Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
I'm confident of the first daily cases in 4 figures sometime next week (mon or tues most likely). It might still be 9,999, but will be a big psychological step. I'd personally want new cases below a 1000 before any significant opening (i.e. approaching normal), but I'm fairly sure schools will be March 8th, and I heard rumours of Uni's too (albeit with students expected to travel early and be tested before the 8th).
I expect in practice few Universities would be able to have many students back in before Easter: mine is already committed to waiting until after. I imagine that international students will have to endure quarantine before the start of the summer term. Let's hope we don't see big outbreaks that happened in October.
I'm rather hoping that I might get a vaccine before having to do any face-to-face, but I don't share Robert's confidence that the supply rate is going to go up so fast so soon. The mood music seems to be that a levelling-off in supply is to last for the rest of the month. We'll see.
--AS
What we need to do is shout really loudly at the vaccine companies to get a move on and threaten to sue them.....
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
Might be of interest. And I entirely agree with you re tidal power.
Sounds like a very worthwhile scheme (for a very modest investment initially by the SG).
The SG is rather more interested in tidal than the UKG, is my impression - but I haven't been following it in detail.
I should think they are - certainly the Welsh Government is a lot keener than UKG on Welsh tidal - though in that instance I do question whether their are calculating on over all value to the taxpayer rather than just aiming to get maximum investment for Wales.
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
The Guy who wants to see transmission in the single thousands, Jeremy Farrar, thinks there are ......er....750,000 cases right now/
Just for your ref.
And the other guy, John Edmunds, claimed we should wear masks forever.
Some issues about the ONS infection survey. I fear it is picking up a lot of those who had the virus in recent weeks/months (see previous re PCR sensitivity) and overstating the actual level of active cases, and infectious people. It is also perforce a very lagging number (takes time to accumulate the samples etc. The ZOE ap figure of around 15,000 new cases a day (and falling) and the recorded cases similar is an indicator that finally we are not missing that many new infections. Depending on duration of the illness, the number with it actively will vary, but most would be infectious for no more than 10 days, so say 150,000 active cases? Would be my guess.
I agree about the ONS survey, and I wish its results were reported as being 1-2 weeks past rather than the present. The news gets this wrong a lot, and it's worrying to hear SAGE members do the same.
But ZOE wouldn't pick up asymptomatic infections or those where the symptoms were not recognized as COVID. My guess is more like 200-250k current infections.
a) the current decline would aggressively reverse if we went to tier 1 (which was pretty damn close to normal life) b) if we carry on, the disease will be eradicated and never come back
If that were clearly true, the massive cost of extended aggressive lockdown could be worth considering. But it's really not in a world where large chunks of the population are immune already.
They NYT today was the first mainstream outlet that I have read to postulate that the US and Global decline in cases was through a significant share of people having at least some immunity to the virus. Given that the decline is replicated in the northern (USA) and southern (SA) hemispheres, with wildly differing versions of lockdown (USA v UK & SA) this does, to me, seem to be an argument with merit. We have not seen a global decline of this level since the start of the pandemic and, if it continues (big if) it will soon be impossible to ignore.
"In the U.S., about 110 million people have likely had the virus (including unconfirmed cases), researchers say. Another 33 million have received at least one vaccine shot.
Combined, these two groups make up about 43 percent of all Americans, which appears to be enough to slow the spread. “Though it is difficult to know for sure,” Andrew Brouwer, a University of Michigan epidemiologist, told The Wall Street Journal, “we may be approaching herd protection.”
Still, this protection does not ensure a continuing decline in cases. Most Americans still haven’t had the virus."
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
For Cardiff, it would be in the range £50-55, versus £92.50 for equivalent baseload nuclear. Could be producing in 2030, if we moved forward with planning. Hinkley C (which has an almost identical power output to Cardiff) has cost the taxpayer/consumer £37 billion in subsidies - and still won't be online until at least 2025.
Comparing to wind/solar - where the contracts coming in from 2025 will be c.£40, BUT it is not a dependable supply on any given day (versus tidal, where you can predict to within 1% what the power will be on 11th February 2094. You'll also need to completely replace the whole of that wind/solar installation within c. 30 years. (Nuclear claims 60 - let's see...) The tidal lagoons have a minimum life of 120 years, probably far longer, with replacement turbines needed maybe every 60 years.
Plus the tidal option creates (as acknowledged by BEIS) 57,000 jobs during construction. It's probably nearer 80,00, but hey, getting BEIS to acknowledge that is a start....
@MarqueeMark Perhaps there's a new 'in' for you in the success of the vaccine procurement scheme - I've read that shockwaves are moving around ministerial circles on the speed and efficacy with which that was executed. You could be the Kate Bingham of Tidal - executing a Government mandate to do the pilot and then scale this up, with a greater degree of Government intervention than was envisaged initially. It is the Whitehall blob that killed this - there is more appetite now to bypass that blob.
Funnily enough, the emails suggesting that have already started going out to MPs!
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
For Cardiff, it would be in the range £50-55, versus £92.50 for equivalent baseload nuclear. Could be producing in 2030, if we moved forward with planning. Hinkley C (which has an almost identical power output to Cardiff) has cost the taxpayer/consumer £37 billion in subsidies - and still won't be online until at least 2025.
Comparing to wind/solar - where the contracts coming in from 2025 will be c.£40, BUT it is not a dependable supply on any given day (versus tidal, where you can predict to within 1% what the power will be on 11th February 2094. You'll also need to completely replace the whole of that wind/solar installation within c. 30 years. (Nuclear claims 60 - let's see...) The tidal lagoons have a minimum life of 120 years, probably far longer, with replacement turbines needed maybe every 60 years.
Plus the tidal option creates (as acknowledged by BEIS) 57,000 jobs during construction. It's probably nearer 80,00, but hey, getting BEIS to acknowledge that is a start....
Do you have an independent citation on it being in the £50-55 range. All independent paperwork I've read on this including submissions to BEIS indicate they expect it to cost much, much more but you seem very optimistic that it will be considerably cheaper than what the BEIS reports seem to indicate?
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
I'm confident of the first daily cases in 4 figures sometime next week (mon or tues most likely). It might still be 9,999, but will be a big psychological step. I'd personally want new cases below a 1000 before any significant opening (i.e. approaching normal), but I'm fairly sure schools will be March 8th, and I heard rumours of Uni's too (albeit with students expected to travel early and be tested before the 8th).
I expect in practice few Universities would be able to have many students back in before Easter: mine is already committed to waiting until after. I imagine that international students will have to endure quarantine before the start of the summer term. Let's hope we don't see big outbreaks that happened in October.
I'm rather hoping that I might get a vaccine before having to do any face-to-face, but I don't share Robert's confidence that the supply rate is going to go up so fast so soon. The mood music seems to be that a levelling-off in supply is to last for the rest of the month. We'll see.
--AS
I agree institutions will differ. However for some course with significant practical components, you either get those students in for some of this semester/term (delete as applicable) or face either catching up in their later years (assuming not finalists) or in the summer (unpalatable, as I'm sure you will agree, we've worked damn hard through the pandemic at unis, for little glory).
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
I'm confident of the first daily cases in 4 figures sometime next week (mon or tues most likely). It might still be 9,999, but will be a big psychological step. I'd personally want new cases below a 1000 before any significant opening (i.e. approaching normal), but I'm fairly sure schools will be March 8th, and I heard rumours of Uni's too (albeit with students expected to travel early and be tested before the 8th).
I expect in practice few Universities would be able to have many students back in before Easter: mine is already committed to waiting until after. I imagine that international students will have to endure quarantine before the start of the summer term. Let's hope we don't see big outbreaks that happened in October.
I'm rather hoping that I might get a vaccine before having to do any face-to-face, but I don't share Robert's confidence that the supply rate is going to go up so fast so soon. The mood music seems to be that a levelling-off in supply is to last for the rest of the month. We'll see.
--AS
I agree institutions will differ. However for some course with significant practical components, you either get those students in for some of this semester/term (delete as applicable) or face either catching up in their later years (assuming not finalists) or in the summer (unpalatable, as I'm sure you will agree, we've worked damn hard through the pandemic at unis, for little glory).
Certainly. We've had some of our students back already (chemists doing practical 4th year work, music students doing chamber music, etc). There are indeed rumours of catch-up classes in the summer: if I'm asked to do some my reply might be unprintable!
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
For Cardiff, it would be in the range £50-55, versus £92.50 for equivalent baseload nuclear. Could be producing in 2030, if we moved forward with planning. Hinkley C (which has an almost identical power output to Cardiff) has cost the taxpayer/consumer £37 billion in subsidies - and still won't be online until at least 2025.
Comparing to wind/solar - where the contracts coming in from 2025 will be c.£40, BUT it is not a dependable supply on any given day (versus tidal, where you can predict to within 1% what the power will be on 11th February 2094. You'll also need to completely replace the whole of that wind/solar installation within c. 30 years. (Nuclear claims 60 - let's see...) The tidal lagoons have a minimum life of 120 years, probably far longer, with replacement turbines needed maybe every 60 years.
Plus the tidal option creates (as acknowledged by BEIS) 57,000 jobs during construction. It's probably nearer 80,00, but hey, getting BEIS to acknowledge that is a start....
Do you have an independent citation on it being in the £50-55 range. All independent paperwork I've read on this including submissions to BEIS indicate they expect it to cost much, much more but you seem very optimistic that it will be considerably cheaper than what the BEIS reports seem to indicate?
BEIS have taken no meetings since 2017. They have no idea what the true numbers are. More to the point, they don't WANT to know....
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
The Guy who wants to see transmission in the single thousands, Jeremy Farrar, thinks there are ......er....750,000 cases right now/
Just for your ref.
And the other guy, John Edmunds, claimed we should wear masks forever.
Some issues about the ONS infection survey. I fear it is picking up a lot of those who had the virus in recent weeks/months (see previous re PCR sensitivity) and overstating the actual level of active cases, and infectious people. It is also perforce a very lagging number (takes time to accumulate the samples etc. The ZOE ap figure of around 15,000 new cases a day (and falling) and the recorded cases similar is an indicator that finally we are not missing that many new infections. Depending on duration of the illness, the number with it actively will vary, but most would be infectious for no more than 10 days, so say 150,000 active cases? Would be my guess.
I agree about the ONS survey, and I wish its results were reported as being 1-2 weeks past rather than the present. The news gets this wrong a lot, and it's worrying to hear SAGE members do the same.
But ZOE wouldn't pick up asymptomatic infections or those where the symptoms were not recognized as COVID. My guess is more like 200-250k current infections.
--AS
I think the ZOE figures are modelled to take asymptomatic infections into account.
Yes if we can get to a situation where all covid cases can be sequenced that would be a massive step forward for being able to predict how the pandemic may play out with respect to our vaccine program.
Problem there is that he means "all cases of COVID that we detect".
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
I'm confident of the first daily cases in 4 figures sometime next week (mon or tues most likely). It might still be 9,999, but will be a big psychological step. I'd personally want new cases below a 1000 before any significant opening (i.e. approaching normal), but I'm fairly sure schools will be March 8th, and I heard rumours of Uni's too (albeit with students expected to travel early and be tested before the 8th).
Yes the 'daily cases below 1,000' (or national 7 day rate 10 per 100,000) is likely to be required before any significant relaxation - might get there by Easter
So 1/10th of the rate considered acceptable for Tier 1 just 2 months ago is now the starting point for significant relaxation, in a population where vaccination has more or less removed the threat of any healthcare rationing.
If that is where we actually end up as an approach, the government will have vastly overstepped proportionality. Thankfully the current enabling act ends before Easter so they'll have to show a bit of common sense if they don't want to rely on Labour votes to keep it going.
Thing is with vaccines now we shouldn't be aiming for Tier1 - it should be a return to normality. If the pathway there is a longer time in lockdown, and a slower release, but the future is normality (or as near as damn) then its worth it. Tiers were for a world with no vaccines yet...
You're working on the basis that -
a) the current decline would aggressively reverse if we went to tier 1 (which was pretty damn close to normal life) b) if we carry on, the disease will be eradicated and never come back
If that were clearly true, the massive cost of extended aggressive lockdown could be worth considering. But it's really not in a world where large chunks of the population are immune already.
In the absence of a fully vaccinated public, then yes if we all went to tier 1 today cases would take off again (see september, december). But the game changer(s) are the vaccines, so its worth it now to be more prudent for a while. The reward at the end is clearer now.
You start down that road and there is absolutely no guarantee you'll ever get down to the tiny case levels you arbitrarily set (and then re-set as the case may be), and then when we do come out, given the immunity levels in the population have already more than doubled from where we were in December, and will be well over 60% by end of March, the idea unlocking would automatically take R above 1 is not prudence, it's nonsense.
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
The Guy who wants to see transmission in the single thousands, Jeremy Farrar, thinks there are ......er....750,000 cases right now/
Just for your ref.
And the other guy, John Edmunds, claimed we should wear masks forever.
Some issues about the ONS infection survey. I fear it is picking up a lot of those who had the virus in recent weeks/months (see previous re PCR sensitivity) and overstating the actual level of active cases, and infectious people. It is also perforce a very lagging number (takes time to accumulate the samples etc. The ZOE ap figure of around 15,000 new cases a day (and falling) and the recorded cases similar is an indicator that finally we are not missing that many new infections. Depending on duration of the illness, the number with it actively will vary, but most would be infectious for no more than 10 days, so say 150,000 active cases? Would be my guess.
I agree about the ONS survey, and I wish its results were reported as being 1-2 weeks past rather than the present. The news gets this wrong a lot, and it's worrying to hear SAGE members do the same.
But ZOE wouldn't pick up asymptomatic infections or those where the symptoms were not recognized as COVID. My guess is more like 200-250k current infections.
--AS
I think the ZOE figures are modelled to take asymptomatic infections into account.
Oh, really? I didn't know that. It seems to consistently underestimate a bit (compared to everything else), and I assumed that was due to asymptomatic infections.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Actually, I do know that, although I wish it were not so. It's done, we're out, thank fuck for that, what a palaver. NEXT. The only way this changes is if it's an absolute and obvious disaster that can be pinned on Brexit. I'm hoping for this and any trueblood Remainer who says they aren't is fibbing.
One can see how the absolute and obvious success of the UK vaccine programme - which is being pinned on Brexit by none other than the self-described EU 'tanker' itself! - might be distressing to you then.
That's a nice try.
No, I am pleased about our vaccine rollout. Unlike many Leavers, however, I am not getting a buzz from the EU's troubles in same. It has little, in truth, to do with Brexit, and much to do with 'necessity is the mother of invention', our necessity being particularly acute, viz our death toll and our healthcare system creaking under its Covid caseload. But, yes, a slight Brexit angle too. That's fair.
And to clarify on Brexit economic fallout. It will be negative, there is no way it won't be, it's almost laws of physics territory, so my hope is simply that it is clearly so - the better for Brexit pinning and hence future rectification. So, for example, we don't want the slow steady slide into relative penury over 50 years. That's no good to anybody. What we want are some quick "wins", the big factory closing, say, with an accompanying announcement the supply chain just doesn't hack it anymore.
The truth is, and I know this will get a chorus of boos but I can take it, I view the Leave vote as bad behaviour. And bad behaviour should not be rewarded. It should be punished.
This is the problematic quote afaics: Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children,” the report said quoting the post.
“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
IMV hating someone is hating someone. It doesn't really matter why.
But on the left it is totemic that motive matters more than action. (cf the higher sentences for racist/sexuality motivated crimes in the UK vs generic crimes)
Mens Rea has been part of criminal law for a very long time I think. The motive makes the crime in many cases, not just those involving hate.
Yes, but I was thinking not of Mens Rea, but the fact that you have a higher sentence for beating up a black or gay person (as a hate crime) vs beating up someone because they just happen to be in the area.
For me it's the beating up that is the crime that needs punishing, not the "why".
So, take the Stephen Lawrence murder. For you the racist motivation adds not a jot to the weight of the crime?
A real difficulty here. Put it the other way: 'The killing of Stephen Lawrence would have been less serious and weighty, and the sentence should be shorter if the events had been identical but for the colour of the victim's skin.' I am uncomfortable with that conclusion. Shouldn't we all be?
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
The Guy who wants to see transmission in the single thousands, Jeremy Farrar, thinks there are ......er....750,000 cases right now/
Just for your ref.
And the other guy, John Edmunds, claimed we should wear masks forever.
Some issues about the ONS infection survey. I fear it is picking up a lot of those who had the virus in recent weeks/months (see previous re PCR sensitivity) and overstating the actual level of active cases, and infectious people. It is also perforce a very lagging number (takes time to accumulate the samples etc. The ZOE ap figure of around 15,000 new cases a day (and falling) and the recorded cases similar is an indicator that finally we are not missing that many new infections. Depending on duration of the illness, the number with it actively will vary, but most would be infectious for no more than 10 days, so say 150,000 active cases? Would be my guess.
I agree about the ONS survey, and I wish its results were reported as being 1-2 weeks past rather than the present. The news gets this wrong a lot, and it's worrying to hear SAGE members do the same.
But ZOE wouldn't pick up asymptomatic infections or those where the symptoms were not recognized as COVID. My guess is more like 200-250k current infections.
--AS
I think the ZOE figures are modelled to take asymptomatic infections into account.
Oh, really? I didn't know that. It seems to consistently underestimate a bit (compared to everything else), and I assumed that was due to asymptomatic infections.
--AS
Hmm, they plot quite well to the ONS data but obviously this is in real time.
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
I'm confident of the first daily cases in 4 figures sometime next week (mon or tues most likely). It might still be 9,999, but will be a big psychological step. I'd personally want new cases below a 1000 before any significant opening (i.e. approaching normal), but I'm fairly sure schools will be March 8th, and I heard rumours of Uni's too (albeit with students expected to travel early and be tested before the 8th).
Yes the 'daily cases below 1,000' (or national 7 day rate 10 per 100,000) is likely to be required before any significant relaxation - might get there by Easter
So 1/10th of the rate considered acceptable for Tier 1 just 2 months ago is now the starting point for significant relaxation, in a population where vaccination has more or less removed the threat of any healthcare rationing.
If that is where we actually end up as an approach, the government will have vastly overstepped proportionality. Thankfully the current enabling act ends before Easter so they'll have to show a bit of common sense if they don't want to rely on Labour votes to keep it going.
Vaccinating all the over 65s still leaves plenty of scope to overwhelm the health system if the virus was left to run free, both because the vaccine efficacy isn't 100% and because lots of under 65s do get hospitalised even if they have a much better chance of pulling through.
There's certainly a discussion to be had though whether it's better to open in small steps whenever cases are falling, or whether to just reopen schools asap and then just keep pushing case numbers down to very low levels where the vaccines plus test+trace+isolate can keep it suppressed even if we reopen properly. The latter approach gets back to full normality (minus international travel) sooner, but requires more patience and hence probably isn't politically feasible.
It's also still possible that just reopening schools is enough to trigger a resurgence of the virus, in which case the discussion could be parked for a while longer ...
The really interesting takeaway from Richard's suggestions is that not a single Leaver on here, that I have seen, wants to have any further dealings with the EU. At all.
Edit. Apologies, @bigjohnowls, just saw your comment.
A Pacific future awaits our Sceptered Isle. This seems to be the vision and I'd love to be able to share it. I have no great emotional attachment to our current bleak loco in the North Atlantic. Dreaming of far-flung places can warm the cockles, especially on such a winter's day, but I fear it is dreaming. My sense is that some of our more cerebral Leavers (plus Philip) are casting round for a Brexit rationale that is more elevated than simple antipathy to the EU and dislike of free movement. Which is fair enough actually. I'd probably be doing the same.
Its not a dream, the UK has been trading with far flung places for centuries already.
The future is in the Pacific not the Atlantic. That's where all the world's economic growth is coming from.
Pro-Europeans like to make out that the EU is the world's biggest trade area but it isn't under any definition. When we join the CPTPP the European Union won't even be on the podium, it would be the 4th tradezone in the world.
Well we're in the Atlantic so let's hope a bit of the future ends up here too. I'm sure it will.
We can be honorary members of the Pacific.
Won't be the first time we've had major relations and trade with the Pacific.
Indeed not. One thinks back fondly to when a third of the map was red and under the wing of good Queen Vic.
Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves, Britain never never never ... Can do that again (except in the dreams of Brexit nostalgics).
Why do you feel that trading with Japan, Singapore and the other growing economies of Southeast Asia requires Imperialism? 🤔
Its a rather strange and tragic version of racism you display there, only white Europeans are good enough to be traded with - to trade with the savages at the other side of the world would require Empire rather than cash in your eyes?
I inject some realism when Planet Brexit gets too spacey. Somebody has to. Can we trade more with faraway places? Yes. Is our future more Asia-Pacific than European? No.
You think its realistic to suggest we won't trade with Asia Pacific nations more in the future? What is this the 1950s?
Do you think its unrealistic to have "Made in China" products in our home. Of course trade can be global. Already today pre-Brexit the EU is a minority of our trade - that's before we join the CPTPP, before Brexit and before the forthcoming faster economic growth in the Asia Pacific region.
The EU plus the EEA is a majority of our exports, just over 50%. USA is around 25%. The rest is roughly split between China, the Middle East, the Far East, and Rest of World.
The share of our trade with EU/EEA has been declining of course, but absolutely nothing like the myth of Brexit fancy.
I am still trying to work out really what a “pivot to Asia” means when our only landmass there is the Pitcairn Islands.
We were already able to free trade with APAC nations within the EU, as years of Japanese investment, NZ butter, and Indian IT outsourcing should remind us.
Moreover China is now Germany’s largest export partner despite Germany being in, er, the EU.
Today's goalpost movement is the date of the roadmap out, according to the Telegraph.
Ministers are now committing to 'the week of' 22 February' for the roadmap and not 22 February itself.
All of which puts 08 March school start, hailed by Thompson and others on here, in doubt. In serious doubt.
Plus SAGE are once again all over the media (John Edmunds etc). desperately trying to pitch in against any relaxations soon, or in some respects at all.
But of course, many on here will still tell you that the government and SAGE do not want to keep you in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to.
As the days go by, we realise more and more that the notion the people who are controlling our lives actually hate it is simply not true. Not true at all.
No it doesn't. The government announced a 2 week gap between the roadmap and the schools reopening on the 8th.
2 weeks before Thursday 08 March is not Monday 22 February, it is Thursday 25th. The roadmap could be finalised on the 22nd and published on the 24th and still be over a fortnight before the 8th.
The idea any parents would accept schools being closed forever for no good reason is absolute insanity. It won't happen.
So we can ignore the SAGE 'doomsters', who think the whole thing should go on for ever, even though they hate having us in lockdown?
Good to know.
It`s become clear to me a long time ago that "locking down to protect the NHS from collapsing" is not true. It`s simply not accepted by SAGE, it seems to me. I`m praying that 22 Feb is the day that the roadmap out of this, via specific markers, is laid down so we can keep the government to it.
I absolutely agree, but I have an awful feeling you are going to be disappointed.
The way the government is moving, I think many will look on the roadmap and be appalled. But we shall see.
Member of SAGE was quoted in the Mirror this morning as saying Britain could be more or less Covid free by Christmas. Another was on Radio 4 saying we can ease restrictions when tranmission is in the single thousands - according to the Zoe App it is under 15,000 at the mo.
The Guy who wants to see transmission in the single thousands, Jeremy Farrar, thinks there are ......er....750,000 cases right now/
Just for your ref.
And the other guy, John Edmunds, claimed we should wear masks forever.
Some issues about the ONS infection survey. I fear it is picking up a lot of those who had the virus in recent weeks/months (see previous re PCR sensitivity) and overstating the actual level of active cases, and infectious people. It is also perforce a very lagging number (takes time to accumulate the samples etc. The ZOE ap figure of around 15,000 new cases a day (and falling) and the recorded cases similar is an indicator that finally we are not missing that many new infections. Depending on duration of the illness, the number with it actively will vary, but most would be infectious for no more than 10 days, so say 150,000 active cases? Would be my guess.
I agree about the ONS survey, and I wish its results were reported as being 1-2 weeks past rather than the present. The news gets this wrong a lot, and it's worrying to hear SAGE members do the same.
But ZOE wouldn't pick up asymptomatic infections or those where the symptoms were not recognized as COVID. My guess is more like 200-250k current infections.
--AS
I think the ZOE figures are modelled to take asymptomatic infections into account.
Oh, really? I didn't know that. It seems to consistently underestimate a bit (compared to everything else), and I assumed that was due to asymptomatic infections.
--AS
Hmm, they plot quite well to the ONS data but obviously this is in real time.
But ONS excludes people in care homes and university halls, as well as children. Their totals (as opposed to fractions) should be an underestimate of true cases. I think ZOE is estimating cases in the whole population, or at least all adult population?
Anyway, each survey is measuring a slightly different thing and it doesn't worry me if they are all a bit out of sync and out of scale with each other. The trend is, of course, more important.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does exist we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Would argue yours is/was the absolute mainstream view, and the proper one all things considered.
Brexiters always dwelt in a fantasy land of their own creation, and true EU-fanatics are as rare as hen’s teeth.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
For Cardiff, it would be in the range £50-55, versus £92.50 for equivalent baseload nuclear. Could be producing in 2030, if we moved forward with planning. Hinkley C (which has an almost identical power output to Cardiff) has cost the taxpayer/consumer £37 billion in subsidies - and still won't be online until at least 2025.
Comparing to wind/solar - where the contracts coming in from 2025 will be c.£40, BUT it is not a dependable supply on any given day (versus tidal, where you can predict to within 1% what the power will be on 11th February 2094. You'll also need to completely replace the whole of that wind/solar installation within c. 30 years. (Nuclear claims 60 - let's see...) The tidal lagoons have a minimum life of 120 years, probably far longer, with replacement turbines needed maybe every 60 years.
Plus the tidal option creates (as acknowledged by BEIS) 57,000 jobs during construction. It's probably nearer 80,00, but hey, getting BEIS to acknowledge that is a start....
Makes way more sense than the tokamak concept, which will take many billions to develop. It's going to take quite a while, but the costs are in the hundreds of millions.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
The EU provided crowd control training to specialist Myanmar police units alleged to have been involved in a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, but claims it shared defensive techniques only due to concerns about possible human rights abuses.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Would argue yours is/was the absolute mainstream view, and the proper one all things considered.
Brexiters always dwelt in a fantasy land of their own creation, and true EU-fanatics are as rare as hen’s teeth.
I think mine was definitely the mainstream view in the Tory Party for sure (and most of the public maybe). Put me at odds with other LibDems though, who tend to be EU enthusiasts which I`ve never really understood.
The really interesting takeaway from Richard's suggestions is that not a single Leaver on here, that I have seen, wants to have any further dealings with the EU. At all.
Edit. Apologies, @bigjohnowls, just saw your comment.
It must be really hard for you having to continually make stuff up on here because the actual narrative doesn't fit your own extreme bias.
Personally I always find that so much easier than anything else.
This is the problematic quote afaics: Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children,” the report said quoting the post.
“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
IMV hating someone is hating someone. It doesn't really matter why.
But on the left it is totemic that motive matters more than action. (cf the higher sentences for racist/sexuality motivated crimes in the UK vs generic crimes)
Mens Rea has been part of criminal law for a very long time I think. The motive makes the crime in many cases, not just those involving hate.
Yes, but I was thinking not of Mens Rea, but the fact that you have a higher sentence for beating up a black or gay person (as a hate crime) vs beating up someone because they just happen to be in the area.
For me it's the beating up that is the crime that needs punishing, not the "why".
So, take the Stephen Lawrence murder. For you the racist motivation adds not a jot to the weight of the crime?
A real difficulty here. Put it the other way: 'The killing of Stephen Lawrence would have been less serious and weighty, and the sentence should be shorter if the events had been identical but for the colour of the victim's skin.' I am uncomfortable with that conclusion. Shouldn't we all be?
I'm not at all uncomfortable with that. But the wording switch adds little. Hitler was worse than Mussolini. Mussolini was better than Hitler. We say the first. It's just language etiquette for bad things.
Conversely. The Kinks are better than The Who. The Who are worse than The Kinks. We say the first. Unless of course we prefer The Who. This is language etiquette for good things.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Would argue yours is/was the absolute mainstream view, and the proper one all things considered.
Brexiters always dwelt in a fantasy land of their own creation, and true EU-fanatics are as rare as hen’s teeth.
I think mine was definitely the mainstream view in the Tory Party for sure (and most of the public maybe). Put me at odds with other LibDems though, who tend to be EU enthusiasts which I`ve never really understood.
I think even the Lib Dems - at large - were not necessarily EU maniacs, ie love for the Commission etc.
I presume the Lib Dems historic support of EU membership stems back to the support of freer trade generally and opposition to Empire protectionism.
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Thanks. I accept wanting the EU to collapse is a rational desire for a UK that is outside the project. It's not a view I take myself, partly emotional I guess, because I think the EU is good for Europe, whether the UK is in it or not, and partly practical because now we have left we have to deal with the EU as it is. We have no say on that and it's not good either for us or our partners to get drawn into deciding what they should do.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Madagascar is my top destination for a big wildlife holiday. So much of the habitat is being trashed, it's a case of see it while you still can.
Absolutely concur. It`s being trashed by humans, chiefly via palm oil plantations. A disgrace and a tragedy.
Ok, I am being slightly tongue in cheek here but does jetting in to see it before it disappears, as you and and @MarqueeMark would like to do, help mitigate that tragedy at all?
On (1), it is worth noting that the Argentinian Embassy in London is technically titled the Embassy of Argentina and Mercosur. I don't know if there is an official Mercosur Ambassador, but the UK could have relegated the office to being simply the Mercosur Mission or Representative Office.
Is that true, I googled it in quotes and there were zero hits.
My knowledge is, I admit, a little out of date. But when I was exporting solar batteries to Brazil and Argentina (2015?) we needed to get a special permit from the Mercosur embassy in London.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Thanks. I accept wanting the EU to collapse is a rational desire for a UK that is outside the project. It's not a view I take myself, partly emotional I guess, because I think the EU is good for Europe, whether the UK is in it or not, and partly practical because now we have left we have to deal with the EU as it is. We have no say on that and it's not good either for us or our partners to get drawn into deciding what they should do.
It is clearly in our interests to have a wealthy and stable Europe, and in that sense having the EU next to us works well.
On the other hand, a Europe that self-consciously sees itself as competing *against* the U.K., whether economically or diplomatically, is more problematic.
It is already clear that U.K. was able to block or temper certain foreign policy instincts in the EU, and it is not a good thing that we have surrendered that leverage.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Madagascar is my top destination for a big wildlife holiday. So much of the habitat is being trashed, it's a case of see it while you still can.
Absolutely concur. It`s being trashed by humans, chiefly via palm oil plantations. A disgrace and a tragedy.
Ok, I am being slightly tongue in cheek here but does jetting in to see it before it disappears, as you and and @MarqueeMark would like to do, help mitigate that tragedy at all?
It`s a very good point. My view is that areas of our planet - the few that remain even slightly not-trashed by our species - should be strictly protected. Human footprint should be minimised, but I wouldn`t rule out visits by scientists or naturalists which would handily qualify me and MarqueeMark!! Hee hee.
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
For Cardiff, it would be in the range £50-55, versus £92.50 for equivalent baseload nuclear. Could be producing in 2030, if we moved forward with planning. Hinkley C (which has an almost identical power output to Cardiff) has cost the taxpayer/consumer £37 billion in subsidies - and still won't be online until at least 2025.
Comparing to wind/solar - where the contracts coming in from 2025 will be c.£40, BUT it is not a dependable supply on any given day (versus tidal, where you can predict to within 1% what the power will be on 11th February 2094. You'll also need to completely replace the whole of that wind/solar installation within c. 30 years. (Nuclear claims 60 - let's see...) The tidal lagoons have a minimum life of 120 years, probably far longer, with replacement turbines needed maybe every 60 years.
Plus the tidal option creates (as acknowledged by BEIS) 57,000 jobs during construction. It's probably nearer 80,00, but hey, getting BEIS to acknowledge that is a start....
It is also very important to note that nuclear is not particularly reliable. Pretty much all plants have plenty of unscheduled downtime.
The really interesting takeaway from Richard's suggestions is that not a single Leaver on here, that I have seen, wants to have any further dealings with the EU. At all.
Edit. Apologies, @bigjohnowls, just saw your comment.
A Pacific future awaits our Sceptered Isle. This seems to be the vision and I'd love to be able to share it. I have no great emotional attachment to our current bleak loco in the North Atlantic. Dreaming of far-flung places can warm the cockles, especially on such a winter's day, but I fear it is dreaming. My sense is that some of our more cerebral Leavers (plus Philip) are casting round for a Brexit rationale that is more elevated than simple antipathy to the EU and dislike of free movement. Which is fair enough actually. I'd probably be doing the same.
Another one who can only respond on here by just making stuff up. I can only assume you have run out of crayons again today.
Not in the mood for slumming today. Serious posts only.
You gave up on serious posts long ago. Rather sad really. You have turned into a third rate Scott without the links.
Oh come on, Richard. I'm simply pointing out that the notion of Brexit opening up a Pacific future for the UK smacks of pipedream. This involves no invention or bad faith projecting. You happen to agree with me. I know you do. EFTA and all that. You are not a Brexit nostalgic. And as I say, it's with great reluctance that I do this. It's duty not desire. I'm a "fancy another?" sort of bloke, naturally, not a "Hmm, it's getting late" party pooper.
I am a globalist in terms of the UK relationship with the world. Now more than ever the world is getting smaller and will continue to do so as technology shrinks distances. Yes EFTA is a sensible position but importantly it doesn't prevent other trade deals including TTP. If they think we can bring value to their organisation - and I am the first to admit that is not necessarily certain - then why give up on yet another trade deal?
You always struck me as an Internationalist. This fit of pique because we are not wedded solely to the EU seems a rather strange and regressive attitude to have.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
There is no long term market price for electricity.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
The members do all have a Pacific coastline though. Course we can join if we want to - and they want us - but I struggle to see it as much more than cosplaying.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
Yes, clearly the Democrats under Biden are more socially conscious than they were under Obama, and than the current Canadian and Mexican regimes (Trudeau has missed a massive trick here). And Trump presumably took the US out for other, unrelated reasons. The Indian Ocean is non-binary in this metaphor, so that also doesn't present a problem.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
The members do all have a Pacific coastline though. Course we can join if we want to - and they want us - but I struggle to see it as much more than cosplaying.
We have at least one overseas territory with a pacific coastline! France would have an even stronger claim.
It'll be like all those americans who say they are Irish or Italian based on century old family links, massively played up.
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
There is no long term market price for electricity.
There are very good estimates of price for the various forms of generation going forward. Hence investment in generating infrastructure....
For example, new UK Nuclear is only being built because of an enormous (effective) subsidy.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
The members do all have a Pacific coastline though. Course we can join if we want to - and they want us - but I struggle to see it as much more than cosplaying.
It might be about the only viable economic strategy left to us, but nobody knows what this pivot to Asia means.
I believe the Pitcairn Islands has a thriving organic honey industry as well as of course as the production of various rare stamps.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Would argue yours is/was the absolute mainstream view, and the proper one all things considered.
Brexiters always dwelt in a fantasy land of their own creation, and true EU-fanatics are as rare as hen’s teeth.
I think mine was definitely the mainstream view in the Tory Party for sure (and most of the public maybe). Put me at odds with other LibDems though, who tend to be EU enthusiasts which I`ve never really understood.
I think even the Lib Dems - at large - were not necessarily EU maniacs, ie love for the Commission etc.
I presume the Lib Dems historic support of EU membership stems back to the support of freer trade generally and opposition to Empire protectionism.
If they aren't EU maniacs, then they completely wiped themselves out within about 12-13 miles of here for local councillors at the last local election unnecessarily.
Even though I read Lib Dem Voice, I can't see a clear root for their EU membership.
I'd say it is likely related to 'internationalism' and a recent fixation on the narrow arena of the EU being as the most important international arena.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
Yes, clearly the Democrats under Biden are more socially conscious than they were under Obama, and than the current Canadian and Mexican regimes (Trudeau has missed a massive trick here). And Trump presumably took the US out for other, unrelated reasons. The Indian Ocean is non-binary in this metaphor, so that also doesn't present a problem.
Given that we were invited to join by the Japanese, suggestions that we shouldn't join by UK base commenters might amount to whitesplaining....
Unbelievable. How can we even think about having more than just a simple trading agreement with the EU.
I don't really understand why the Germans and Russians should not build this pipeline. The argument seems to be that it makes continental Europe 'dependent' on Russian gas. How does having a pipeline to get something cheaper remove the competing alternative suppliers? If Putin does 'switch the pipeline off' to blackmail the West, how does that actually work as blackmail when all the other suppliers are still there?
It allows Russia to bypass Eastern Europe and continue supplying gas to Western Europe. As it stands the only way to cut off Eastern Europe from gas also results in cutting off extremely profitable Western European markets simultaneously.
Essentially Germany is handing Russia a huge stick to bear Eastern Europe with should they decide they don't like Russian interference in their nations.
But it benefits German companies and allows Siemens to build cheaper dishwashers, so it's worth it from the German perspective.
Then the right way forward would appear to be to build alternative supply lines to those countries, rather than preventing Russia and Germany from pursuing what is on the face of it a legitimate commercial initiative. I know exactly what I would think as a British consumer if another country wanted to stop me getting cheaper power from another country - so I don't see why the Germans should feel any different.
How do you feel as a British consumer having to pay for baseload nuclear electricity at twice the price of domestic tidal? And it is the Whitehall civil servants stopping you getting that cheaper power....
I feel f-ing livid about it - I'm all in on tidal and if someone tells me who to write to that I can influence (seems unlikely as an Englishman living in Scotland), or points me to a petition I can sign, I'll do it.
I still have a feeling that this situation will turn around as Boris seeks a popular policy in Wales - very excited about it WHEN (not if) it happens.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
There is no long term market price for electricity.
There are very good estimates of price for the various forms of generation going forward. Hence investment in generating infrastructure....
For example, new UK Nuclear is only being built because of an enormous (effective) subsidy.
I don't disagree: but the price at which electricity sells in the market is (usually) very different from long-term supply costs.
This is the problematic quote afaics: Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children,” the report said quoting the post.
“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
IMV hating someone is hating someone. It doesn't really matter why.
But on the left it is totemic that motive matters more than action. (cf the higher sentences for racist/sexuality motivated crimes in the UK vs generic crimes)
Mens Rea has been part of criminal law for a very long time I think. The motive makes the crime in many cases, not just those involving hate.
Yes, but I was thinking not of Mens Rea, but the fact that you have a higher sentence for beating up a black or gay person (as a hate crime) vs beating up someone because they just happen to be in the area.
For me it's the beating up that is the crime that needs punishing, not the "why".
So, take the Stephen Lawrence murder. For you the racist motivation adds not a jot to the weight of the crime?
A real difficulty here. Put it the other way: 'The killing of Stephen Lawrence would have been less serious and weighty, and the sentence should be shorter if the events had been identical but for the colour of the victim's skin.' I am uncomfortable with that conclusion. Shouldn't we all be?
I agree. If all other things had been equal in the Steven Lawrence case, but he was white or his killers black I'd find it just as bad. An unprovoked attack for no reason is appalling. If it was white on white and he had been killed for his hair colour, or his accent, his religion, or for being gay - just as bad.
Many murders without a racial or 'hate' component may be less bad. If there's some other motivation, it's an argument that got out of hand, an ongoing dispute, a fight over any number of reasons that are valid reasons for a disagreement but not for violence or murder - those are all arguably a bit less bad. But a murder where you go out and kill the first person you see with random characteristic, or even entirely at random - just as bad.
The really interesting takeaway from Richard's suggestions is that not a single Leaver on here, that I have seen, wants to have any further dealings with the EU. At all.
Edit. Apologies, @bigjohnowls, just saw your comment.
A Pacific future awaits our Sceptered Isle. This seems to be the vision and I'd love to be able to share it. I have no great emotional attachment to our current bleak loco in the North Atlantic. Dreaming of far-flung places can warm the cockles, especially on such a winter's day, but I fear it is dreaming. My sense is that some of our more cerebral Leavers (plus Philip) are casting round for a Brexit rationale that is more elevated than simple antipathy to the EU and dislike of free movement. Which is fair enough actually. I'd probably be doing the same.
Its not a dream, the UK has been trading with far flung places for centuries already.
The future is in the Pacific not the Atlantic. That's where all the world's economic growth is coming from.
Pro-Europeans like to make out that the EU is the world's biggest trade area but it isn't under any definition. When we join the CPTPP the European Union won't even be on the podium, it would be the 4th tradezone in the world.
Well we're in the Atlantic so let's hope a bit of the future ends up here too. I'm sure it will.
We can be honorary members of the Pacific.
Won't be the first time we've had major relations and trade with the Pacific.
Indeed not. One thinks back fondly to when a third of the map was red and under the wing of good Queen Vic.
Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves, Britain never never never ... Can do that again (except in the dreams of Brexit nostalgics).
Why do you feel that trading with Japan, Singapore and the other growing economies of Southeast Asia requires Imperialism? 🤔
Its a rather strange and tragic version of racism you display there, only white Europeans are good enough to be traded with - to trade with the savages at the other side of the world would require Empire rather than cash in your eyes?
I inject some realism when Planet Brexit gets too spacey. Somebody has to. Can we trade more with faraway places? Yes. Is our future more Asia-Pacific than European? No.
You think its realistic to suggest we won't trade with Asia Pacific nations more in the future? What is this the 1950s?
Do you think its unrealistic to have "Made in China" products in our home. Of course trade can be global. Already today pre-Brexit the EU is a minority of our trade - that's before we join the CPTPP, before Brexit and before the forthcoming faster economic growth in the Asia Pacific region.
The post of mine you are replying to was very short and went thus -
"Can we trade more with faraway places? Yes. Is our future more Asia-Pacific than European? No."
I despair sometimes. Whither the art of conversation?
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Madagascar is my top destination for a big wildlife holiday. So much of the habitat is being trashed, it's a case of see it while you still can.
Absolutely concur. It`s being trashed by humans, chiefly via palm oil plantations. A disgrace and a tragedy.
Ok, I am being slightly tongue in cheek here but does jetting in to see it before it disappears, as you and and @MarqueeMark would like to do, help mitigate that tragedy at all?
It`s a very good point. My view is that areas of our planet - the few that remain even slightly not-trashed by our species - should be strictly protected. Human footprint should be minimised, but I wouldn`t rule out visits by scientists or naturalists which would handily qualify me and MarqueeMark!! Hee hee.
Ah, but you have to fly to get there...
My conclusion re: the EU wildlife protection was that it was badly targeted and both the fisheries policy and farming policy were extremely unhelpful. Protected species laws concentrated too much on individuals and not enough on the landscape scale.
I hope that we'll come up with much better schemes now we are out, although given that might involve DEFRA and/or Natural England those hopes aren't particularly high.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does exist we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Sadly the EU record in environmental matters is far from perfect. Many of the issues we have today with the loss of wildlife habitat in the UK stem from the idiotic way in which the CAP was organised and managed. Changing policy every few years and highlighting forthcoming changes in a way that meant farmers made short term decisions for the sake of EU grants had a devastating effect on farmland as a wildlife preserve.
It also, in passing, was catastrophic for much of the landscape archaeology which has now been destroyed to meet CAP guidelines for grants.
Yes on the large scale the EU did good things regarding the environment but at a local level they were very destructive.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
Yet tidal is great to have in the mix for baseload. Wind power is intermittent.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Actually, I do know that, although I wish it were not so. It's done, we're out, thank fuck for that, what a palaver. NEXT. The only way this changes is if it's an absolute and obvious disaster that can be pinned on Brexit. I'm hoping for this and any trueblood Remainer who says they aren't is fibbing.
One can see how the absolute and obvious success of the UK vaccine programme - which is being pinned on Brexit by none other than the self-described EU 'tanker' itself! - might be distressing to you then.
That's a nice try.
No, I am pleased about our vaccine rollout. Unlike many Leavers, however, I am not getting a buzz from the EU's troubles in same. It has little, in truth, to do with Brexit, and much to do with 'necessity is the mother of invention', our necessity being particularly acute, viz our death toll and our healthcare system creaking under its Covid caseload. But, yes, a slight Brexit angle too. That's fair.
And to clarify on Brexit economic fallout. It will be negative, there is no way it won't be, it's almost laws of physics territory, so my hope is simply that it is clearly so - the better for Brexit pinning and hence future rectification. So, for example, we don't want the slow steady slide into relative penury over 50 years. That's no good to anybody. What we want are some quick "wins", the big factory closing, say, with an accompanying announcement the supply chain just doesn't hack it anymore.
The truth is, and I know this will get a chorus of boos but I can take it, I view the Leave vote as bad behaviour. And bad behaviour should not be rewarded. It should be punished.
That's funny, because from a certain point of view I also regard the Leave vote as a kind of bad behaviour. I just have no interest in punishing it when it's people I like who are doing the misbehaving.
Although that's before taking into account the fact that - as I think you observed earlier - some Leavers apparently did it because they cared deeply about human rights in China and Iran, which frankly makes the whole enterprise sound a bit too progressive for my taste.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
Yes, clearly the Democrats under Biden are more socially conscious than they were under Obama, and than the current Canadian and Mexican regimes (Trudeau has missed a massive trick here). And Trump presumably took the US out for other, unrelated reasons. The Indian Ocean is non-binary in this metaphor, so that also doesn't present a problem.
Given that we were invited to join by the Japanese, suggestions that we shouldn't join by UK base commenters might amount to whitesplaining....
It's adorable! That cold blooded gecko (or whatever it is) is loving it too I think.
A chameleon. And a big one. Perhaps a Parson`s chameleon.
Not a chameleon, I think - the feet don't show opposable digits, and not a gecko, no suckers. Looks like an iguanid of some kind, perhaps a Green Iguana.
Yes, I think you`re right . Nice one.
I`ve seen a few chameleons in Africa. They are brilliant - like little robots. One of my ambitions is to see a nano chameleon in Madagascar. See below. Will take a bit of finding though.
Madagascar is my top destination for a big wildlife holiday. So much of the habitat is being trashed, it's a case of see it while you still can.
Absolutely concur. It`s being trashed by humans, chiefly via palm oil plantations. A disgrace and a tragedy.
Ok, I am being slightly tongue in cheek here but does jetting in to see it before it disappears, as you and and @MarqueeMark would like to do, help mitigate that tragedy at all?
It`s a very good point. My view is that areas of our planet - the few that remain even slightly not-trashed by our species - should be strictly protected. Human footprint should be minimised, but I wouldn`t rule out visits by scientists or naturalists which would handily qualify me and MarqueeMark!! Hee hee.
Ah, but you have to fly to get there...
My conclusion re: the EU wildlife protection was that it was badly targeted and both the fisheries policy and farming policy were extremely unhelpful.
I hope that we'll come up with much better schemes now we are out, although given that might involve DEFRA and/or Natural England those hopes aren't particularly high.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Thanks. I accept wanting the EU to collapse is a rational desire for a UK that is outside the project. It's not a view I take myself, partly emotional I guess, because I think the EU is good for Europe, whether the UK is in it or not, and partly practical because now we have left we have to deal with the EU as it is. We have no say on that and it's not good either for us or our partners to get drawn into deciding what they should do.
It is clearly in our interests to have a wealthy and stable Europe, and in that sense having the EU next to us works well.
On the other hand, a Europe that self-consciously sees itself as competing *against* the U.K., whether economically or diplomatically, is more problematic.
It is already clear that U.K. was able to block or temper certain foreign policy instincts in the EU, and it is not a good thing that we have surrendered that leverage.
As Donald Tusk, I think, put it, it isn't in the interests of the EU to protect the UK from the consequences of its decision to leave the European Union. There are several motivations behind the EU move to make things more difficult for the UK, some strategic, some opportunistic, some principled and some emotional. Those reasons are powerful and the UK won't get anywhere by saying the EU is unreasonable.
Nevertheless it's also in the EU and its members' interest to have a good relationship with a powerful near country, given that it has decided to leave the Union. There is a tension there. To satisfy both interests the EU needs to come up with an arrangement that is distinctly inferior to membership, yet is still valuable to the third party. I don't think they have worked that one out yet.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
Yet tidal is great to have in the mix for baseload. Wind power is intermittent.
Maybe. But he is constantly banging on about his amazing biz case and how stupid officials are for not appreciating it.
Then Nick Palmer comes on and says tidal had the highest unit costs of any energy choice.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
Yet tidal is great to have in the mix for baseload. Wind power is intermittent.
Yep, both wind & solar are pretty useless on the days of the year with highest power requirement (high pressure in winter - freezing cold, no wind, sun too low to do much despite lack of clouds) - basically where we are today running all the gas stations full chat to fill the gap, and then next week the wind comes back and we'll pay them to not run whilst pretending wind is subsidy free.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does exist we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Sadly the EU record in environmental matters is far from perfect. Many of the issues we have today with the loss of wildlife habitat in the UK stem from the idiotic way in which the CAP was organised and managed. Changing policy every few years and highlighting forthcoming changes in a way that meant farmers made short term decisions for the sake of EU grants had a devastating effect on farmland as a wildlife preserve.
It also, in passing, was catastrophic for much of the landscape archaeology which has now been destroyed to meet CAP guidelines for grants.
Yes on the large scale the EU did good things regarding the environment but at a local level they were very destructive.
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
Normally that is you.
I’d have you generally mid-table.
Not top, except when you lose your shit because someone questions your fondest but utterly demented belief set.
I'm not sure totalitarian regimes know enough about truth in order to spot what is actually fake. Apparently they really believed their own reporting ahead of the HK parish elections a few years ago that most of the people there backed them and would support their preferred candidates.
Sadly they learned a lesson from that embarrassment only too well for the poor people of HK.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
Yes, clearly the Democrats under Biden are more socially conscious than they were under Obama, and than the current Canadian and Mexican regimes (Trudeau has missed a massive trick here). And Trump presumably took the US out for other, unrelated reasons. The Indian Ocean is non-binary in this metaphor, so that also doesn't present a problem.
Given that we were invited to join by the Japanese, suggestions that we shouldn't join by UK base commenters might amount to whitesplaining....
Have you calibrated your privilege recently?
Sorry, I'll just go and cancel myself for a bit.
Don't worry - I am putting together a course of conciousness raising sessions. A snip at only £Sagan per hour. Yours for only £Sagan/2....
What Khrushchev didn't realise was that the reaction of Capitalism to the Revolution is to make the Revolution into a product....
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Thanks. I accept wanting the EU to collapse is a rational desire for a UK that is outside the project. It's not a view I take myself, partly emotional I guess, because I think the EU is good for Europe, whether the UK is in it or not, and partly practical because now we have left we have to deal with the EU as it is. We have no say on that and it's not good either for us or our partners to get drawn into deciding what they should do.
It is clearly in our interests to have a wealthy and stable Europe, and in that sense having the EU next to us works well.
On the other hand, a Europe that self-consciously sees itself as competing *against* the U.K., whether economically or diplomatically, is more problematic.
It is already clear that U.K. was able to block or temper certain foreign policy instincts in the EU, and it is not a good thing that we have surrendered that leverage.
As Donald Tusk, I think, put it, it isn't in the interests of the EU to protect the UK from the consequences of its decision to leave the European Union. There are several motivations behind the EU move to make things more difficult for the UK, some strategic, some opportunistic, some principled and some emotional. Those reasons are powerful and the UK won't get anywhere by saying the EU is unreasonable.
Nevertheless it's also in the EU and its members' interest to have a good relationship with a powerful near country, given that it has decided to leave the Union. There is a tension there. To satisfy both interests the EU needs to come up with an arrangement that is distinctly inferior to membership, yet is still valuable to the third party. I don't think they have worked that one out yet.
Actually your last paragraph puts the lie to your first.
It is very much in the interests of the UK to say the EU is being unreasonable. If they are going to persist in that attitude then we have nothing to gain from having a good relationship with them. If they expect us to behave reasonably towards them then they have to reciprocate. It is a two way relationship and both sides have to be reasonable. If either is not then the whole thing fails.
The EU so far does not seem to have grasped this basic concept. They recognise that the UK could potentially be a threat to them if it follows a certain course (and I am not advocating that) but seem to be unwilling to do anything to prevent that happening.
This is the problematic quote afaics: Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children,” the report said quoting the post.
“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
IMV hating someone is hating someone. It doesn't really matter why.
But on the left it is totemic that motive matters more than action. (cf the higher sentences for racist/sexuality motivated crimes in the UK vs generic crimes)
Mens Rea has been part of criminal law for a very long time I think. The motive makes the crime in many cases, not just those involving hate.
Yes, but I was thinking not of Mens Rea, but the fact that you have a higher sentence for beating up a black or gay person (as a hate crime) vs beating up someone because they just happen to be in the area.
For me it's the beating up that is the crime that needs punishing, not the "why".
So, take the Stephen Lawrence murder. For you the racist motivation adds not a jot to the weight of the crime?
A real difficulty here. Put it the other way: 'The killing of Stephen Lawrence would have been less serious and weighty, and the sentence should be shorter if the events had been identical but for the colour of the victim's skin.' I am uncomfortable with that conclusion. Shouldn't we all be?
A fair point. But Stephen Lawrence was murdered because he was black. So the event would not have been identical but for the colour of his skin. If he was, hypothetically, white, he would still be alive. Does that make a difference? I think it does.
Have to confess, the overnight loss of all EU share trading to Amsterdam, is the first bit of Project Fear which has:
1 Come true
AND
2 Given me the fear
One kinda knew it was coming, but the speed and scale still shocks. It might even make me regret my vote, if only the EU had not behaved with such flailing, malignant incompetence, in recent weeks.
But, if the City does collapse (quick or slow), we are in deep shit. Massively in debt just as our tax base disappears. Not good. Not good at all.
Although in the super long term - which is how Brexit must be judged to have any chance of being deemed a success - a less bloated City could be a good thing. Yes, it pays lots of tax, but it also sucks so much talent and energy and resource and focus out of other (arguably more value added) sectors and it adds enormously to regional inequalities. How many smart young Northerners, for example, who could have stayed up there and worked in high tech manufacturing or renewable energy or medical research - or a hundred other things that could flourish outside London and the South East given the steer - end up instead sitting in a trading floor in EC4 or Canary, or a room in Mayfair, dreaming up "products" to help the crooked rich launder their money and dodge tax etc etc? It's a huge number. Think of the potential wasted. It's the British disease, along with private schools.
You emotional remainers (as distinct the reluctant, pragmatic remainers like me) really struggle to accept that Brexit is already, and always will be, judged as a success by those who voted for it. They are delighted - delighted - that we have left the EU. That`s it.
Does that mean you think it's a success or you can understand why people think it's a success?
Because from my perspective, Brexit looks massively unsuccessful, and I am not as an emotional a Remainer as all that. It's simply that things have turned out pretty much as I expected them to, given that the project was based on assumptions that, while being reasonable in themselves, were never likely to pan out. Same as the Iraq War. I knew from the off that was unlikely to turn out well. It wasn't that I objected to removing a horrible dictator.
The latter : I can understand why people think it's a success.
This is interesting. Would it be fair to say you are an emotional Leaver, who would like Brexit to be a success but hasn't been invested enough in the project at any point to ignore the practical problems with it? But really you would have like to have voted Leave, if only you could have made it add up?
It seems to me this is different from another group of people who voted Remain but are now fully on board and have the same view of Brexit reality as those that voted Leave. I would call those people Leavers.
@FF43 For me the referendum offered us a dire choice. Like being given a stick to grasp with shit at both ends. I dallied with voting leave, but dismissed this because my chief reason would have been out of spite towards Cameron who I blamed (and still do) for having the bloody referendum in the first place.
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
Thanks. I accept wanting the EU to collapse is a rational desire for a UK that is outside the project. It's not a view I take myself, partly emotional I guess, because I think the EU is good for Europe, whether the UK is in it or not, and partly practical because now we have left we have to deal with the EU as it is. We have no say on that and it's not good either for us or our partners to get drawn into deciding what they should do.
It is clearly in our interests to have a wealthy and stable Europe, and in that sense having the EU next to us works well.
On the other hand, a Europe that self-consciously sees itself as competing *against* the U.K., whether economically or diplomatically, is more problematic.
It is already clear that U.K. was able to block or temper certain foreign policy instincts in the EU, and it is not a good thing that we have surrendered that leverage.
As Donald Tusk, I think, put it, it isn't in the interests of the EU to protect the UK from the consequences of its decision to leave the European Union. There are several motivations behind the EU move to make things more difficult for the UK, some strategic, some opportunistic, some principled and some emotional. Those reasons are powerful and the UK won't get anywhere by saying the EU is unreasonable.
Nevertheless it's also in the EU and its members' interest to have a good relationship with a powerful near country, given that it has decided to leave the Union. There is a tension there. To satisfy both interests the EU needs to come up with an arrangement that is distinctly inferior to membership, yet is still valuable to the third party. I don't think they have worked that one out yet.
Actually your last paragraph puts the lie to your first.
It is very much in the interests of the UK to say the EU is being unreasonable. If they are going to persist in that attitude then we have nothing to gain from having a good relationship with them. If they expect us to behave reasonably towards them then they have to reciprocate. It is a two way relationship and both sides have to be reasonable. If either is not then the whole thing fails.
The EU so far does not seem to have grasped this basic concept. They recognise that the UK could potentially be a threat to them if it follows a certain course (and I am not advocating that) but seem to be unwilling to do anything to prevent that happening.
Lol.
Right now Rickhardt Tindellwanger is staying the precise opposite on PB.de
I spoke to the tidal lagoon power lot about making an equity investment several years ago. One of the obvious problems to me was that even if the government signed off on the principle that a tidal lagoon power initiative was a great idea and even greenlit them to run the Swansea scheme, there was no guarantee that the company putting in the legwork for the proof of concept pilot would win the mandate for the larger economic schemes elsewhere.
It needs to be partially nationalised if it’s going to work. Taxpayer taking risk, in exchange for taxpayer getting reward. Not just electricity consumers (not quite the same thing). Old fashioned Tories in Parliament and Treasury mandarins don’t like hearing that sort of thing.
I don't follow on the risk vs reward - what is the price for power generated by the scheme vs the market price?
It's over a decade ago now but when I was PPS to the Energy Minister (Malcolm Wicks) we looked at the unit costs of every variety of energy and tidal lagoons were by far the worst (measured in energy returned over 30 years per £, as I recall. The clear winner then was onshore windpower, though offshore did quite well toodespite the higher maintenance costs - both were even then competitive with gas and oil. Nuclear was significantly more expensive but of course available 24/7 - we tried to avoid plunging for that anyway, feeling that renewables were the safest long-term direction. A later review tweaked the decision more towards including nuclear in the long-term directionh.
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
You saying that Marquee Mark talks bollocks? What a surprise.
Normally that is you.
I’d have you generally mid-table.
Not top, except when you lose your shit because someone questions your fondest but utterly demented belief set.
Surprised to hear you think EFTA membership, a good relationship with the EU, higher animal welfare and environmental standards and a globalist outlook are a 'demented belief set'.
Says a great deal about your particular value set.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
A few things wrong with that position. The US was a member until 2017. They left because of Trump. Also of the 11 countries that are currently members both Canada and Mexico border the Atlantic - or at least in Mexico's case a gulf that is part of the Atlantic whilst Australia borders the Indian Ocean.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
Yes, clearly the Democrats under Biden are more socially conscious than they were under Obama, and than the current Canadian and Mexican regimes (Trudeau has missed a massive trick here). And Trump presumably took the US out for other, unrelated reasons. The Indian Ocean is non-binary in this metaphor, so that also doesn't present a problem.
Given that we were invited to join by the Japanese, suggestions that we shouldn't join by UK base commenters might amount to whitesplaining....
Have you calibrated your privilege recently?
Sorry, I'll just go and cancel myself for a bit.
Don't worry - I am putting together a course of conciousness raising sessions. A snip at only £Sagan per hour. Yours for only £Sagan/2....
What Khrushchev didn't realise was that the reaction of Capitalism to the Revolution is to make the Revolution into a product....
I didn't understand that, but you sound super clever, so I'd like to learn everything you know, please.
Ken Loach’s defenders are making an old and familiar mistake
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
Thank goodness otherwise that bishop would have got a right bashing on here.
(contractual obligation on seeing the word bishop fulfilled)
Being defended by Ian Lavery must be embarrassing, though.
Och, people can survive all sorts of embarrassing endorsements I find.
True: he went on to be elected president despite the photo with Boris.
No he didn't.
He went on to be elected President when Boris was saying he was unsuitable to be President. That photo is clearly from them meeting in their elected roles and Trump then went on to lose.
So when Boris was saying Trump was unsuitable they elected him. When he was photographed with him as respective heads of government they didn't. Make of that what you will.
Comments
But ZOE wouldn't pick up asymptomatic infections or those where the symptoms were not recognized as COVID. My guess is more like 200-250k current infections.
--AS
"In the U.S., about 110 million people have likely had the virus (including unconfirmed cases), researchers say. Another 33 million have received at least one vaccine shot.
Combined, these two groups make up about 43 percent of all Americans, which appears to be enough to slow the spread. “Though it is difficult to know for sure,” Andrew Brouwer, a University of Michigan epidemiologist, told The Wall Street Journal, “we may be approaching herd protection.”
Still, this protection does not ensure a continuing decline in cases. Most Americans still haven’t had the virus."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/briefing/trump-georgia-obesity-weightloss-nun-covid.htmlhttps://nytimes.com/2021/02/11/briefing/trump-georgia-obesity-weightloss-nun-covid.html
Bishop tweeted: “my position is clear: Ken Loach does not have prejudiced bone in his body. He is one of the most honourable men I know and I would stand with him till I could stand no more – then I would kneel”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2021/02/ken-loach-s-defenders-are-making-old-and-familiar-mistake
--AS
But wheels are moving.
And we only even now detect a fraction of them.
--AS
No, I am pleased about our vaccine rollout. Unlike many Leavers, however, I am not getting a buzz from the EU's troubles in same. It has little, in truth, to do with Brexit, and much to do with 'necessity is the mother of invention', our necessity being particularly acute, viz our death toll and our healthcare system creaking under its Covid caseload. But, yes, a slight Brexit angle too. That's fair.
And to clarify on Brexit economic fallout. It will be negative, there is no way it won't be, it's almost laws of physics territory, so my hope is simply that it is clearly so - the better for Brexit pinning and hence future rectification. So, for example, we don't want the slow steady slide into relative penury over 50 years. That's no good to anybody. What we want are some quick "wins", the big factory closing, say, with an accompanying announcement the supply chain just doesn't hack it anymore.
The truth is, and I know this will get a chorus of boos but I can take it, I view the Leave vote as bad behaviour. And bad behaviour should not be rewarded. It should be punished.
I am uncomfortable with that conclusion. Shouldn't we all be?
Turns out to be John Bishop, not a real Bishop
There's certainly a discussion to be had though whether it's better to open in small steps whenever cases are falling, or whether to just reopen schools asap and then just keep pushing case numbers down to very low levels where the vaccines plus test+trace+isolate can keep it suppressed even if we reopen properly. The latter approach gets back to full normality (minus international travel) sooner, but requires more patience and hence probably isn't politically feasible.
It's also still possible that just reopening schools is enough to trigger a resurgence of the virus, in which case the discussion could be parked for a while longer ...
The rest is roughly split between China, the Middle East, the Far East, and Rest of World.
The share of our trade with EU/EEA has been declining of course, but absolutely nothing like the myth of Brexit fancy.
I am still trying to work out really what a “pivot to Asia” means when our only landmass there is the Pitcairn Islands.
We were already able to free trade with APAC nations within the EU, as years of Japanese investment, NZ butter, and Indian IT outsourcing should remind us.
Moreover China is now Germany’s largest export partner despite Germany being in, er, the EU.
Anyway, each survey is measuring a slightly different thing and it doesn't worry me if they are all a bit out of sync and out of scale with each other. The trend is, of course, more important.
--AS
Vote to leave = pragmatically stupid; you can`t just leave decades of international diplomacy and peace-keeping. Vote to stay = poorer position within the EU and any scope we had to moderate its aims would be diminished.
The other influence on me was the environmental work that the EU has done - particularly on rewilding. Monbiot was similarly conflicted but voted remain in the end for this reason.
So it was a clear remain vote from me in the end, but I have no love for the EU and like most pragmatic remainers on balance wish it didn`t exist at all because it puts the UK in a quandary - but while it does exist we should have remained in it and piss inside the tent.
Best we can hope for now is other nations leave too and the project crumbles.
(contractual obligation on seeing the word bishop fulfilled)
Brexiters always dwelt in a fantasy land of their own creation, and true EU-fanatics are as rare as hen’s teeth.
The homescreen of the app makes it explicit that the number, the one they give to the public anyway, is of symptomaitc infections.
The lemurs are bewitching.
I like this fusion concept.
https://nickhawker.com/2020/10/30/our-new-design-point-for-inertial-fusion-explained/
Makes way more sense than the tokamak concept, which will take many billions to develop.
It's going to take quite a while, but the costs are in the hundreds of millions.
Hitler was worse than Mussolini. Mussolini was better than Hitler.
We say the first. It's just language etiquette for bad things.
Conversely. The Kinks are better than The Who. The Who are worse than The Kinks.
We say the first. Unless of course we prefer The Who.
This is language etiquette for good things.
As a Trans Pacific Partnership, it's clearly a biological Atlantic Partnership.
Therefore, as a genuine Atlantic nation, for the UK to join would be akin to deadnaming.
I think this is also why the US is staying out for now - since they have both an Atlantic and Pacific coast, their application would constitute a microagression. The TPP needs to be kept as a safe space for genuine Pacific nations only.
I presume the Lib Dems historic support of EU membership stems back to the support of freer trade generally and opposition to Empire protectionism.
That is not to say we should join. But there are far better reasons for staying out than you have given here.
On the other hand, a Europe that self-consciously sees itself as competing *against* the U.K., whether economically or diplomatically, is more problematic.
It is already clear that U.K. was able to block or temper certain foreign policy instincts in the EU, and it is not a good thing that we have surrendered that leverage.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1359904585083666433?s=20
You always struck me as an Internationalist. This fit of pique because we are not wedded solely to the EU seems a rather strange and regressive attitude to have.
Cases are fairly reasonably banded -
Admission uses different bands....
16-64 is ridiculous.....
I doubt if the maths have changed that dramatically, so doing the lagoon approach would need to be subsidised because of its other benefits.
It'll be like all those americans who say they are Irish or Italian based on century old family links, massively played up.
For example, new UK Nuclear is only being built because of an enormous (effective) subsidy.
I believe the Pitcairn Islands has a thriving organic honey industry as well as of course as the production of various rare stamps.
Maybe it means doubling down on that.
Even though I read Lib Dem Voice, I can't see a clear root for their EU membership.
I'd say it is likely related to 'internationalism' and a recent fixation on the narrow arena of the EU being as the most important international arena.
Have you calibrated your privilege recently?
Many murders without a racial or 'hate' component may be less bad. If there's some other motivation, it's an argument that got out of hand, an ongoing dispute, a fight over any number of reasons that are valid reasons for a disagreement but not for violence or murder - those are all arguably a bit less bad. But a murder where you go out and kill the first person you see with random characteristic, or even entirely at random - just as bad.
"Can we trade more with faraway places? Yes. Is our future more Asia-Pacific than European? No."
I despair sometimes. Whither the art of conversation?
My conclusion re: the EU wildlife protection was that it was badly targeted and both the fisheries policy and farming policy were extremely unhelpful. Protected species laws concentrated too much on individuals and not enough on the landscape scale.
I hope that we'll come up with much better schemes now we are out, although given that might involve DEFRA and/or Natural England those hopes aren't particularly high.
It also, in passing, was catastrophic for much of the landscape archaeology which has now been destroyed to meet CAP guidelines for grants.
Yes on the large scale the EU did good things regarding the environment but at a local level they were very destructive.
Although that's before taking into account the fact that - as I think you observed earlier - some Leavers apparently did it because they cared deeply about human rights in China and Iran, which frankly makes the whole enterprise sound a bit too progressive for my taste.
Nevertheless it's also in the EU and its members' interest to have a good relationship with a powerful near country, given that it has decided to leave the Union. There is a tension there. To satisfy both interests the EU needs to come up with an arrangement that is distinctly inferior to membership, yet is still valuable to the third party. I don't think they have worked that one out yet.
Then Nick Palmer comes on and says tidal had the highest unit costs of any energy choice.
https://twitter.com/TravellingTabby/status/1359883677728206860
https://twitter.com/ReutersUK/status/1359910151713619971?s=20
Not top, except when you lose your shit because someone questions your fondest but utterly demented belief set.
Sadly they learned a lesson from that embarrassment only too well for the poor people of HK.
What Khrushchev didn't realise was that the reaction of Capitalism to the Revolution is to make the Revolution into a product....
It is very much in the interests of the UK to say the EU is being unreasonable. If they are going to persist in that attitude then we have nothing to gain from having a good relationship with them. If they expect us to behave reasonably towards them then they have to reciprocate. It is a two way relationship and both sides have to be reasonable. If either is not then the whole thing fails.
The EU so far does not seem to have grasped this basic concept. They recognise that the UK could potentially be a threat to them if it follows a certain course (and I am not advocating that) but seem to be unwilling to do anything to prevent that happening.
Right now Rickhardt Tindellwanger is staying the precise opposite on PB.de
Says a great deal about your particular value set.
He went on to be elected President when Boris was saying he was unsuitable to be President. That photo is clearly from them meeting in their elected roles and Trump then went on to lose.
So when Boris was saying Trump was unsuitable they elected him. When he was photographed with him as respective heads of government they didn't. Make of that what you will.