of their own to be honest

    Well, the UK leaving has caused them some problems - no one ever pretended it wouldn't - but going forward UK governments (of whatever hue) will not be able to blame the EU for our own poorly conceived legislation.
    Which is just one of the real benefits of Brexit.
  • Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:



    I don't believe that the main cause of particulates in London air is wood-burning. Prove it.

    The death of Ella Kissi-Debrah was due to the fact that she walked to school along the London South Circular Road. The particulates along the South Circular Road are not caused by wood-burners.

    You did not mention the rural poor -- but that is because you have not understood that most people in poorer, rural parts of the country are the ones who burn wood. It is not as you suggest because they are living "a romanticised idyll", it is because they are poor and live in damp old houses.

    Once again, I never said wood burning was the "main cause" but it is a cause and it does happen in urban areas.

    All this bad-tempered exchange illustrates is the gulf between "town" and "country" that exists and the misconceptions on both sides.
    snip

    You could slap a 1000 pounds fee for owning a car in London. That will fix the problem. Of course, the losers there are not voiceless.
    Unintended consequences:

    1) Heritage railways. Where will they get coal? Will they have to convert to oil?

    2) Canal boats. They usually burn wood in solid fuel stoves. Kiln dried is harder to get and generally more expensive.

    3) Homes off the gas grid. They will have to burn either bottled gas or oil for central heating, and will find it more difficult to burn wood (which is more environmentally friendly) to reduce their consumption of these expensive fuels.

    4) It will make wood burning less efficient if the wood is dried out using gas in advance.

    It’s virtue signalling with a lack of forethought.
    These exceptions are exceptions - Heritage railways should pay an annual fee for a license to do other than the law. That fee when it was long-established would be small, but if you wanted to apply for such a license to (say) drive sharabangs on English roads then the fee would be very large in the first year, until we got used to Welsh caravaners...
    Wood will not have to be kiln dried. That is my understanding, and I bloody hope I am right. Seasoned is fine.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    The fuel legislation is one of the most ill thought pieces of legislation for ages.

    This is pissing off quite a lot of people for no real gain by HMG and worse there are so many illogical aspects to the policy BoJo and his boys just look stupid.

    Must be the EU's fault, surely? :wink:
    Looks like they have lots of problems of their own to be honest

    Well, the UK leaving has caused them some problems - no one ever pretended it wouldn't - but going forward UK governments (of whatever hue) will not be able to blame the EU for our own poorly conceived legislation.
    Good. Make politicians more accountable.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,105
    edited February 2020

    The fuel legislation is one of the most ill thought pieces of legislation for ages.

    This is pissing off quite a lot of people for no real gain by HMG and worse there are so many illogical aspects to the policy BoJo and his boys just look stupid.

    Must be the EU's fault, surely? :wink:
    Looks like they have lots of problems of their own to be honest

    Well, the UK leaving has caused them some problems - no one ever pretended it wouldn't - but going forward UK governments (of whatever hue) will not be able to blame the EU for our own poorly conceived legislation.
    But that is the point. Taking back control means the UK voter is in sole charge and can deliver it's verdict on the UK government at every GE or even local elections
  • DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    Austerity does not work, even when imposed by Germany. The irony is that some now believe it was austerity and not hyperinflation which fuelled the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party 100 years ago.
    Some now believe ???

    Some of us have know that since they first studied 1920s Germany.

    The hyperinflation was in 1923 and was followed by several years of stable government and economic growth.

    The depression of the early 1930s with its 30% unemployment rate led to the NSDAP electoral breakthrough.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    Austerity does not work, even when imposed by Germany. The irony is that some now believe it was austerity and not hyperinflation which fuelled the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party 100 years ago.
    Most EU countries are running deficits that exceed their annual growth. In other words their GDP/ debt ratios are deteriorating. After nearly 12 years of anaemic growth. That is not austerity. It’s economic incompetence but it’s not austerity.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695

    The fuel legislation is one of the most ill thought pieces of legislation for ages.

    This is pissing off quite a lot of people for no real gain by HMG and worse there are so many illogical aspects to the policy BoJo and his boys just look stupid.

    Must be the EU's fault, surely? :wink:
    Looks like they have lots of problems of their own to be honest

    Well, the UK leaving has caused them some problems - no one ever pretended it wouldn't - but going forward UK governments (of whatever hue) will not be able to blame the EU for our own poorly conceived legislation.
    But that is the point. Taking back control means the UK voter is in sole charge and can deliver it's verdict on the UK government at every GE or even local elections
    It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Actually, I still expect the EU to be used as a scapegoat by our politicians ('they wouldn't give us the deal we wanted', 'they are abusing their economic power' etc. etc.)
  • Jonathan said:
    IDS never lost an election (for the Tories)!
  • Jonathan said:
    Good point
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    Austerity does not work, even when imposed by Germany. The irony is that some now believe it was austerity and not hyperinflation which fuelled the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party 100 years ago.
    Most EU countries are running deficits that exceed their annual growth. In other words their GDP/ debt ratios are deteriorating. After nearly 12 years of anaemic growth. That is not austerity. It’s economic incompetence but it’s not austerity.
    It's a refusal to tax at an appropriate level to fund the public services citizens expect that is the issue.
  • It's £3 tory Corbyn voters all over again...

    https://twitter.com/billscher/status/1230921127385608192
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675

    Jonathan said:
    IDS never lost an election (for the Tories)!
    But that was because he was so uniquely shite, no one cold bare to see him in action.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    tyson said:

    Can someone please tell me how Warren has drifted to 90's when her performance yesterday was stunning?

    Money troubles.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695

    Jonathan said:
    Good point
    And yet no other Labour leader can match Blair's won three, lost zero.

    Dis any historical leader better Blair and Thatcher's W3-L0 election records?
  • He never lost a general election but he did lose 6 local and 2 European elections.

    Blair's overall record was:

    General 3/3
    Local 4/10
    European 0/2

    Thatcher's was:

    General 3/3
    Local 8/14
    European 2/3
  • Alistair said:

    tyson said:

    Can someone please tell me how Warren has drifted to 90's when her performance yesterday was stunning?

    Money troubles.
    She is in the same lane as Sanders. At the moment he totally dominates the progressive/we want to lose wing of the Dems.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695
    Hmmm... I have thought about getting out of equities but I think I am going to ride it out.

    Either it will all blow over quickly or (marginally more likely imo) there will be a serious hit for a year or two followed by a bounce back. The trouble with the latter scenario is that I don't trust myself to call the trough correctly.
  • DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    The answer to the last is easy.

    They would lie.

    Remember Blair lying about giving up half the Rebate for nothing in return.

    Or Cameron lying about 'halving the bill'.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    The answer to the last is easy.

    They would lie.

    Remember Blair lying about giving up half the Rebate for nothing in return.

    Or Cameron lying about 'halving the bill'.
    Sad but true.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    Austerity does not work, even when imposed by Germany. The irony is that some now believe it was austerity and not hyperinflation which fuelled the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party 100 years ago.
    Most EU countries are running deficits that exceed their annual growth. In other words their GDP/ debt ratios are deteriorating. After nearly 12 years of anaemic growth. That is not austerity. It’s economic incompetence but it’s not austerity.
    It's a refusal to tax at an appropriate level to fund the public services citizens expect that is the issue.
    You may be astonished to learn I completely agree!
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    Hamburg votes on Sunday and it looks for a change as though the SPD may have something to celebrate but there are two vastly conflicting polls out there so make of these what you will.

    The Hamburg University poll has the SPD on 34%, the Greens on 32%, CDU on 12% and Linke on 7%. This would have the SPD-Green coalition an increased majority.

    The INSA poll has the SPD on 38%, Greens on 23%, CDU on 13% and Linke on 8%.

    Somebody is going to have some egg on their gesicht come Sunday evening.

    Another quick note - poll conducted in Ireland on a snap second GE would have SF on 35%, FG on 18% and FF on 17% so with a full slate of candidates that would put SF on 60-62 seats and make it almost impossible to form a Government without them. That might exercise the political leaders on their weekend.

    To no one's surprise, it now seems Martin and Varadkar are to have an "exploratory" meeting. Varadkar continues to dance on the head of the "going back into Government" pin but it may be we get an FF-Green Government with FG support which would command a majority in the Dail.

    Hamburg is the Liverpool of Germany.
  • As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,228
    Dura_Ace said:



    I couldn't imagine if they'd still offer that to kids flying today. I imagine no which is a shame. Maybe they do but it was a great opportunity either way.

    The RAF let me fly a Jetstream on a flight from Finningley to Bruggen when I was a student and wasn't even commissioned. They definitely don't do that any more after a student had to bang out of a Harrier T-Bird and was dragged through the burning wreckage by her chute.
    The only thing they let me loose in was one of these:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_Tandem_Tutor

    Which was a bit like flying a brick.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited February 2020

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    Why stop there?
  • DavidL said:

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    Why stop there?
    I could give him a Physics lesson or two, but I’m not sure how it would help.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720

    Hmmm... I have thought about getting out of equities but I think I am going to ride it out.

    Either it will all blow over quickly or (marginally more likely imo) there will be a serious hit for a year or two followed by a bounce back. The trouble with the latter scenario is that I don't trust myself to call the trough correctly.
    I moved my portfolio to a substantially cash and very defensive position a few weeks back. I don't believe this will blow over quickly, even though I think it won't be as bad as the Spanish Flu pandemic.

    I reckon that as a health worker, I am very likely to get it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,228
    Two Cambodian sisters - aged 98 and 101 - have been reunited for the first time in 47 years after each thinking the other had died during the Khmer Rouge's 1970s reign of terror.
    Bun Sen, 98, was also reunited with her 92-year-old brother, who she thought had passed away, a local NGO said....
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51590980
  • https://twitter.com/Mike2020/status/1230924914468773890

    Bloomberg isn't even trying to win this, he's just taking the piss out of Trump.

    This is like a real life Brewster's Millions. Or we should call it Brewster's Billions now.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:
    IDS never lost an election (for the Tories)!
    But that was because he was so uniquely shite, no one cold bare to see him in action.
    Boris is yet to lose one isn’t he?
  • Andy_JS said:

    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    Hamburg votes on Sunday and it looks for a change as though the SPD may have something to celebrate but there are two vastly conflicting polls out there so make of these what you will.

    The Hamburg University poll has the SPD on 34%, the Greens on 32%, CDU on 12% and Linke on 7%. This would have the SPD-Green coalition an increased majority.

    The INSA poll has the SPD on 38%, Greens on 23%, CDU on 13% and Linke on 8%.

    Somebody is going to have some egg on their gesicht come Sunday evening.

    Another quick note - poll conducted in Ireland on a snap second GE would have SF on 35%, FG on 18% and FF on 17% so with a full slate of candidates that would put SF on 60-62 seats and make it almost impossible to form a Government without them. That might exercise the political leaders on their weekend.

    To no one's surprise, it now seems Martin and Varadkar are to have an "exploratory" meeting. Varadkar continues to dance on the head of the "going back into Government" pin but it may be we get an FF-Green Government with FG support which would command a majority in the Dail.

    Hamburg is the Liverpool of Germany.
    Top of the league?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    isam said:

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:
    IDS never lost an election (for the Tories)!
    But that was because he was so uniquely shite, no one cold bare to see him in action.
    Boris is yet to lose one isn’t he?
    All political careers end in failure.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,060
    Foxy said:

    isam said:

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:
    IDS never lost an election (for the Tories)!
    But that was because he was so uniquely shite, no one cold bare to see him in action.
    Boris is yet to lose one isn’t he?
    All political careers end in failure.
    Putin seems to be bucking that trend
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,206
    stodge said:

    kjh said:

    I am very confused by the announcement on stoves and fires today. There will be a ban on buying wet wood under 2 cu metres and then it has to have instructions on seasoning. You will not be allowed to burn wet wood.

    Who the hell burns wet wood?

    I have 2 stoves in our main house and I'm about to install a stove in our second house. So far I have got all my wood from my garden and I season it myself. If and when I do run out I will approach a tree surgeon for wet wood they don't want and season it myself because I have the space.

    Wood that is sold commercially for burning in home stoves is always seasoned. Most people don't have the space to season their own wood. They are saying it must be seasoned in kilns. Why? That just speeds up the process but wastes energy and pollutes.

    99% of people do what is required (re wood) anyway and those that don't are those that can season anyway. Nobody burns wet wood (Ash is one wood that can be burnt wet, but why would you?).

    Confused.

    Not really, Wood burning stoves, along with diesel vehicles, are two of the main sources for PM pollution in the air we are breathing and this is the problem the Government is finally trying to address.

    It's all very well banging on about being green and how much power is generated from renewables but the real issue is air quality in our towns and cities and in particular the levels of Particulate Matter Pollution and especially those particles below 2.5 micrometers in diameter.
    Diesel vehicles aren't really an issue any more. Euro 6 emissions stuff is really clean. Typically the government is running around panicking about an issue which left untouched would have resolved itself entirely naturally as the vehicle stock is replaced over the next ten years.
  • theProle said:

    stodge said:

    kjh said:

    I am very confused by the announcement on stoves and fires today. There will be a ban on buying wet wood under 2 cu metres and then it has to have instructions on seasoning. You will not be allowed to burn wet wood.

    Who the hell burns wet wood?

    I have 2 stoves in our main house and I'm about to install a stove in our second house. So far I have got all my wood from my garden and I season it myself. If and when I do run out I will approach a tree surgeon for wet wood they don't want and season it myself because I have the space.

    Wood that is sold commercially for burning in home stoves is always seasoned. Most people don't have the space to season their own wood. They are saying it must be seasoned in kilns. Why? That just speeds up the process but wastes energy and pollutes.

    99% of people do what is required (re wood) anyway and those that don't are those that can season anyway. Nobody burns wet wood (Ash is one wood that can be burnt wet, but why would you?).

    Confused.

    Not really, Wood burning stoves, along with diesel vehicles, are two of the main sources for PM pollution in the air we are breathing and this is the problem the Government is finally trying to address.

    It's all very well banging on about being green and how much power is generated from renewables but the real issue is air quality in our towns and cities and in particular the levels of Particulate Matter Pollution and especially those particles below 2.5 micrometers in diameter.
    Diesel vehicles aren't really an issue any more. Euro 6 emissions stuff is really clean. Typically the government is running around panicking about an issue which left untouched would have resolved itself entirely naturally as the vehicle stock is replaced over the next ten years.
    And air quality is the highest it’s been for hundreds of years!
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,533
    Alistair said:

    tyson said:

    Can someone please tell me how Warren has drifted to 90's when her performance yesterday was stunning?

    Money troubles.
    Also, first polls post-debate suggest no particular impact.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    CatMan said:

    Foxy said:

    isam said:

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:
    IDS never lost an election (for the Tories)!
    But that was because he was so uniquely shite, no one cold bare to see him in action.
    Boris is yet to lose one isn’t he?
    All political careers end in failure.
    Putin seems to be bucking that trend
    Certainly he has had a lot of recent successes, domestically and via his foreign agents. I think though his short term objective of weakening and dividing countries like the USA and UK, but I think that is a very short termist approach. We are certainly suffering from our lack of respect for Russia in the nineties.
  • stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    I read on Twitter earlier “The EU loved us the same way a stripper loved the 50yr old bald man who put £20 notes in her g string. “
  • Gabs3Gabs3 Posts: 836

    glw said:

    The Russians are backing the Sanders campaign as well as Trump.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/feb/21/democrats-prepare-to-vote-in-nevada-amid-controversy-over-donald-trump-roger-stone-and-russia-live-coverage-bernie-sanders

    So the Russians are backing the two candidates that will be most divisive, and I expect the most likely to lead to a contested result.

    Meanwhile the Senate is refusing the pass election security bills, the FEC doesn't have a quorum, and Trump fired the acting DNI Maguire for doing his job and letting his staff brief the intelligence committees as they are legally required to do.

    What a mess.

    Totally unsurprising. They were doing this way back even before Trump announced in 2015.

    As for...

    During this week’s debate, Bernie Sanders suggested “vicious attacks” against Nevada’s Culinary Union, which were blamed on his supporters, may be coming from Russia.

    Like Corbyn, he has attracted a lot of the proper communist / anarchist / hard left wingnut types, who have a history of the anti-capitalist violence and harassment, so it could easily be them rather than the Russians.
    It will be quite amusing to watch the Sanders tribalist who were at the forefront of Russian denialism do a u-turn when they see Putin interfering to help Trump beat Bernie.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    DavidL said:

    Omnium said:

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    It will all go wrong for the EU. Precisely the factor that made me vote leave.

    It just has to go wrong until they somehow arrange that there is a HUGE subsidy to the South and the East.

    The poor in France and Germany will get poorer.

    If EU economies were still growing at 3-4% a year this really would not be an issue. It is the relative economic failure of the EU that makes fixing the budget so hard. Those who are not yet caught up want the money they were promised. Those at the top facing tight budgets at home are not willing to pay in to something that is not giving them the growth they hoped for. And Italy is an unending crisis.

    If we had remained members our politicians would have been try to work out how they sold larger contributions and smaller “rewards”. Thank goodness we are not.
    Austerity does not work, even when imposed by Germany. The irony is that some now believe it was austerity and not hyperinflation which fuelled the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party 100 years ago.
    That is surely true. The Nazis did very badly in the Reichstag elections of both 1924 and 1928.
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 597

    "Discussions have allegedly thrown up rifts around how to fill the €60-75 billion funding deficit left by Brexit."

    The UK's largesse was the glue holding the whole sorry enterprise together. Who knew?
    Have they considered the possibility of spending less instead?
  • alteregoalterego Posts: 1,100

    stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    I read on Twitter earlier “The EU loved us the same way a stripper loved the 50yr old bald man who put £20 notes in her g string. “
    Nobody got fucked in that example.
  • alteregoalterego Posts: 1,100
    dodrade said:

    "Discussions have allegedly thrown up rifts around how to fill the €60-75 billion funding deficit left by Brexit."

    The UK's largesse was the glue holding the whole sorry enterprise together. Who knew?
    Have they considered the possibility of spending less instead?
    Someone's gonna be upset whatever you do
  • As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
    Wrong. I think Starmer may well aspire to match Smith's achievement, and rightly so. i.e. Following a bad election loss, unify the party whilst pursuing a solid democratic socialist agenda and within two years take Labour to a position about 20% ahead in the polls and looking pretty nailed on to win the next GE.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    edited February 2020
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    I couldn't imagine if they'd still offer that to kids flying today. I imagine no which is a shame. Maybe they do but it was a great opportunity either way.

    The RAF let me fly a Jetstream on a flight from Finningley to Bruggen when I was a student and wasn't even commissioned. They definitely don't do that any more after a student had to bang out of a Harrier T-Bird and was dragged through the burning wreckage by her chute.
    The only thing they let me loose in was one of these:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_Tandem_Tutor

    Which was a bit like flying a brick.
    I never had the pleasure; I was never in Air Cadets and they were all gone by the time I was in UAS. Then the RAF rejected me (like Winkle Brown), I walked down the road to the RN recruitment office and the rest is history...
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited February 2020

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
    Wrong. I think Starmer may well aspire to match Smith's achievement, and rightly so. i.e. Following a bad election loss, unify the party whilst pursuing a solid democratic socialist agenda and within two years take Labour to a position about 20% ahead in the polls and looking pretty nailed on to win the next GE.
    I was thinking more of the dying bit.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    alterego said:

    dodrade said:

    "Discussions have allegedly thrown up rifts around how to fill the €60-75 billion funding deficit left by Brexit."

    The UK's largesse was the glue holding the whole sorry enterprise together. Who knew?
    Have they considered the possibility of spending less instead?
    Someone's gonna be upset whatever you do
    Budgeting is difficult in a time of falling revenues, but I wouldn't gloat too much. We are in the same situation over the next few years.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    All this said, when China made a similar clampdown on residential coal burning, it is thought to have caused a spike in fuel poverty deaths of the elderly that would make Covid-19 shuffle embarrassedly to get its coat. So the policy needs to be complemented by either some free market nudging or outright state intervention, to ensure affordable short and long term alternatives are available.
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 597

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
    Wrong. I think Starmer may well aspire to match Smith's achievement, and rightly so. i.e. Following a bad election loss, unify the party whilst pursuing a solid democratic socialist agenda and within two years take Labour to a position about 20% ahead in the polls and looking pretty nailed on to win the next GE.
    So was Theresa May four weeks before the 2017 election...
  • stodge said:

    I trust we're all resisting the temptation to gloat.

    Of course plugging the financial gap left by the UK was always going to be an issue for the EU despite our £39 billion divorce pay out. Naturally those who have done well out of the EU in the past aren't going to be happy getting less or becoming contributors but that may be how it has to be.
    I read on Twitter earlier “The EU loved us the same way a stripper loved the 50yr old bald man who put £20 notes in her g string. “
    An incomplete analogy. To continue it.......:

    To add insult to injury, the 50yr old bald Brit never got to sample the goods, unlike the 50yr old bald German who was also relieved of many £20 notes by a score or so of strippers from elsewhere in the EU but in return got to export copious bodily fluids to them and the Brit's daughter to boot.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    First Covid 19 fatality in Italy. A 77 year old who had been unwell for 2 weeks.

    First Italian Dies of Coronavirus https://www.theepochtimes.com/first-italian-dies-of-coronavirus_3246563.html
  • dodrade said:

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
    Wrong. I think Starmer may well aspire to match Smith's achievement, and rightly so. i.e. Following a bad election loss, unify the party whilst pursuing a solid democratic socialist agenda and within two years take Labour to a position about 20% ahead in the polls and looking pretty nailed on to win the next GE.
    So was Theresa May four weeks before the 2017 election...
    You are making the assumption that there is another active politician alive who rivals Theresa May's total lack of political nous when it comes to leading a general election campaign.
  • alteregoalterego Posts: 1,100

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
    Wrong. I think Starmer may well aspire to match Smith's achievement, and rightly so. i.e. Following a bad election loss, unify the party whilst pursuing a solid democratic socialist agenda and within two years take Labour to a position about 20% ahead in the polls and looking pretty nailed on to win the next GE.
    Adonis has always been up Blair's arse.
  • alteregoalterego Posts: 1,100
    Foxy said:

    alterego said:

    dodrade said:

    "Discussions have allegedly thrown up rifts around how to fill the €60-75 billion funding deficit left by Brexit."

    The UK's largesse was the glue holding the whole sorry enterprise together. Who knew?
    Have they considered the possibility of spending less instead?
    Someone's gonna be upset whatever you do
    Budgeting is difficult in a time of falling revenues, but I wouldn't gloat too much. We are in the same situation over the next few years.
    I wasn't gloating (truly), merely observing
  • alteregoalterego Posts: 1,100
    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    All this said, when China made a similar clampdown on residential coal burning, it is thought to have caused a spike in fuel poverty deaths of the elderly that would make Covid-19 shuffle embarrassedly to get its coat. So the policy needs to be complemented by either some free market nudging or outright state intervention, to ensure affordable short and long term alternatives are available.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 597

    dodrade said:

    As has been pointed out above, Adonis needs a history lesson.
    To be fair to Adonis, it's not exactly like Smith is an example future Labour leaders may wish to follow.
    Wrong. I think Starmer may well aspire to match Smith's achievement, and rightly so. i.e. Following a bad election loss, unify the party whilst pursuing a solid democratic socialist agenda and within two years take Labour to a position about 20% ahead in the polls and looking pretty nailed on to win the next GE.
    So was Theresa May four weeks before the 2017 election...
    You are making the assumption that there is another active politician alive who rivals Theresa May's total lack of political nous when it comes to leading a general election campaign.
    When Smith died the election was still three years away, we'll never know what would have happened under his leadership between then and 1997. The best guess is that he would have won with a smaller majority than Blair but that belongs to alternative history now.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    All this said, when China made a similar clampdown on residential coal burning, it is thought to have caused a spike in fuel poverty deaths of the elderly that would make Covid-19 shuffle embarrassedly to get its coat. So the policy needs to be complemented by either some free market nudging or outright state intervention, to ensure affordable short and long term alternatives are available.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    edited February 2020
    moonshine said:

    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    All this said, when China made a similar clampdown on residential coal burning, it is thought to have caused a spike in fuel poverty deaths of the elderly that would make Covid-19 shuffle embarrassedly to get its coat. So the policy needs to be complemented by either some free market nudging or outright state intervention, to ensure affordable short and long term alternatives are available.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.
    There was a spate of articles about 2-5 years ago highlighting the damage caused by Woodburning Stoves.

    According to this one in the Guardian penetration of woodburners is far more in the South East (15%) than in rural areas (5%) - though note that the Guardian Maths that the comparison is % not numbers, so the issue cannot be calculated properly.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/air-pollution-sadiq-khan-calls-for-ban-on-wood-burning-stoves

    This policy says Nudge Unit all over it - a minor intervention which educates. I would say it is aimed at the moneyed fools of London, who install woodburners inappropriately.

    Poorer people in rural areas will not be buying expensive wood in silly small quantities; they will be getting their own wood, buying in sensible quantities or collecting with permission to pick.

    The loss of coal matters more, but anthracite etc is available and there are only about 1 in 600 homes using coal as the main source (50k nationally) - if push comes to shove that is a small number to adapt, and would have a disproportionate benefit. And it needs to be done.

    Agree with @Moonshine - an excellent forward looking policy with very little downside.

    This has been a very ill informed conversation - eg Wales is not affected by this announcement, and PM2.5 from stoves has been a well known issue for a number of years.

    Here is a BMJ piece about it from 3-4 years ago
    https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2757/rr-1

    Sadiq Khan has done some virtue signalling about it, but nothing practical (as ever for him).
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    All this said, when China made a similar clampdown on residential coal burning, it is thought to have caused a spike in fuel poverty deaths of the elderly that would make Covid-19 shuffle embarrassedly to get its coat. So the policy needs to be complemented by either some free market nudging or outright state intervention, to ensure affordable short and long term alternatives are available.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.
    There was a spate of articles about 2-5 years ago highlighting the damage caused by Woodburning Stoves.

    According to this one in the Guardian penetration of woodburners is far more in the South East (15%) than in rural areas (5%) - though note that the Guardian Maths that the comparison is % not numbers, so the issue cannot be calculated properly.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/air-pollution-sadiq-khan-calls-for-ban-on-wood-burning-stoves

    This policy says Nudge Unit all over it - a minor intervention which educates. I would say it is aimed at the moneyed fools of London, who install woodburners inappropriately.

    Poorer people in rural areas will not be buying expensive wood in silly small quantities; they will be getting their own wood, buying in sensible quantities or collecting with permission to pick.

    The loss of coal matters more, but anthracite etc is available and there are only about 1 in 600 homes using coal as the main source (50k nationally) - if push comes to shove that is a small number to adapt, and would have a disproportionate benefit. And it needs to be done.

    Agree with @Moonshine - an excellent forward looking policy with very little downside.
    I’m amazed by how low that number for coal is. I know loads of people who use coal as their main heat source.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited February 2020
    eadric said:
    I'm sanguine, no more K-pop vids on twitter.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    All this said, when China made a similar clampdown on residential coal burning, it is thought to have caused a spike in fuel poverty deaths of the elderly that would make Covid-19 shuffle embarrassedly to get its coat. So the policy needs to be complemented by either some free market nudging or outright state intervention, to ensure affordable short and long term alternatives are available.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.
    There was a spate of articles about 2-5 years ago highlighting the damage caused by Woodburning Stoves.

    According to this one in the Guardian penetration of woodburners is far more in the South East (15%) than in rural areas (5%) - though note that the Guardian Maths that the comparison is % not numbers, so the issue cannot be calculated properly.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/air-pollution-sadiq-khan-calls-for-ban-on-wood-burning-stoves

    This policy says Nudge Unit all over it - a minor intervention which educates. I would say it is aimed at the moneyed fools of London, who install woodburners inappropriately.

    Poorer people in rural areas will not be buying expensive wood in silly small quantities; they will be getting their own wood, buying in sensible quantities or collecting with permission to pick.

    The loss of coal matters more, but anthracite etc is available and there are only about 1 in 600 homes using coal as the main source (50k nationally) - if push comes to shove that is a small number to adapt, and would have a disproportionate benefit. And it needs to be done.

    Agree with @Moonshine - an excellent forward looking policy with very little downside.
    I’m amazed by how low that number for coal is. I know loads of people who use coal as their main heat source.
    I am quoting a number I heard in the media today, which is the *main* source and will be England only - I will not go and check.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    eadric said:

    My god, the STUPIDITY of PB

    Why is PB stupid?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    eadric said:
    If I was chancellor, I think the best thing you could do for short term gdp growth right now would be to sponsor 10,000 random convid-19 tests on people in various affected countries that either have very mild or no symptoms at all.

    Because I’m quite sure the infection rate is much higher than the stats show (possibly by an order of magnitude) but that most people are not requiring any medical attention at all. By consequence the mortality rate (already biased higher by the particular circumstances in Wuhan) will be much lower than currently reported. And it should stop people like you from bed-wetting the world into a nasty recession.

    That said I do expect a recession, arguably all it needed was a trigger anyway. Aside from very long term investments I am already only in gilts and gold miners.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    eadric said:

    Andy_JS said:

    eadric said:

    My god, the STUPIDITY of PB

    Why is PB stupid?
    Because I was mocked for saying SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT WOOD BURNERS AND CARE HOMES AND LOOK AT CORONAVIRUS about a week ago

    And on a site dedicated to politics. economics, and the betting implications for sudden evolutions in both, the endless boring geeky wanky incel AUTISTIC pb drivel about this woodburning trivia obscured the bigger picture, which I saw, which has now emerged.

    I sold my shares, I hope you all did the same
    Sean, it may surprise you to learn that many of us knew about and were carefully monitoring the corona story long before you started spaffing off about when it cropped up on your twitter feed. You are I am afraid guilty of comingling two related but separate phenomena. The risk from the virus itself, and the economic fallout from the policy response.

    I am quite confident that air pollution will kill more people in the UK this year than covid-19.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    eadric said:

    Andy_JS said:

    eadric said:

    My god, the STUPIDITY of PB

    Why is PB stupid?
    Because I was mocked for saying SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT WOOD BURNERS AND CARE HOMES AND LOOK AT CORONAVIRUS about a week ago

    And on a site dedicated to politics. economics, and the betting implications for sudden evolutions in both, the endless boring geeky wanky incel AUTISTIC pb drivel about this woodburning trivia obscured the bigger picture, which I saw, which has now emerged.

    I sold my shares, I hope you all did the same
    The discussion of woodburners today has gone on rather a long time.

    Though domestic burning of coal and wood probably kills more people that Corona Virus will.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    eadric said:

    Andy_JS said:

    eadric said:

    My god, the STUPIDITY of PB

    Why is PB stupid?
    Because I was mocked for saying SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT WOOD BURNERS AND CARE HOMES AND LOOK AT CORONAVIRUS about a week ago

    And on a site dedicated to politics. economics, and the betting implications for sudden evolutions in both, the endless boring geeky wanky incel AUTISTIC pb drivel about this woodburning trivia obscured the bigger picture, which I saw, which has now emerged.

    I sold my shares, I hope you all did the same
    How does coronavirus compare to flu? Influenza killed 13,000 people in the UK in 2008/09 according to this.

    https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/influenza-flu
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.
    There was a spate of articles about 2-5 years ago highlighting the damage caused by Woodburning Stoves.

    According to this one in the Guardian penetration of woodburners is far more in the South East (15%) than in rural areas (5%) - though note that the Guardian Maths that the comparison is % not numbers, so the issue cannot be calculated properly.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/air-pollution-sadiq-khan-calls-for-ban-on-wood-burning-stoves

    This policy says Nudge Unit all over it - a minor intervention which educates. I would say it is aimed at the moneyed fools of London, who install woodburners inappropriately.

    Poorer people in rural areas will not be buying expensive wood in silly small quantities; they will be getting their own wood, buying in sensible quantities or collecting with permission to pick.

    The loss of coal matters more, but anthracite etc is available and there are only about 1 in 600 homes using coal as the main source (50k nationally) - if push comes to shove that is a small number to adapt, and would have a disproportionate benefit. And it needs to be done.

    Agree with @Moonshine - an excellent forward looking policy with very little downside.
    I’m amazed by how low that number for coal is. I know loads of people who use coal as their main heat source.
    English Housing Survey 2016 says 49k people use coal as their primary energy source - gold standard stats.

    Quotes in Annex 2 of the Impact Assessment for this proposal:

    " According to the 2016 English Housing Survey there are 49,000
    households using coal as their primary heat source, of which approximately 7,700 are fuel poor. "

    Page 39 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/867428/burning-wood-consult-ia.pdf

  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.

    This policy says Nudge Unit all over it - a minor intervention which educates. I would say it is aimed at the moneyed fools of London, who install woodburners inappropriately.

    Poorer people in rural areas will not be buying expensive wood in silly small quantities; they will be getting their own wood, buying in sensible quantities or collecting with permission to pick.

    The loss of coal matters more, but anthracite etc is available and there are only about 1 in 600 homes using coal as the main source (50k nationally) - if push comes to shove that is a small number to adapt, and would have a disproportionate benefit. And it needs to be done.

    Agree with @Moonshine - an excellent forward looking policy with very little downside.
    I’m amazed by how low that number for coal is. I know loads of people who use coal as their main heat source.
    English Housing Survey 2016 says 49k people use coal as their primary energy source - gold standard stats.

    Quotes in Annex 2 of the Impact Assessment for this proposal:

    " According to the 2016 English Housing Survey there are 49,000
    households using coal as their primary heat source, of which approximately 7,700 are fuel poor. "

    Page 39 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/867428/burning-wood-consult-ia.pdf

    I suspect the low number is because they assume anyone with oil fired heating uses that as “primary” when a lot of people prefer not to switch it on and make do with coal.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:
    If I was chancellor, I think the best thing you could do for short term gdp growth right now would be to sponsor 10,000 random convid-19 tests on people in various affected countries that either have very mild or no symptoms at all.

    Because I’m quite sure the infection rate is much higher than the stats show (possibly by an order of magnitude) but that most people are not requiring any medical attention at all. By consequence the mortality rate (already biased higher by the particular circumstances in Wuhan) will be much lower than currently reported. And it should stop people like you from bed-wetting the world into a nasty recession.

    That said I do expect a recession, arguably all it needed was a trigger anyway. Aside from very long term investments I am already only in gilts and gold miners.
    If you knew half as much as me (you don't, I've been reading everything for a fortnight) you'd know that there is a reasonable chance the mortality rate is even higher than the reported 1-2% so far. Yes, it could also be notably lower. But we just don't know.

    This is why China reacted so ferociously to the first outbreak. Don't you get it yet?

    What we do know is that there is a highly contagious and so-far unstoppable disease out there, which kills between 1 in 200 and 1 in 30 of all the people it infects, and it quite possibly infects basically everyone; and - arguably worse - it leaves about 5% requiring critical care, thus overwhelming health systems.

    You’ve been reading about this outbreak for a fortnight. Wow! I hadn’t realised you had followed this since the “beginning”.

    For reasons I cannot get into, I suspect I have a far better appreciation than you for how the Chinese Communist Party operates and why sometimes its actions are so easily misinterpreted. You are a well travelled fellow but I suspect you are also not as intimately familiar with the most heavily affected areas in China than I. The hotels aren’t up to much and the wine is overpriced and fake.

    Take a deep breath (in a well ventilated area) and calm the fuck down.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    alterego said:

    moonshine said:

    Praise be to the heavens that we finally have a government prepared to do something about the severe negative externalities from PM2.5s.

    To those that say air quality in rural areas is fine, that is true in the aggregate. But pick yourself up a mobile air quality monitor and switch it on in your living room after you just refilled your coal burner. Then go for a wander through the village to the pub on a crisp February evening. You’re poisoning yourselves.

    I think China is suffering because its industrial revolution was a century or more behind the West's.
    I’m not saying that this excellent policy will be causing winter fuel deaths. But the consequences do need thinking through.

    This policy says Nudge Unit all over it - a minor intervention which educates. I would say it is aimed at the moneyed fools of London, who install woodburners inappropriately.

    Poorer people in rural areas will not be buying expensive wood in silly small quantities; they will be getting their own wood, buying in sensible quantities or collecting with permission to pick.

    The loss of coal matters more, but anthracite etc is available and there are only about 1 in 600 homes using coal as the main source (50k nationally) - if push comes to shove that is a small number to adapt, and would have a disproportionate benefit. And it needs to be done.

    Agree with @Moonshine - an excellent forward looking policy with very little downside.
    I’m amazed by how low that number for coal is. I know loads of people who use coal as their main heat source.
    English Housing Survey 2016 says 49k people use coal as their primary energy source - gold standard stats.

    Quotes in Annex 2 of the Impact Assessment for this proposal:

    " According to the 2016 English Housing Survey there are 49,000
    households using coal as their primary heat source, of which approximately 7,700 are fuel poor. "

    Page 39 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/867428/burning-wood-consult-ia.pdf

    I suspect the low number is because they assume anyone with oil fired heating uses that as “primary” when a lot of people prefer not to switch it on and make do with coal.
    The survey is mainly based on visits and face to face physical interviews.

    If they do not use the oil, then surely that means the coal *is* primary :-).

    Agree that the number who use coal sometimes will be quite a but higher.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:
    If I was chancellor, I think the best thing you could do for short term gdp growth right now would be to sponsor 10,000 random convid-19 tests on people in various affected countries that either have very mild or no symptoms at all.

    Because I’m quite sure the infection rate is much higher than the stats show (possibly by an order of magnitude) but that most people are not requiring any medical attention at all. By consequence the mortality rate (already biased higher by the particular circumstances in Wuhan) will be much lower than currently reported. And it should stop people like you from bed-wetting the world into a nasty recession.

    That said I do expect a recession, arguably all it needed was a trigger anyway. Aside from very long term investments I am already only in gilts and gold miners.
    If you knew half as much as me (you don't, I've been reading everything for a fortnight) you'd know that there is a reasonable chance the mortality rate is even higher than the reported 1-2% so far. Yes, it could also be notably lower. But we just don't know.

    This is why China reacted so ferociously to the first outbreak. Don't you get it yet?

    What we do know is that there is a highly contagious and so-far unstoppable disease out there, which kills between 1 in 200 and 1 in 30 of all the people it infects, and it quite possibly infects basically everyone; and - arguably worse - it leaves about 5% requiring critical care, thus overwhelming health systems.

    You’ve been reading about this outbreak for a fortnight. Wow! I hadn’t realised you had followed this since the “beginning”.

    For reasons I cannot get into, I suspect I have a far better appreciation than you for how the Chinese Communist Party operates and why sometimes its actions are so easily misinterpreted. You are a well travelled fellow but I suspect you are also not as intimately familiar with the most heavily affected areas in China than I. The hotels aren’t up to much and the wine is overpriced and fake.

    Take a deep breath (in a well ventilated area) and calm the fuck down.
    You are deluded
    You are an entertaining and curious chap. Does it give some sort of excitement to imagine your very worst fears come true?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,751
    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:

    Because I’m quite sure the infection rate is much higher than the stats show (possibly by an order of magnitude) but that most people are not requiring any medical attention at all. By consequence the mortality rate (already biased higher by the particular circumstances in Wuhan) will be much lower than currently reported. And it should stop people like you from bed-wetting the world into a nasty recession.

    That said I do expect a recession, arguably all it needed was a trigger anyway. Aside from very long term investments I am already only in gilts and gold miners.
    If you knew half as much as me (you don't, I've been reading everything for a fortnight) you'd know that there is a reasonable chance the mortality rate is even higher than the reported 1-2% so far. Yes, it could also be notably lower. But we just don't know.

    This is why China reacted so ferociously to the first outbreak. Don't you get it yet?

    What we do know is that there is a highly contagious and so-far unstoppable disease out there, which kills between 1 in 200 and 1 in 30 of all the people it infects, and it quite possibly infects basically everyone; and - arguably worse - it leaves about 5% requiring critical care, thus overwhelming health systems.

    You’ve been reading about this outbreak for a fortnight. Wow! I hadn’t realised you had followed this since the “beginning”.

    For reasons I cannot get into, I suspect I have a far better appreciation than you for how the Chinese Communist Party operates and why sometimes its actions are so easily misinterpreted. You are a well travelled fellow but I suspect you are also not as intimately familiar with the most heavily affected areas in China than I. The hotels aren’t up to much and the wine is overpriced and fake.

    Take a deep breath (in a well ventilated area) and calm the fuck down.
    You are deluded
    You are an entertaining and curious chap. Does it give some sort of excitement to imagine your very worst fears come true?
    No. But as of this moment, they are coming true

    We are on the very very cusp of a pandemic

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/world/asia/china-coronavirus-iran.html

    https://twitter.com/drWilda/status/1231037958834151424?s=20
    Pandemic is a scary sounding word. How many times a night did you have to change your bed sheets during the swine flu pandemic, which killed anywhere in the region of half a million?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,620

    Omnium said:



    As a schoolboy in Berwick on Tweed in the late fifties I watched 'Mallard' herself come past our classrooms. Indeed we were given time off to watch this magnificient locomotive pass in full steam.

    Never to be forgotten

    What next though?

    I remember the Flying Scotsman nipping through Harrow and Wealdstone.

    I remember Concorde.

    I think I'd prefer the 0.7% or whatever it is of our money to go to something like that rather than foreign aid. If foreign aid actually was foreign aid then it'd be different.

    At the same time our local signalman allowed me to pull the levers on the signal for the Flying Scotsman to pass again in full steam. Can you imagine that happening today.

    Lifetime memories
    First time I ever flew was when I was 10 on a long flight to move to Australia. At one point in the flight the stewardess came and asked if my younger brother and I would like to go to the cockpit and speak to the Captain.

    I was very impressed with the cockpit and the amount of controls there and we had a nice brief chat with the captain.

    I couldn't imagine if they'd still offer that to kids flying today. I imagine no which is a shame. Maybe they do but it was a great opportunity either way.
    Absolutely. I had a similar experience, on my first flight aged about 8 I got to spend half an hour with the pilots, and it kicked off a lifelong love of planes and aviation.

    It certainly doesn’t happen on any European, American or Middle Eastern airline any more, it’s all locked cockpit doors now.
  • NEW THREAD
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    eadric said:

    moonshine said:

    eadric said:
    If I was chancellor, I think the best thing you could do for short term gdp growth right now would be to sponsor 10,000 random convid-19 tests on people in various affected countries that either have very mild or no symptoms at all.

    Because I’m quite sure the infection rate is much higher than the stats show (possibly by an order of magnitude) but that most people are not requiring any medical attention at all. By consequence the mortality rate (already biased higher by the particular circumstances in Wuhan) will be much lower than currently reported. And it should stop people like you from bed-wetting the world into a nasty recession.

    That said I do expect a recession, arguably all it needed was a trigger anyway. Aside from very long term investments I am already only in gilts and gold miners.
    If you knew half as much as me (you don't, I've been reading everything for a fortnight) you'd know that there is a reasonable chance the mortality rate is even higher than the reported 1-2% so far. Yes, it could also be notably lower. But we just don't know.

    This is why China reacted so ferociously to the first outbreak. Don't you get it yet?

    What we do know is that there is a highly contagious and so-far unstoppable disease out there, which kills between 1 in 200 and 1 in 30 of all the people it infects, and it quite possibly infects basically everyone; and - arguably worse - it leaves about 5% requiring critical care, thus overwhelming health systems.

    The clue is in the brackets.

    It’s the same as having some medical symptoms and spending a fortnight reading every article you can find on the internet about your symptoms and possible illness. We all know where that leads, and rarely is it to enlightenment or a balanced assessment of risk.
  • MangoMango Posts: 1,019
    What a load of wank.

    There, I commented.
  • MangoMango Posts: 1,019
    speedy2 said:



    So the UK leaving the EU does have similar effects that Slovenia had when it left Yugoslavia, the remaining members start bickering over finance holes and power struggles.

    I don't think this is your area of expertise...
This discussion has been closed.