oh - apparently the bbc are taking action against my son for not having a tv license - he told them he doesn't watch terrestrial tv (only Netflix and Amazon and nothing live) but they seem to want to proceed ....
Thinking about it -None of my sons watch terrestrial tv - not one of the 4.
That is the sort of misleading BS that scares people into thinking any use of Amazon Prime requires a tv licence...it doesn't... its only if you choose to say access the live footy on there. If you only watch the likes of Bosch or Man in the High Castle you don't.
And in the real world, tv licencing can never know if you did.
And this is why the tv licence needs to go....it is totally unenforceable now. Nobody would ever know if you watch live footy on amazon or the NFL on twitch, or even iPlayer.
This is what I dont understand about them going after him
He only watches streamed tv - no live tv
He wouldn't be seen dead listening to bbc radio ........
But its his word against theirs?
Are they just threatening and hoping that those of a nervous disposition will pay rather than face sanction?
I would add that he has mental health issues and suffers from bouts of depression and this is far from helping him.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
People driving lorries into the UK from France will no longer be required to have a negative coronavirus test before they are allowed to re-enter France, if they've been in the UK for less than 48 hours, the UK transport secretary says.
It's almost like the French were being dicks.......
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
She should consider that the vaccination was well timed - in the cases where they doesn't prevent infection, the vaccines all have an excellent record of preventing serious illness.
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
She should consider that the vaccination was well timed - in the cases where they doesn't prevent infection, the vaccines all have an excellent record of preventing serious illness.
Absolutely, but very annoying. She is about 65 so if you are going to get, there wasn't a better time, but really, timing!
oh - apparently the bbc are taking action against my son for not having a tv license - he told them he doesn't watch terrestrial tv (only Netflix and Amazon and nothing live) but they seem to want to proceed ....
Thinking about it -None of my sons watch terrestrial tv - not one of the 4.
That is the sort of misleading BS that scares people into thinking any use of Amazon Prime requires a tv licence...it doesn't... its only if you choose to say access the live footy on there. If you only watch the likes of Bosch or Man in the High Castle you don't.
And in the real world, tv licencing can never know if you did.
And this is why the tv licence needs to go....it is totally unenforceable now. Nobody would ever know if you watch live footy on amazon or the NFL on twitch, or even iPlayer.
This is what I dont understand about them going after him
He only watches streamed tv - no live tv
He wouldn't be seen dead listening to bbc radio ........
But its his word against theirs?
Are they just threatening and hoping that those of a nervous disposition will pay rather than face sanction?
I would add that he has mental health issues and suffers from bouts of depression and this is far from helping him.
FYI, another falsehood...no tv licence needed to listen to BBC radio.
To me it doea sound rather like they are trying it on. Unless they have him on tape saying he watches live tv or he let them into his house to inspect his setup (which you said he didn't), i don't see what evidence they will have.
And remember it isn't just their word against his, they are the ones that have to prove he broke the law
Again, it is why you never engage, just simple no thank you, because then you 100% know they can't have any evidence against you, rather than trying to recall the exact conversation you had about your Amazon Prime and Netflix usage.
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
Sounds like a positive result TBH. It may even show the efficacy of the vaccine if she only has a sore throat at the end of this.
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
On the bright side hopefully the vaccine means that her getting it now is rather symptom-free.
I've heard from two people that have tested positive after getting the vaccine (one in their 90s) and neither got anything more serious than a sore throat.
If Covid were always something that gives nothing more than a sore throat we would never have blinked twice at that.
oh - apparently the bbc are taking action against my son for not having a tv license - he told them he doesn't watch terrestrial tv (only Netflix and Amazon and nothing live) but they seem to want to proceed ....
Thinking about it -None of my sons watch terrestrial tv - not one of the 4.
That is the sort of misleading BS that scares people into thinking any use of Amazon Prime requires a tv licence...it doesn't... its only if you choose to say access the live footy on there. If you only watch the likes of Bosch or Man in the High Castle you don't.
And in the real world, tv licencing can never know if you did.
And this is why the tv licence needs to go....it is totally unenforceable now. Nobody would ever know if you watch live footy on amazon or the NFL on twitch, or even iPlayer.
This is what I dont understand about them going after him
He only watches streamed tv - no live tv
He wouldn't be seen dead listening to bbc radio ........
But its his word against theirs?
Are they just threatening and hoping that those of a nervous disposition will pay rather than face sanction?
I would add that he has mental health issues and suffers from bouts of depression and this is far from helping him.
When you say, Going after him, how are they doing it? Has he had a letter from a solicitor, or is it only (!) threats?
If it's only threats of legal action, don't worry, they won't follow it up. I've had lots of those threatening letters, they never follow them up. They just want to intimidate people into buying a license even if they don't need one.
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
Genuinely puzzled about what is annoying her. Is it the fact she got a positive test, or something she feels about the vaccine? If the latter, not sure it is well-placed (or even useful). Indeed, she is lucky she has had the vaccine long enough ago to provide protection against morbidity. Thankful rather than peeved would seem a more appropriate emotional response.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Tend to agree that it is tilting at windmills for now, when there are jitters about HS2 (albeit partly resulting from falsely inflated numbers from minority reports, and by billions spent stuffing the mouths of NIMBYs with gold.)
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
On the bright side hopefully the vaccine means that her getting it now is rather symptom-free.
I've heard from two people that have tested positive after getting the vaccine (one in their 90s) and neither got anything more serious than a sore throat.
If Covid were always something that gives nothing more than a sore throat we would never have blinked twice at that.
I do think "Exceedingly Peeved" would an excellent name for a character in a film.
I must admit that it had passed me by that Wycombe was trending marginal. It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Baker stands down, to be honest.
As others have said though this analysis isn't complete without including the Labour seats that will flip Tory.
There will definitely be some, and the country could continue to pivot around an inverted axis.
Given the Tories had a 12% lead in 2019 and no poll has the Tories with a bigger lead than that and most polls have the Tories with a significantly smaller leader it is highly unlikely any further Labour seats will flip Tory
There are many Labour seats that have been trending Tory for quite a time and will continue to do so. Neither Ed Miliband not Yvette Cooper are safe, and the decline of the Brexit party helps them further.
Remember: even if Labour knocked it out the park you'd still expect 3-7 seats to flip Labour to Tory, and I expect more than that because they won't.
If the national swing is all one way the seats tend to follow. In 1997 for example Labour lost not a single seat to the Tories, and in 2010 the Tories lost not a single seat to Labour. In 2019 only 1 Tory seat went Labour, Putney.
Most likely if Labour does lose any seats it will be because they made net gains but still lost the election. That was the case in 1992 for example when Kinnock gained 35 seats from the Tories but lost 5 as well, 3 of them in Scotland or Wales.
We live in a world now where seats can, and do, trend in different ways and directions. That's why YouGov MRP has become so important. Old school national swing is a crude tool these days.
And don't forget all those northern seats that trended Tory significantly in GE2017, and stayed Labour, but finally flipped in GE2019.
There will be more to come.
They went Tory in 2019 to deliver Brexit and defeat Corbyn.
Brexit has been delivered and Corbyn is no more. The Tories will be doing well to hold them, let alone gain more
I think that's nonsense, for reasons I have explained on here in thread headers before.
There's much more to it than just Brexit and Corbyn: it's a comfort blanket to avoid far more difficult questions about identity and values.
'It's housing, stupid.' 🏠🏠🏠
The North is not bound to be Labour by some divine rule and has been swinging Tory for a decade now.
It's not rocket science why: house prices are much lower, housing construction much higher, so more and more people are climbing onto the housing ladder.
People who own their own home are far more likely to vote Tory. High house prices don't secure Tory votes - high construction levels resulting in higher home ownership does.
If you want more Tory votes then build, build, build houses that people can buy.
Though if you build more homes on the greenbelt and in fields you also lose lots of Tory council seats in the Home Counties to the LDs, the Greens and Independents, even if you might add a few more Tory voters who buy their own home in future general elections
Any actual evidence for that? Rather than theory.
And I care far more about MPs than Councillors.
People buying their own home are far more affected than the curtain twitching NIMBYs who still own their own home either way.
Voters in towns back more affordable housing by 51% to 35% but they oppose building more housing on Green belt land by 52% to 33%, though they do back converting empty shops to accomodation by 46% to 32%
Most towns don't have any. I wonder if the pollees knew that? Even cities don't - eg Nottingham had GB, Derby and Leicester do not.
It's mainly a bizarre mental artefact that only exists in people's imagination, like The Shire of the Hobbits.
I hope they did not tell them how nasty quite a lot of it round London can be.
Except where people actually want to live, namely around London and a few prosperous cities like Oxford.
It doesn't though. It's really a model of Agatha Christie's England, combined with containing the growth of industrial cities as they were in 1950.
Oxford f*cked up quite badly a few years ago, when they regulated their rental so incompetently that it was difficult to do conversions etc, and they made it difficult for their graduate workforce to have places to live. The twots on the Council ended up campaigning to build on Greenbelt belonging to other authorities.
I agree, the green belt around Liverpool, which has lost half its population in the past seventy years, is totally pointless. It's the one around London which really does the damage.
This illustrates the problem. A huge swathe of the South East, including about half of Hertfordshire and most of Surrey, is green belt - and this lobby group keeps a tally of development proposals within it, all of which are labelled "threats." If every attempt to build is a "threat" then this implies pickling in aspic, which has a certain reflexive attraction to it - who, when asked the question, likes covering more open land in bloody concrete? - but is, in practice, unrealistic. If the population keeps growing - and AIUI the net effect of the EU referendum appears to have been to cut growth from 450,000 per year to "only" about 250,000 - then the extra houses and associated infrastructure have to go somewhere. In the long run we'd hopefully be able to shove more of it up North (where one would expect there to be more crap legacy housing and brown field sites to be redeveloped,) but right now much of it is going to have to go in London and the South East, no matter how much it upsets the Nimbies.
Besides which, I know a few of these places which are under "threat." Not nearly all of them are beautiful pristine meadows and pretty valleys with babbling brooks and idyllic hillsides, about to be brutally despoiled by the bulldozer. One obvious example is for a proposal to put a light industrial development on a thin wedge of low quality agricultural land, sandwiched in between a trunk road and a railway line. The land in question has, as it stands, little productive value and no landscape or wildlife benefit whatever. Building on it to provide places for people to work isn't a "threat," it's an opportunity.
Calling every development proposal a threat strikes me as running into the same obvious problem as when a load of important tasks all flood into my workplace in one go, and the planner flags everything as a priority, because consequently nothing is identified as being of any more importance than anything else. If everything is a priority then nothing is. If everything is a threat then nothing is.
The green belt regulations aren't fit for purpose. What is required is a pragmatic approach in which the most valuable landscapes and best agricultural land are very strictly protected, and the focus elsewhere is on the type, density and quality of development that should be allowed. If the supply of housing and commercial property in some areas is choked off then all that achieves is to artificially inflate prices, to the general detriment of everyone except for landowners looking to make a fortune by selling up or gouging rents.
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
Understandable, but some will still get the virus. Sounds like minimal symptoms so far (hope it doesn’t get worse). If we all had the same experience it would be a triumph. The aim is to stop hospitalisation and death. If we stop transmission too that’s a huge bonus.
Responding to you from earlier. Won't do the chain for some reason.
It's not particular to Labour but you're so right about conflicts being fudged. Everything has to be presented as benefiting everyone or at least damaging nobody. Forget all the "wokeness" nonsense, this is what truly has a "chilling effect" on political discourse.
Domestic vs international can be at odds, yes. For example, globalization (imo a net plus and in any case unstoppable) has increased world GDP and reduced inequality between the west and the rest but has hit the working class here. For me, a Labour government should have the UK as its priority and restrict itself to a “do no harm” dictum in overseas matters.
Equality of opportunity and outcome are different. I agree with this. But they are strongly linked and must be considered together. An outcome is the result of an opportunity. People who say they care only about equal opportunities are usually not in truth overly bothered about the whole issue. They are virtue-signalling. Either that or they’ve not thought about it properly.
If you have great inequality of outcome it is evidence either of great inequality of opportunity (since the spread of ability across children and young people starting out is not so great) and/or it’s evidence of a country that is structurally unbalanced and treats its poorest citizens badly. For example, if society consisted of 100 slots, 5 bringing immense wealth and 95 barely enough to live on, sure it might be preferable if everyone, regardless of class (by which I largely mean parental affluence) or race or gender, had an equal shot at bagging one of the 5 prizes, but would this mean we are “sorted” on fighting inequality? Surely not.
So it’s about both these things, opportunities, outcomes, you can’t silo off the first and say it’s only about that. That’s a cop out and it’s nonsensical. Another example but this time in the other direction, how inequality of outcome prevents equality of opportunity. If the monied people created via inequality of outcome buy a better education for their kids, it creates inequality of opportunity in the next generation, which then crystallizes in yet more inequality of outcome, and then opportunity for their kids, and thus again outcome, etc etc. A vicious circle. Hard-coded and increasing inequality over time. Labour should be about radically disrupting this.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m talking about reducing inequality, nothing more than that. The 21st century domestic knowledge economy will naturally widen the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged and I want (Labour) government policies which act seriously against the grain of that. The goal is to move from a very unequal society to a fairly unequal one. This is not some utopian dream requiring totalitarianism and a recasting of human nature to achieve. It’s challenging but imo eminently achievable. It’s why I vote Labour.
I must admit that it had passed me by that Wycombe was trending marginal. It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Baker stands down, to be honest.
As others have said though this analysis isn't complete without including the Labour seats that will flip Tory.
There will definitely be some, and the country could continue to pivot around an inverted axis.
Given the Tories had a 12% lead in 2019 and no poll has the Tories with a bigger lead than that and most polls have the Tories with a significantly smaller leader it is highly unlikely any further Labour seats will flip Tory
There are many Labour seats that have been trending Tory for quite a time and will continue to do so. Neither Ed Miliband not Yvette Cooper are safe, and the decline of the Brexit party helps them further.
Remember: even if Labour knocked it out the park you'd still expect 3-7 seats to flip Labour to Tory, and I expect more than that because they won't.
If the national swing is all one way the seats tend to follow. In 1997 for example Labour lost not a single seat to the Tories, and in 2010 the Tories lost not a single seat to Labour. In 2019 only 1 Tory seat went Labour, Putney.
Most likely if Labour does lose any seats it will be because they made net gains but still lost the election. That was the case in 1992 for example when Kinnock gained 35 seats from the Tories but lost 5 as well, 3 of them in Scotland or Wales.
We live in a world now where seats can, and do, trend in different ways and directions. That's why YouGov MRP has become so important. Old school national swing is a crude tool these days.
And don't forget all those northern seats that trended Tory significantly in GE2017, and stayed Labour, but finally flipped in GE2019.
There will be more to come.
They went Tory in 2019 to deliver Brexit and defeat Corbyn.
Brexit has been delivered and Corbyn is no more. The Tories will be doing well to hold them, let alone gain more
I think that's nonsense, for reasons I have explained on here in thread headers before.
There's much more to it than just Brexit and Corbyn: it's a comfort blanket to avoid far more difficult questions about identity and values.
'It's housing, stupid.' 🏠🏠🏠
The North is not bound to be Labour by some divine rule and has been swinging Tory for a decade now.
It's not rocket science why: house prices are much lower, housing construction much higher, so more and more people are climbing onto the housing ladder.
People who own their own home are far more likely to vote Tory. High house prices don't secure Tory votes - high construction levels resulting in higher home ownership does.
If you want more Tory votes then build, build, build houses that people can buy.
Though if you build more homes on the greenbelt and in fields you also lose lots of Tory council seats in the Home Counties to the LDs, the Greens and Independents, even if you might add a few more Tory voters who buy their own home in future general elections
Any actual evidence for that? Rather than theory.
And I care far more about MPs than Councillors.
People buying their own home are far more affected than the curtain twitching NIMBYs who still own their own home either way.
Voters in towns back more affordable housing by 51% to 35% but they oppose building more housing on Green belt land by 52% to 33%, though they do back converting empty shops to accomodation by 46% to 32%
Most towns don't have any. I wonder if the pollees knew that? Even cities don't - eg Nottingham had GB, Derby and Leicester do not.
It's mainly a bizarre mental artefact that only exists in people's imagination, like The Shire of the Hobbits.
I hope they did not tell them how nasty quite a lot of it round London can be.
Except where people actually want to live, namely around London and a few prosperous cities like Oxford.
It doesn't though. It's really a model of Agatha Christie's England, combined with containing the growth of industrial cities as they were in 1950.
Oxford f*cked up quite badly a few years ago, when they regulated their rental so incompetently that it was difficult to do conversions etc, and they made it difficult for their graduate workforce to have places to live. The twots on the Council ended up campaigning to build on Greenbelt belonging to other authorities.
I agree, the green belt around Liverpool, which has lost half its population in the past seventy years, is totally pointless. It's the one around London which really does the damage.
This illustrates the problem. A huge swathe of the South East, including about half of Hertfordshire and most of Surrey, is green belt - and this lobby group keeps a tally of development proposals within it, all of which are labelled "threats." If every attempt to build is a "threat" then this implies pickling in aspic, which has a certain reflexive attraction to it - who, when asked the question, likes covering more open land in bloody concrete? - but is, in practice, unrealistic. If the population keeps growing - and AIUI the net effect of the EU referendum appears to have been to cut growth from 450,000 per year to "only" about 250,000 - then the extra houses and associated infrastructure have to go somewhere. In the long run we'd hopefully be able to shove more of it up North (where one would expect there to be more crap legacy housing and brown field sites to be redeveloped,) but right now much of it is going to have to go in London and the South East, no matter how much it upsets the Nimbies.
Besides which, I know a few of these places which are under "threat." Not nearly all of them are beautiful pristine meadows and pretty valleys with babbling brooks and idyllic hillsides, about to be brutally despoiled by the bulldozer. One obvious example is for a proposal to put a light industrial development on a thin wedge of low quality agricultural land, sandwiched in between a trunk road and a railway line. The land in question has, as it stands, little productive value and no landscape or wildlife benefit whatever. Building on it to provide places for people to work isn't a "threat," it's an opportunity.
Calling every development proposal a threat strikes me as running into the same obvious problem as when a load of important tasks all flood into my workplace in one go, and the planner flags everything as a priority, because consequently nothing is identified as being of any more importance than anything else. If everything is a priority then nothing is. If everything is a threat then nothing is.
The green belt regulations aren't fit for purpose. What is required is a pragmatic approach in which the most valuable landscapes and best agricultural land are very strictly protected, and the focus elsewhere is on the type, density and quality of development that should be allowed. If the supply of housing and commercial property in some areas is choked off then all that achieves is to artificially inflate prices, to the general detriment of everyone except for landowners looking to make a fortune by selling up or gouging rents.
Covid may have thrown some of the population nos in the air - London is reportedly down by several 100k. Requested rents are down quite significantly under Covid, even though it has been a soft market for several years, mainly driven by Mr O pulling the rug out.
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Tend to agree that it is tilting at windmills for now, when there are jitters about HS2 (albeit partly resulting from falsely inflated numbers from minority reports, and by billions spent stuffing the mouths of NIMBYs with gold.)
Amusing to reflect that ‘stuffing the mouths of NIMBYs with gold’ is a pretty fair summary of how what is now the West Coast Main Line got built as well!
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
She should consider that the vaccination was well timed - in the cases where they doesn't prevent infection, the vaccines all have an excellent record of preventing serious illness.
In any prior age she wouldn't be considered a positive case
A friend of mine is exceedingly peeved. She is a nurse and survived the whole Covid episode without getting it, having been tested relentlessly. About 6 weeks ago she was vaccinated. And now she has just tested positive. She is to get another test and so far she has no symptoms other than possibly a sore throat, but wonders whether that is just imagined. She is exceedingly annoyed.
Genuinely puzzled about what is annoying her. Is it the fact she got a positive test, or something she feels about the vaccine? If the latter, not sure it is well-placed (or even useful). Indeed, she is lucky she has had the vaccine long enough ago to provide protection against morbidity. Thankful rather than peeved would seem a more appropriate emotional response.
Indeed. What exactly is the problem here? Bizarre. Perhaps a fear factor thing? The wall to wall scare stories about COVID rarely mention that 50% of infections are asymptomatic and that vaccination is an excellent protection against becoming ill with the virus.
Just throwing this out there. How do our Scottish Unionists on pb feel about BBC Scotland? Is it an independent truth teller or a lackey for the control freak SNP?
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The IoM route may even be more sensible that Stranraer direct if it avoids all the Phosgene Shells and the other million tons of munitions in Beaufort's Dyke.
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
The furlough scheme, as it stands, ends on the last day of April. It would be political suicide to move the goalposts and cut any sector of the economy, particularly pubs and hospitality, off early. There is no restriction at the moment on the sectors that can furlough. Many companies have some staff working and some furloughed.
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Just let pubs open that have beer gardens over a certain footage. Entirely voluntary, those that wish to close for a further month retain furlough. You have a huge bias for negativity. Try to be more imaginative.
Covid may have thrown some of the population nos in the air - London is reportedly down by several 100k. Requested rents are down quite significantly under Covid, even though it has been a soft market for several years, mainly driven by Mr O pulling the rug out.
Logically one would expect this to have made the Green Belt problem even worse though. Not nearly all the escapees fleeing the capital screaming will be able to work full-time and remotely from anywhere they like in the medium term. They're going to move to the commuter belt, in the expectation that jobs based in London will largely end up as hybrid - part home, part office - when this is all over, and therefore they'll have to be within reasonable travel distance of the capital even if they no longer live there.
People want to live in places that are convenient and pleasant, and definitions of both will be affected long-term by the experience of lockdown. Once the worst of the Plague is over and the economy begins to recover then if property prices are going to skyrocket anywhere it'll be in the Home Counties, because supply and demand will end up being even more imbalanced than they were before all of this started.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
Lack of willpower is part of it - it would take so long that whoever started it would be gone, and someone else would then want to stop it.
For another, I don't know if the projects would be of similar scale, but I am pretty confident that a UK project would be massively delayed and massively overbudget, and given we cannot even figure out how to get enough houses built ever year I cannot say I'd be confident.
Why? Yes, I know it's very funny, but what looks awful in one cultural context is innocent in another. Swastikas, for example, are widespread and entirely inoffensive symbols in many Asian cultures.
Responding to you from earlier. Won't do the chain for some reason.
It's not particular to Labour but you're so right about conflicts being fudged. Everything has to be presented as benefiting everyone or at least damaging nobody. Forget all the "wokeness" nonsense, this is what truly has a "chilling effect" on political discourse.
Domestic vs international can be at odds, yes. For example, globalization (imo a net plus and in any case unstoppable) has increased world GDP and reduced inequality between the west and the rest but has hit the working class here. For me, a Labour government should have the UK as its priority and restrict itself to a “do no harm” dictum in overseas matters.
Equality of opportunity and outcome are different. I agree with this. But they are strongly linked and must be considered together. An outcome is the result of an opportunity. People who say they care only about equal opportunities are usually not in truth overly bothered about the whole issue. They are virtue-signalling. Either that or they’ve not thought about it properly.
If you have great inequality of outcome it is evidence either of great inequality of opportunity (since the spread of ability across children and young people starting out is not so great) and/or it’s evidence of a country that is structurally unbalanced and treats its poorest citizens badly. For example, if society consisted of 100 slots, 5 bringing immense wealth and 95 barely enough to live on, sure it might be preferable if everyone, regardless of class (by which I largely mean parental affluence) or race or gender, had an equal shot at bagging one of the 5 prizes, but would this mean we are “sorted” on fighting inequality? Surely not.
So it’s about both these things, opportunities, outcomes, you can’t silo off the first and say it’s only about that. That’s a cop out and it’s nonsensical. Another example but this time in the other direction, how inequality of outcome prevents equality of opportunity. If the monied people created via inequality of outcome buy a better education for their kids, it creates inequality of opportunity in the next generation, which then crystallizes in yet more inequality of outcome, and then opportunity for their kids, and thus again outcome, etc etc. A vicious circle. Hard-coded and increasing inequality over time. Labour should be about radically disrupting this.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m talking about reducing inequality, nothing more than that. The 21st century domestic knowledge economy will naturally widen the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged and I want (Labour) government policies which act seriously against the grain of that. The goal is to move from a very unequal society to a fairly unequal one. This is not some utopian dream requiring totalitarianism and a recasting of human nature to achieve. It’s challenging but imo eminently achievable. It’s why I vote Labour.
Bit of wonkery on a Sunday afternoon.
Spot on. Nobody on the left really talks about equality of outcome. But currently, inequalities of income and weatlh are so wide as to be gross and socially damaging.
PS: I agree with you on most things. But on one matter, you are fundamentally wrong. Spiral. Laure Berthaud is, in every respect, much more appealing than Josephine Karlsson. (I finished it last night and am already missing it/her).
The only Tory here who seems to be showing any level of dissent to the common view that the Tories are miles ahead and can't lose is @HYUFD. This to me makes his views the most interesting - I will be following them keenly over the next few months.
I see YouGov is showing a small Tory lead of I think 3 points, I frankly thought it would be a lot higher in the current circumstances with the Tories doing fantastically well on the vaccines and Starmer's numbers seemingly declined. Is the country just that split now?
I see Starmer has gone against the left again on schools and calling for Hancock to resign. Strategically these plays against the "loonies" will I think come to benefit him in time. He is charting out a long-term course back to the centre-left.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
FFS. Keep Johnson away from bridges and tunnels!
Why?
He's got the vision to actually get stuff done. Its others who are adamant it can't but with him as top dog maybe he can actually get it going?
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Just let pubs open that have beer gardens over a certain footage. Entirely voluntary, those that wish to close for a further month retain furlough. You have a huge bias for negativity. Try to be more imaginative.
That’s the case already. Sunak has already extended the scheme for all sectors until the end of April. Pubs with huge beer gardens and those with none can take advantage as they please.
Why? Yes, I know it's very funny, but what looks awful in one cultural context is innocent in another. Swastikas, for example, are widespread and entirely inoffensive symbols in many Asian cultures.
That's globlisation of culture for you. Same reason I'd expect some places with names that are a rude word in English might consider changing their names.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The IoM route may even be more sensible that Stranraer direct if it avoids all the Phosgene Shells and the other million tons of munitions in Beaufort's Dyke.
Agreed and far more valuable too.
Belfast to Stranraer never made that much sense to me besides as a bung to the DUP. Not really worth doing.
Linking together Belfast, Liverpool, IOM, Stanraer etc - that would be a job well done.
kle4 - I wonder what planet some people live on. Large parts of Britain rely on Victorian infrastructure and there are people who want to prioritise a bridge to Northern Ireland?
I think the government's treatment of NI has been shoddy but I have very little time for the Unionist politicians there who backed Brexit without explaining the implications to their electorate - indeed ridiculously acted as if there wouldn't really be any in spite of the warnings fro Major, Blair and Brown.
If it's only threats of legal action, don't worry, they won't follow it up. I've had lots of those threatening letters, they never follow them up. They just want to intimidate people into buying a license even if they don't need one.
Indeed. I don't watch TV so I've been getting letters full of seemingly horrible threats from TV Licensing for, I think, about 7 years now. They're carefully crafted to appear like a notification of serious legal trouble, with phrases like 'Enforcement action approved' and 'You may take this letter into court with you'.
It's all complete hogwash, but if you're elderly, a teenager, or a vulnerable person, the first few letters may well be terrifying. Which is the intended, and utterly immoral, result.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
FFS. Keep Johnson away from bridges and tunnels!
Why?
He's got the vision to actually get stuff done. Its others who are adamant it can't but with him as top dog maybe he can actually get it going?
Its possible, just need the willpower to do it.
Is it even worthwhile for its potential cost? We can put money down right now that whatever the highest estimate would be, it will probably cost 3-5 times as much.
Having the willpower to do something is not the be all and end all as to whether it should be done, or if it can be done in a way that is worth it. Qin Shi Huang had the power to get projects done too, but no one would suggest we should try the same things.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The IoM route may even be more sensible that Stranraer direct if it avoids all the Phosgene Shells and the other million tons of munitions in Beaufort's Dyke.
Agreed and far more valuable too.
Belfast to Stranraer never made that much sense to me besides as a bung to the DUP. Not really worth doing.
Linking together Belfast, Liverpool, IOM, Stanraer etc - that would be a job well done.
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Just let pubs open that have beer gardens over a certain footage. Entirely voluntary, those that wish to close for a further month retain furlough. You have a huge bias for negativity. Try to be more imaginative.
Except that the businesses themselves have been up in arms over this. Even if a flexible workaround for the furlough scheme is assumed then it doesn't solve the weather problem. Bringing in a load of expensive stock and workers and then praying that it's not about 8°C and pissing with rain all the time is a tremendous gamble for businesses that will already be in a parlous state.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The total length of tunnels among the Faroes is 180km. The total length of tunnels in this 'scheme' is 437km. It took 57 years from the first tunnel to last in the Faroes.
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Just let pubs open that have beer gardens over a certain footage. Entirely voluntary, those that wish to close for a further month retain furlough. You have a huge bias for negativity. Try to be more imaginative.
That’s the case already. Sunak has already extended the scheme for all sectors until the end of April. Pubs with huge beer gardens and those with none can take advantage as they please.
Very true.
There are a couple of pubs near me that have beer gardens well in excess of 5,000 sq ft. The idea that they should remain enforceably closed is completely ridiculous. Just open them for table service and/or rule of six from 2 April.
The only Tory here who seems to be showing any level of dissent to the common view that the Tories are miles ahead and can't lose is @HYUFD. This to me makes his views the most interesting - I will be following them keenly over the next few months.
I see YouGov is showing a small Tory lead of I think 3 points, I frankly thought it would be a lot higher in the current circumstances with the Tories doing fantastically well on the vaccines and Starmer's numbers seemingly declined. Is the country just that split now?
I see Starmer has gone against the left again on schools and calling for Hancock to resign. Strategically these plays against the "loonies" will I think come to benefit him in time. He is charting out a long-term course back to the centre-left.
Not sure if this particularly play was necessary - calling for Ministers to resign for the flimsiest of reasons is hardly something the loony left has a monopoly on, so having a more solid reason for it woul not be a surprise - but he's certainly not a leader who simply opposes for the sake of opposing (which I've always felt is a fallacy - Labour didn't oppose Cameron legislating for gay marriage because 'opposition's oppose'), so one would hope his criticisms will have more bite.
Just throwing this out there. How do our Scottish Unionists on pb feel about BBC Scotland? Is it an independent truth teller or a lackey for the control freak SNP?
Like the rest of the Scottish media, they're thoroughly cowed by the SNP. Surgeon gets an easy ride most of the time and any serious investigative journalism is off the table.
It's no coincidence that only an English magazine was prepared to take legal action over Salmond's inquiry submission. No Scottish paper or TV channel would even consider that.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The IoM route may even be more sensible that Stranraer direct if it avoids all the Phosgene Shells and the other million tons of munitions in Beaufort's Dyke.
Agreed and far more valuable too.
Belfast to Stranraer never made that much sense to me besides as a bung to the DUP. Not really worth doing.
Linking together Belfast, Liverpool, IOM, Stanraer etc - that would be a job well done.
Cost please?
The Channel Tunnel, which linked London and Paris, and was just 31 miles long, never made an economic return.
Now, I understand that tunneling has gotten cheaper. And it's also entirely possible that the geological conditions make Liverpool - IoM - Belfast easier.
But I do wonder just how much latent demand there is to travel from Liverpool to Belfast? The lesson from Japan is that a lot of expensive infrastructure projects to "nowhere" do little to boost economic growth. And wouldn't improving the rail network in Northern England not provide more "bang for the buck"?
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
Lack of willpower is part of it - it would take so long that whoever started it would be gone, and someone else would then want to stop it.
For another, I don't know if the projects would be of similar scale, but I am pretty confident that a UK project would be massively delayed and massively overbudget, and given we cannot even figure out how to get enough houses built ever year I cannot say I'd be confident.
Absolutely it will take a while but if the tunnelling is well underway by the time he moves on then the successor finishing it is rather simpler.
The idea that we can send rovers to Mars but we're incapable of building a tunnel between Liverpool, Isle of Man and Belfast is absurd.
Perhaps its worth getting a certain manic South African billionaire involved in the project?
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The IoM route may even be more sensible that Stranraer direct if it avoids all the Phosgene Shells and the other million tons of munitions in Beaufort's Dyke.
Agreed and far more valuable too.
Belfast to Stranraer never made that much sense to me besides as a bung to the DUP. Not really worth doing.
Linking together Belfast, Liverpool, IOM, Stanraer etc - that would be a job well done.
If we assume for a moment that this kind of project isn't completely loopy and treat it with some degree of seriousness, then the best available route doesn't involve Northern Ireland at all. You'd build it from Anglesey to the Republic.
I must admit that it had passed me by that Wycombe was trending marginal. It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Baker stands down, to be honest.
As others have said though this analysis isn't complete without including the Labour seats that will flip Tory.
There will definitely be some, and the country could continue to pivot around an inverted axis.
Given the Tories had a 12% lead in 2019 and no poll has the Tories with a bigger lead than that and most polls have the Tories with a significantly smaller leader it is highly unlikely any further Labour seats will flip Tory
There are many Labour seats that have been trending Tory for quite a time and will continue to do so. Neither Ed Miliband not Yvette Cooper are safe, and the decline of the Brexit party helps them further.
Remember: even if Labour knocked it out the park you'd still expect 3-7 seats to flip Labour to Tory, and I expect more than that because they won't.
If the national swing is all one way the seats tend to follow. In 1997 for example Labour lost not a single seat to the Tories, and in 2010 the Tories lost not a single seat to Labour. In 2019 only 1 Tory seat went Labour, Putney.
Most likely if Labour does lose any seats it will be because they made net gains but still lost the election. That was the case in 1992 for example when Kinnock gained 35 seats from the Tories but lost 5 as well, 3 of them in Scotland or Wales.
We live in a world now where seats can, and do, trend in different ways and directions. That's why YouGov MRP has become so important. Old school national swing is a crude tool these days.
And don't forget all those northern seats that trended Tory significantly in GE2017, and stayed Labour, but finally flipped in GE2019.
There will be more to come.
They went Tory in 2019 to deliver Brexit and defeat Corbyn.
Brexit has been delivered and Corbyn is no more. The Tories will be doing well to hold them, let alone gain more
I think that's nonsense, for reasons I have explained on here in thread headers before.
There's much more to it than just Brexit and Corbyn: it's a comfort blanket to avoid far more difficult questions about identity and values.
'It's housing, stupid.' 🏠🏠🏠
The North is not bound to be Labour by some divine rule and has been swinging Tory for a decade now.
It's not rocket science why: house prices are much lower, housing construction much higher, so more and more people are climbing onto the housing ladder.
People who own their own home are far more likely to vote Tory. High house prices don't secure Tory votes - high construction levels resulting in higher home ownership does.
If you want more Tory votes then build, build, build houses that people can buy.
Though if you build more homes on the greenbelt and in fields you also lose lots of Tory council seats in the Home Counties to the LDs, the Greens and Independents, even if you might add a few more Tory voters who buy their own home in future general elections
Any actual evidence for that? Rather than theory.
And I care far more about MPs than Councillors.
People buying their own home are far more affected than the curtain twitching NIMBYs who still own their own home either way.
Yes, the 2019 local elections where the Tories lost 1,330 seats, the LDs gained 704 councillors, the Greens gained 237 and Independents and Residents' groups gained 755.
Guildford and South Oxfordshire for example were both lost by the Tories over planning and the Local Plan.
Epping Forest is a safe Tory seat nationally but has a lot of marginal Tory seats at council level. Yes we need more homes under the Local Plan but we will have to deal with the opposition we will face particularly in south Epping and Loughton where they are to go and to the measures to mitigate pollution around the Forest too that comes with the new development and infrastructure from the LDs, the Greens and Residents' Association
Alternatively it is the lack of completed new homes that is causing a swing away from the Tories. In 2011 Guildford had much more owner occupier than the country as a whole which is why it was more Tory.
Not building homes kills the Tories more than building them does. You're blind and myopic if you can't see that. The parts of the country relatively swinging away from the Tories are those that are developing housing shortages.
As I posted above voters are all for new affordable homes and getting more people on the property land until that means building on the greenbelt.
Voters in towns, key swing areas, back more affordable housing by 51% to 35% but they oppose building more housing on Green belt land by 52% to 33%, though they do back converting empty shops to accomodation by 46% to 32%
I don't disagree we need to get more people owning their own home and on the property ladder, particularly under 40s but new developments in the greenbelt and fields must be minimised otherwise voters will swing away from the Tories, especially at local level
That's a classic case of "ask a silly question, get a silly answer".
Most opinion polls like this are ridiculous garbage, though you treat them as the gospel truth. They don't matter.
What matters far more than anything else is not some silly opinion poll it is a very simple question: does the voter own their own home or not?
If the voter owns their own home they're most likely to vote Tory.
If the voter does not, they're most likely to vote someone else.
Every other opinion poll is irrelevant in comparison.
Or age. But lots of cross-correlation there, I guess. Most over 65s own their own home. Most under 35s do not.
Precisely. The age crossover of voting goes up and down with the home ownership crossover rate.
Struggling to disagree with you here. Both age and home ownership are right-pulling factors and on top of that they are correlated. May as well leave it there.
Back to a more interesting topic. Toi.
I will absolutely not be badgering you about this but I return to the matter of you resigning from the Tory Party in disgust at what you saw as Mrs May's rank xenophobia. It was before my time, PBwise, so I was curious if you posted about it on here at the time. I imagine you did?
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Just let pubs open that have beer gardens over a certain footage. Entirely voluntary, those that wish to close for a further month retain furlough. You have a huge bias for negativity. Try to be more imaginative.
Except that the businesses themselves have been up in arms over this. Even if a flexible workaround for the furlough scheme is assumed then it doesn't solve the weather problem. Bringing in a load of expensive stock and workers and then praying that it's not about 8°C and pissing with rain all the time is a tremendous gamble for businesses that will already be in a parlous state.
Then they don’t need to open. If your pub is in the south of England and the medium range forecast looks good, you might want to give it a go. Loads of pubs on the edge of London, or in the Home Counties, places like the Chilterns, Epping Forest etc, have big beer gardens and can make lots of money from walkers/cyclists on weekends. Let them open if they so wish.
Hilarious (and sad) to see the same people who unflinchingly think it sound policy to print £1tr to pay people’s wages for a year, then say it’s fantasy land to spend relatively tiny amounts for new infrastructure that should have been there decades ago.
If you want to know why China is winning The Long War, it’s because negative, can’t do, moaning like this has become so prevalent in the old democracies. Open your eyes to the rest of the world and see what’s possible.
kle4 - I wonder what planet some people live on. Large parts of Britain rely on Victorian infrastructure and there are people who want to prioritise a bridge to Northern Ireland?
I think the government's treatment of NI has been shoddy but I have very little time for the Unionist politicians there who backed Brexit without explaining the implications to their electorate - indeed ridiculously acted as if there wouldn't really be any in spite of the warnings fro Major, Blair and Brown.
I'd love a tunnel or bridge to NI. But issues of cost and time, and benefit, are not irrelevant or poo-pooing the concept which is nice in theory. Grand projects sound nice and can be nice, and sometimes a play for being 'realistic' can hold us back. But the money really could probably be better spent, with so many roads and rail that could be upgraded. It's costing £75m near me just to bypass a town.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
Lack of willpower is part of it - it would take so long that whoever started it would be gone, and someone else would then want to stop it.
For another, I don't know if the projects would be of similar scale, but I am pretty confident that a UK project would be massively delayed and massively overbudget, and given we cannot even figure out how to get enough houses built ever year I cannot say I'd be confident.
Absolutely it will take a while but if the tunnelling is well underway by the time he moves on then the successor finishing it is rather simpler.
The idea that we can send rovers to Mars but we're incapable of building a tunnel between Liverpool, Isle of Man and Belfast is absurd.
Perhaps its worth getting a certain manic South African billionaire involved in the project?
The thing is you are focusing on whether we are incapable of doing it, whereas peope are also raising the issue of whether we should do it even if we are capable. As Robert says, upgrading the entire rail network even in oen region might well be a better option if we're going big.
There's also many things we cannot do, or at least cannot do in way that is worth the cost, even though we have sent rovers to Mars.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The total length of tunnels among the Faroes is 180km. The total length of tunnels in this 'scheme' is 437km. It took 57 years from the first tunnel to last in the Faroes.
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
I guess that last point is the key one. We need huge capacity for charging for such journeys. It’s no good if you have to queue up for an hour each time.
Hilarious (and sad) to see the same people who unflinchingly think it sound policy to print £1tr to pay people’s wages for a year, then say it’s fantasy land to spend relatively tiny amounts for new infrastructure that should have been there decades ago.
If you want to know why China is winning The Long War, it’s because negative, can’t do, moaning like this has become so prevalent in the old democracies. Open your eyes to the rest of the world and see what’s possible.
It's not merely about what's possible, it's about priorities. If we're spending unlimited amounts on things there may be better options.
And no matter how much people try to suggest it, expressing doubts about costs or benefits is not the same as saying it is impossible.
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
Was the tricky bit putting the needles into arms, or ensuring there were needles to begin with?
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The total length of tunnels among the Faroes is 180km. The total length of tunnels in this 'scheme' is 437km. It took 57 years from the first tunnel to last in the Faroes.
The Chunnel is 50km and took 5 years.
Technology has moved on since then.
It's more pie in the sky bollocks like that airport in the Thames estuary or the preposterous 'garden bridge'.
The only Tory here who seems to be showing any level of dissent to the common view that the Tories are miles ahead and can't lose is @HYUFD. This to me makes his views the most interesting - I will be following them keenly over the next few months.
I see YouGov is showing a small Tory lead of I think 3 points, I frankly thought it would be a lot higher in the current circumstances with the Tories doing fantastically well on the vaccines and Starmer's numbers seemingly declined. Is the country just that split now?
I see Starmer has gone against the left again on schools and calling for Hancock to resign. Strategically these plays against the "loonies" will I think come to benefit him in time. He is charting out a long-term course back to the centre-left.
Not sure if this particularly play was necessary - calling for Ministers to resign for the flimsiest of reasons is hardly something the loony left has a monopoly on, so having a more solid reason for it woul not be a surprise - but he's certainly not a leader who simply opposes for the sake of opposing (which I've always felt is a fallacy - Labour didn't oppose Cameron legislating for gay marriage because 'opposition's oppose'), so one would hope his criticisms will have more bite.
I thought Hancock defended himself against the Suburban Samurai's case quite well on Marr. Though there was doubtless a touch of misdirection in there. I wonder if Brillo would have got him?
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
I think it’s widely recognised on PB that Mark Drakeford is a deity, a hero of Wales, and an international playboy.
"Could" be open for outdoor service in April. In theory that would be lovely; in practice one expects that they would rather be told to stay shut until they can open properly.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Just let pubs open that have beer gardens over a certain footage. Entirely voluntary, those that wish to close for a further month retain furlough. You have a huge bias for negativity. Try to be more imaginative.
Except that the businesses themselves have been up in arms over this. Even if a flexible workaround for the furlough scheme is assumed then it doesn't solve the weather problem. Bringing in a load of expensive stock and workers and then praying that it's not about 8°C and pissing with rain all the time is a tremendous gamble for businesses that will already be in a parlous state.
I still don’t understand what “workaround” for the furlough scheme is needed given it doesn’t end until 30 April. That’s locked in as a policy already. You’re assuming that pubs will, uniquely, be taken out of the scheme. There are plenty of professional services firms whose staff have largely been working from home who will be using the scheme for their office managers until the end of April. You’re assuming, with no evidence, that pubs will be removed from the scheme early. That’s insane.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
Lack of willpower is part of it - it would take so long that whoever started it would be gone, and someone else would then want to stop it.
For another, I don't know if the projects would be of similar scale, but I am pretty confident that a UK project would be massively delayed and massively overbudget, and given we cannot even figure out how to get enough houses built ever year I cannot say I'd be confident.
Absolutely it will take a while but if the tunnelling is well underway by the time he moves on then the successor finishing it is rather simpler.
The idea that we can send rovers to Mars but we're incapable of building a tunnel between Liverpool, Isle of Man and Belfast is absurd.
Perhaps its worth getting a certain manic South African billionaire involved in the project?
How worthwhile is such a tunnel, is there a need for it? Also, will there be a customs post halfway along ;-)
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
I think it’s widely recognised on PB that Mark Drakeford is a deity, a hero of Wales, and an international playboy.
I assume you know Wales has been spying for other nations at least since the Armada.....
I must admit that it had passed me by that Wycombe was trending marginal. It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Baker stands down, to be honest.
As others have said though this analysis isn't complete without including the Labour seats that will flip Tory.
There will definitely be some, and the country could continue to pivot around an inverted axis.
Given the Tories had a 12% lead in 2019 and no poll has the Tories with a bigger lead than that and most polls have the Tories with a significantly smaller leader it is highly unlikely any further Labour seats will flip Tory
There are many Labour seats that have been trending Tory for quite a time and will continue to do so. Neither Ed Miliband not Yvette Cooper are safe, and the decline of the Brexit party helps them further.
Remember: even if Labour knocked it out the park you'd still expect 3-7 seats to flip Labour to Tory, and I expect more than that because they won't.
If the national swing is all one way the seats tend to follow. In 1997 for example Labour lost not a single seat to the Tories, and in 2010 the Tories lost not a single seat to Labour. In 2019 only 1 Tory seat went Labour, Putney.
Most likely if Labour does lose any seats it will be because they made net gains but still lost the election. That was the case in 1992 for example when Kinnock gained 35 seats from the Tories but lost 5 as well, 3 of them in Scotland or Wales.
We live in a world now where seats can, and do, trend in different ways and directions. That's why YouGov MRP has become so important. Old school national swing is a crude tool these days.
And don't forget all those northern seats that trended Tory significantly in GE2017, and stayed Labour, but finally flipped in GE2019.
There will be more to come.
They went Tory in 2019 to deliver Brexit and defeat Corbyn.
Brexit has been delivered and Corbyn is no more. The Tories will be doing well to hold them, let alone gain more
I think that's nonsense, for reasons I have explained on here in thread headers before.
There's much more to it than just Brexit and Corbyn: it's a comfort blanket to avoid far more difficult questions about identity and values.
'It's housing, stupid.' 🏠🏠🏠
The North is not bound to be Labour by some divine rule and has been swinging Tory for a decade now.
It's not rocket science why: house prices are much lower, housing construction much higher, so more and more people are climbing onto the housing ladder.
People who own their own home are far more likely to vote Tory. High house prices don't secure Tory votes - high construction levels resulting in higher home ownership does.
If you want more Tory votes then build, build, build houses that people can buy.
Though if you build more homes on the greenbelt and in fields you also lose lots of Tory council seats in the Home Counties to the LDs, the Greens and Independents, even if you might add a few more Tory voters who buy their own home in future general elections
Any actual evidence for that? Rather than theory.
And I care far more about MPs than Councillors.
People buying their own home are far more affected than the curtain twitching NIMBYs who still own their own home either way.
Yes, the 2019 local elections where the Tories lost 1,330 seats, the LDs gained 704 councillors, the Greens gained 237 and Independents and Residents' groups gained 755.
Guildford and South Oxfordshire for example were both lost by the Tories over planning and the Local Plan.
Epping Forest is a safe Tory seat nationally but has a lot of marginal Tory seats at council level. Yes we need more homes under the Local Plan but we will have to deal with the opposition we will face particularly in south Epping and Loughton where they are to go and to the measures to mitigate pollution around the Forest too that comes with the new development and infrastructure from the LDs, the Greens and Residents' Association
Alternatively it is the lack of completed new homes that is causing a swing away from the Tories. In 2011 Guildford had much more owner occupier than the country as a whole which is why it was more Tory.
Not building homes kills the Tories more than building them does. You're blind and myopic if you can't see that. The parts of the country relatively swinging away from the Tories are those that are developing housing shortages.
As I posted above voters are all for new affordable homes and getting more people on the property land until that means building on the greenbelt.
Voters in towns, key swing areas, back more affordable housing by 51% to 35% but they oppose building more housing on Green belt land by 52% to 33%, though they do back converting empty shops to accomodation by 46% to 32%
I don't disagree we need to get more people owning their own home and on the property ladder, particularly under 40s but new developments in the greenbelt and fields must be minimised otherwise voters will swing away from the Tories, especially at local level
That's a classic case of "ask a silly question, get a silly answer".
Most opinion polls like this are ridiculous garbage, though you treat them as the gospel truth. They don't matter.
What matters far more than anything else is not some silly opinion poll it is a very simple question: does the voter own their own home or not?
If the voter owns their own home they're most likely to vote Tory.
If the voter does not, they're most likely to vote someone else.
Every other opinion poll is irrelevant in comparison.
Or age. But lots of cross-correlation there, I guess. Most over 65s own their own home. Most under 35s do not.
Precisely. The age crossover of voting goes up and down with the home ownership crossover rate.
Struggling to disagree with you here. Both age and home ownership are right-pulling factors and on top of that they are correlated. May as well leave it there.
Back to a more interesting topic. Toi.
I will absolutely not be badgering you about this but I return to the matter of you resigning from the Tory Party in disgust at what you saw as Mrs May's rank xenophobia. It was before my time, PBwise, so I was curious if you posted about it on here at the time. I imagine you did?
Yes I did. I've been here since 2008. I wouldn't make that up or lie about it, why would I?
I joined the Tories in 2004, was disgusted by May's speech in 2016 (said so at the time) and quit when May was elected leader (before the 2017 election).
Responding to you from earlier. Won't do the chain for some reason.
It's not particular to Labour but you're so right about conflicts being fudged. Everything has to be presented as benefiting everyone or at least damaging nobody. Forget all the "wokeness" nonsense, this is what truly has a "chilling effect" on political discourse.
Domestic vs international can be at odds, yes. For example, globalization (imo a net plus and in any case unstoppable) has increased world GDP and reduced inequality between the west and the rest but has hit the working class here. For me, a Labour government should have the UK as its priority and restrict itself to a “do no harm” dictum in overseas matters.
Equality of opportunity and outcome are different. I agree with this. But they are strongly linked and must be considered together. An outcome is the result of an opportunity. People who say they care only about equal opportunities are usually not in truth overly bothered about the whole issue. They are virtue-signalling. Either that or they’ve not thought about it properly.
If you have great inequality of outcome it is evidence either of great inequality of opportunity (since the spread of ability across children and young people starting out is not so great) and/or it’s evidence of a country that is structurally unbalanced and treats its poorest citizens badly. For example, if society consisted of 100 slots, 5 bringing immense wealth and 95 barely enough to live on, sure it might be preferable if everyone, regardless of class (by which I largely mean parental affluence) or race or gender, had an equal shot at bagging one of the 5 prizes, but would this mean we are “sorted” on fighting inequality? Surely not.
So it’s about both these things, opportunities, outcomes, you can’t silo off the first and say it’s only about that. That’s a cop out and it’s nonsensical. Another example but this time in the other direction, how inequality of outcome prevents equality of opportunity. If the monied people created via inequality of outcome buy a better education for their kids, it creates inequality of opportunity in the next generation, which then crystallizes in yet more inequality of outcome, and then opportunity for their kids, and thus again outcome, etc etc. A vicious circle. Hard-coded and increasing inequality over time. Labour should be about radically disrupting this.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m talking about reducing inequality, nothing more than that. The 21st century domestic knowledge economy will naturally widen the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged and I want (Labour) government policies which act seriously against the grain of that. The goal is to move from a very unequal society to a fairly unequal one. This is not some utopian dream requiring totalitarianism and a recasting of human nature to achieve. It’s challenging but imo eminently achievable. It’s why I vote Labour.
Bit of wonkery on a Sunday afternoon.
Spot on. Nobody on the left really talks about equality of outcome. But currently, inequalities of income and weatlh are so wide as to be gross and socially damaging.
PS: I agree with you on most things. But on one matter, you are fundamentally wrong. Spiral. Laure Berthaud is, in every respect, much more appealing than Josephine Karlsson. (I finished it last night and am already missing it/her).
- Fire and ice. The series has totally captured me. Will finish s5 tonight.
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
I think it’s widely recognised on PB that Mark Drakeford is a deity, a hero of Wales, and an international playboy.
I assume you know Wales has been spying for other nations at least since the Armada.....
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
Was the tricky bit putting the needles into arms, or ensuring there were needles to begin with?
I think it will rapidly become clear that it’s a bit of both when a number of EU countries have large vaccine stockpiles but crap distribution networks. The NHS isn’t perfect, but it’s perfectly designed for this task.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
I guess that last point is the key one. We need huge capacity for charging for such journeys. It’s no good if you have to queue up for an hour each time.
Just throwing this out there. How do our Scottish Unionists on pb feel about BBC Scotland? Is it an independent truth teller or a lackey for the control freak SNP?
Like the rest of the Scottish media, they're thoroughly cowed by the SNP. Surgeon gets an easy ride most of the time and any serious investigative journalism is off the table.
It's no coincidence that only an English magazine was prepared to take legal action over Salmond's inquiry submission. No Scottish paper or TV channel would even consider that.
I find that an astonishing assertion given most of the media operating in Scotland are not even Scottish controlled and are often thinly disguised versions of London media.
As for the Press and Journal, etc., you may recall the surprise and discussion here a month or two back when they ran a couple of stories mildly agreeing with the Scottish Gmt and SNP on the impact of Brexit on the economy in Scotland.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The total length of tunnels among the Faroes is 180km. The total length of tunnels in this 'scheme' is 437km. It took 57 years from the first tunnel to last in the Faroes.
The Chunnel is 50km and took 5 years.
Technology has moved on since then.
It's more pie in the sky bollocks like that airport in the Thames estuary or the preposterous 'garden bridge'.
How is it pie in the sky?
Its entirely doable, just whether you're prepared to do it is another question.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The total length of tunnels among the Faroes is 180km. The total length of tunnels in this 'scheme' is 437km. It took 57 years from the first tunnel to last in the Faroes.
The Chunnel is 50km and took 5 years.
Technology has moved on since then.
It's more pie in the sky bollocks like that airport in the Thames estuary or the preposterous 'garden bridge'.
Multiple airports have been moved, around the world.
A number of them built on land created in shallow water, for the purpose.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
I guess that last point is the key one. We need huge capacity for charging for such journeys. It’s no good if you have to queue up for an hour each time.
Welsh Labour will surely receive a poll boost off the back of the vaccine rollout, just as the Tories have in England. Both Governments have done a great job of both, you must credit both if you are going to credit one. For once something I think we can agree on, all Governments in the UK have done brilliantly on the vaccine rollout.
Hilarious (and sad) to see the same people who unflinchingly think it sound policy to print £1tr to pay people’s wages for a year, then say it’s fantasy land to spend relatively tiny amounts for new infrastructure that should have been there decades ago.
If you want to know why China is winning The Long War, it’s because negative, can’t do, moaning like this has become so prevalent in the old democracies. Open your eyes to the rest of the world and see what’s possible.
It's not merely about what's possible, it's about priorities. If we're spending unlimited amounts on things there may be better options.
And no matter how much people try to suggest it, expressing doubts about costs or benefits is not the same as saying it is impossible.
If cost benefit analyses are so important, how come we still don’t get to see one for closing schools? Or small shops? Or paying people’s wages for a whole year? Or surge virus testing? Etc etc etc.
Cost benefit analyses have been used by the treasury for decades to put the skids on new infrastructure. Who was the senior mandarin who considered delayed crossrail by 20 years to be his greatest career achievement?
The tone you get as soon as big infrastructure is proposed in this country is: BORIS IS MAD, PIE IN THE SKY. The unattributed source in that article compared the PM with Hitler for wanting a study done into a new piece of infrastructure.
To Robert’s point, while Japan Rail has doubtless suffered from mission creep, we still haven’t even got as far as the Osaka - Tokyo line, much less Tokyo to Sapporo. Fixed links between the main islands of the union should have been done a lifetime ago, whether the Treasury’s bean counters said it was profitable or not.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
I guess that last point is the key one. We need huge capacity for charging for such journeys. It’s no good if you have to queue up for an hour each time.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
I guess that last point is the key one. We need huge capacity for charging for such journeys. It’s no good if you have to queue up for an hour each time.
Regarding the gig economy. Two problems in attacking its obvious issues: 1. People like the services provided by the gig economy. An army of barely employed people scuttling around in their diesel cars delivering everything from Amazon orders to McDonalds is utterly stupid and unsustainable - until you are the person clicking "order". 2. A lot of gig economy workers enjoy the flexibility. The problem with "lets ban zero hours contracts" is that whilst you successfully abolish the abuse that bad employers do, you also abolish the flexibility that many employees want
This is the point where too many Labour activists then start calling people stupid or better still class traitors...
If I didn’t want to out my real identity I might post a link to one of the many many articles I’ve written on this.
Agreeing or disagreeing...?
Just from an environmental perspective the home delivery side of the gig economy is utterly unsustainable. But once the genie has left the bottle its hard to tell people they need to go back to actually shopping in person, or having to collect from a central point.
Labour will (rightly) go on fairness and protecting the workforce. But as with the attacks on Uber an awful lot of people will say "hang on, I use that. And Labour want to ban it."
BiB - is that right? Doesn't it mean people using their own cars less?
I think you have a point about users of things like Uber getting upset if prices rise appreciably due to the law being applied fairly. It's a problem for all politicians.
As the CEO of Sainsbury's put it at a conference a few years back - people want a shop at the bottom of their garden that sells everything they need. People used to do bigger shops - so 1 journey to buy a whole stack of stuff. Now, you can get delivery of cans of beans straight to the door. We used to have the postie, backed up by a van for larger items. Then a loads of commercial competitor vans. Now a load of people driving their own cars to back up the vans. A LOT of traffic, a lot of emissions.
I'm a bit sceptical about that, to be honest. That said, I wonder if a rise in fuel duty might be on the agenda for the budget. Fuel is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago (that was a big thing in the cost of living crisis - the collapse in oil prices in Autumn 2014 was a godsend for the Tories). Now might be a good time to put it up a bit.
In the long-term, electric cars is going to be a huge problem for politicians. If they don't fall in price to effectively oust ICE cars, there will come a time when only the reasonably well-off can afford a car. I wouldn't want that to happen on my watch.
Electric cars will fall in price and oust ICE cars, the total cost of ownership of new luxury cars is practically there already. The 'S' shaped adoption curve will start trending up in the next few years and in ten years time it will be eccentric if not impossible to buy a fossil fuel car.
However, I am still sceptical. Governments didn't need to legislate to ban photographic film. Digital cameras simply replaced it by being better in almost every respect.
I'm not sure how much we can read into the luxury car market. I would like to know how many households own only electric vehicles?
Just how disruptive are EVs? What is revolutionary about them? Don't get me wrong, if the car companies replicate what we have now with EVs, then fine. But we are a long way from that being the case.
At some point - probably in the mid to late 2020s - the total cost of ownership of electric cars will become cheaper than petrol powered ones.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
I guess that last point is the key one. We need huge capacity for charging for such journeys. It’s no good if you have to queue up for an hour each time.
I must admit that it had passed me by that Wycombe was trending marginal. It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Baker stands down, to be honest.
As others have said though this analysis isn't complete without including the Labour seats that will flip Tory.
There will definitely be some, and the country could continue to pivot around an inverted axis.
Given the Tories had a 12% lead in 2019 and no poll has the Tories with a bigger lead than that and most polls have the Tories with a significantly smaller leader it is highly unlikely any further Labour seats will flip Tory
There are many Labour seats that have been trending Tory for quite a time and will continue to do so. Neither Ed Miliband not Yvette Cooper are safe, and the decline of the Brexit party helps them further.
Remember: even if Labour knocked it out the park you'd still expect 3-7 seats to flip Labour to Tory, and I expect more than that because they won't.
If the national swing is all one way the seats tend to follow. In 1997 for example Labour lost not a single seat to the Tories, and in 2010 the Tories lost not a single seat to Labour. In 2019 only 1 Tory seat went Labour, Putney.
Most likely if Labour does lose any seats it will be because they made net gains but still lost the election. That was the case in 1992 for example when Kinnock gained 35 seats from the Tories but lost 5 as well, 3 of them in Scotland or Wales.
We live in a world now where seats can, and do, trend in different ways and directions. That's why YouGov MRP has become so important. Old school national swing is a crude tool these days.
And don't forget all those northern seats that trended Tory significantly in GE2017, and stayed Labour, but finally flipped in GE2019.
There will be more to come.
They went Tory in 2019 to deliver Brexit and defeat Corbyn.
Brexit has been delivered and Corbyn is no more. The Tories will be doing well to hold them, let alone gain more
I think that's nonsense, for reasons I have explained on here in thread headers before.
There's much more to it than just Brexit and Corbyn: it's a comfort blanket to avoid far more difficult questions about identity and values.
'It's housing, stupid.' 🏠🏠🏠
The North is not bound to be Labour by some divine rule and has been swinging Tory for a decade now.
It's not rocket science why: house prices are much lower, housing construction much higher, so more and more people are climbing onto the housing ladder.
People who own their own home are far more likely to vote Tory. High house prices don't secure Tory votes - high construction levels resulting in higher home ownership does.
If you want more Tory votes then build, build, build houses that people can buy.
Though if you build more homes on the greenbelt and in fields you also lose lots of Tory council seats in the Home Counties to the LDs, the Greens and Independents, even if you might add a few more Tory voters who buy their own home in future general elections
Any actual evidence for that? Rather than theory.
And I care far more about MPs than Councillors.
People buying their own home are far more affected than the curtain twitching NIMBYs who still own their own home either way.
Yes, the 2019 local elections where the Tories lost 1,330 seats, the LDs gained 704 councillors, the Greens gained 237 and Independents and Residents' groups gained 755.
Guildford and South Oxfordshire for example were both lost by the Tories over planning and the Local Plan.
Epping Forest is a safe Tory seat nationally but has a lot of marginal Tory seats at council level. Yes we need more homes under the Local Plan but we will have to deal with the opposition we will face particularly in south Epping and Loughton where they are to go and to the measures to mitigate pollution around the Forest too that comes with the new development and infrastructure from the LDs, the Greens and Residents' Association
Alternatively it is the lack of completed new homes that is causing a swing away from the Tories. In 2011 Guildford had much more owner occupier than the country as a whole which is why it was more Tory.
Not building homes kills the Tories more than building them does. You're blind and myopic if you can't see that. The parts of the country relatively swinging away from the Tories are those that are developing housing shortages.
As I posted above voters are all for new affordable homes and getting more people on the property land until that means building on the greenbelt.
Voters in towns, key swing areas, back more affordable housing by 51% to 35% but they oppose building more housing on Green belt land by 52% to 33%, though they do back converting empty shops to accomodation by 46% to 32%
I don't disagree we need to get more people owning their own home and on the property ladder, particularly under 40s but new developments in the greenbelt and fields must be minimised otherwise voters will swing away from the Tories, especially at local level
That's a classic case of "ask a silly question, get a silly answer".
Most opinion polls like this are ridiculous garbage, though you treat them as the gospel truth. They don't matter.
What matters far more than anything else is not some silly opinion poll it is a very simple question: does the voter own their own home or not?
If the voter owns their own home they're most likely to vote Tory.
If the voter does not, they're most likely to vote someone else.
Every other opinion poll is irrelevant in comparison.
Or age. But lots of cross-correlation there, I guess. Most over 65s own their own home. Most under 35s do not.
Precisely. The age crossover of voting goes up and down with the home ownership crossover rate.
Struggling to disagree with you here. Both age and home ownership are right-pulling factors and on top of that they are correlated. May as well leave it there.
Back to a more interesting topic. Toi.
I will absolutely not be badgering you about this but I return to the matter of you resigning from the Tory Party in disgust at what you saw as Mrs May's rank xenophobia. It was before my time, PBwise, so I was curious if you posted about it on here at the time. I imagine you did?
Yes I did. I've been here since 2008. I wouldn't make that up or lie about it, why would I?
I joined the Tories in 2004, was disgusted by May's speech in 2016 (said so at the time) and quit when May was elected leader (before the 2017 election).
People do make things up. I've certainly been known to.
So, ok, back in 2016 you posted here on PB.com that you were disgusted by Mrs May's xenophobia and for that reason were resigning from the Tory Party.
Same story was in the Sunday Times today. Their source described it as a Fuhrer Bunker project; batshit but unkillable.
Even Mrs T took a couple of terms to get that divorced from reality.
This story is absurd. Why on earth should the roundabout be below the IoM when it could be 500ft above it and boost their tourism industry? Penny pinching nonsense.
Presumably there'd be a roundabout exit at the IoM? So those exiting to the IoM come off the roundabout there while others continue their journey?
It's a bigger version of what they have done in the Faroes. Join all the Islands with tunnels.
Indeed. Countries all around the world are doing this. The technology exists.
The fact people are so reflexively considering it to be absurd is ridiculous. This is precisely the sort of long term infrastructure investment that should be considered, so long as the Manx are ok with it.
A direct route from Liverpool to Belfast looks like a bloody good idea as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's ridiculous because I don't believe, even post Covid profligacy, that anyone will be found to pay for such a thing, or that it would be completed this century given how we do such projects.
Why not?
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
The IoM route may even be more sensible that Stranraer direct if it avoids all the Phosgene Shells and the other million tons of munitions in Beaufort's Dyke.
Agreed and far more valuable too.
Belfast to Stranraer never made that much sense to me besides as a bung to the DUP. Not really worth doing.
Linking together Belfast, Liverpool, IOM, Stanraer etc - that would be a job well done.
Cost please?
The Channel Tunnel, which linked London and Paris, and was just 31 miles long, never made an economic return.
Now, I understand that tunneling has gotten cheaper. And it's also entirely possible that the geological conditions make Liverpool - IoM - Belfast easier.
But I do wonder just how much latent demand there is to travel from Liverpool to Belfast? The lesson from Japan is that a lot of expensive infrastructure projects to "nowhere" do little to boost economic growth. And wouldn't improving the rail network in Northern England not provide more "bang for the buck"?
Eurotunnel has been making a gross profit since 2007, and paying out dividends since 2009, but, yes, before that it faced bankruptcy - twice. And given its vast construction costs the NPV is still slightly negative - even today.
However, given it carries over 20 million passengers a year and 20 million tons of goods a year (over £100 billion of annual trade goes through it) it's good enough for something that'd probably cost £15-25bn to do today. Particularly since low-cost flights and ferries will face decarbonisation and tax pressure in future. It's certainly not a white elephant. Just a bit of a disappointment for a commercial investor.
It's not even necessary to do detailed calculations for a GB-NI tunnel equivalent. Just note that the cost would be the same (if not more, due to remote transport links and the fact it's longer and not tunnelling through soft chalk marl) and then just think about how feasible those same volumes of passengers and cargo might be.
Comments
He only watches streamed tv - no live tv
He wouldn't be seen dead listening to bbc radio ........
But its his word against theirs?
Are they just threatening and hoping that those of a nervous disposition will pay rather than face sanction?
I would add that he has mental health issues and suffers from bouts of depression and this is far from helping him.
Who would have thought it
To me it doea sound rather like they are trying it on. Unless they have him on tape saying he watches live tv or he let them into his house to inspect his setup (which you said he didn't), i don't see what evidence they will have.
And remember it isn't just their word against his, they are the ones that have to prove he broke the law
Again, it is why you never engage, just simple no thank you, because then you 100% know they can't have any evidence against you, rather than trying to recall the exact conversation you had about your Amazon Prime and Netflix usage.
I've heard from two people that have tested positive after getting the vaccine (one in their 90s) and neither got anything more serious than a sore throat.
If Covid were always something that gives nothing more than a sore throat we would never have blinked twice at that.
If it's only threats of legal action, don't worry, they won't follow it up. I've had lots of those threatening letters, they never follow them up. They just want to intimidate people into buying a license even if they don't need one.
Paging @contrarian
Remake of Willi Wonkah? The Avengers?
Or I can see the column in the Guardian now.
This illustrates the problem. A huge swathe of the South East, including about half of Hertfordshire and most of Surrey, is green belt - and this lobby group keeps a tally of development proposals within it, all of which are labelled "threats." If every attempt to build is a "threat" then this implies pickling in aspic, which has a certain reflexive attraction to it - who, when asked the question, likes covering more open land in bloody concrete? - but is, in practice, unrealistic. If the population keeps growing - and AIUI the net effect of the EU referendum appears to have been to cut growth from 450,000 per year to "only" about 250,000 - then the extra houses and associated infrastructure have to go somewhere. In the long run we'd hopefully be able to shove more of it up North (where one would expect there to be more crap legacy housing and brown field sites to be redeveloped,) but right now much of it is going to have to go in London and the South East, no matter how much it upsets the Nimbies.
Besides which, I know a few of these places which are under "threat." Not nearly all of them are beautiful pristine meadows and pretty valleys with babbling brooks and idyllic hillsides, about to be brutally despoiled by the bulldozer. One obvious example is for a proposal to put a light industrial development on a thin wedge of low quality agricultural land, sandwiched in between a trunk road and a railway line. The land in question has, as it stands, little productive value and no landscape or wildlife benefit whatever. Building on it to provide places for people to work isn't a "threat," it's an opportunity.
Calling every development proposal a threat strikes me as running into the same obvious problem as when a load of important tasks all flood into my workplace in one go, and the planner flags everything as a priority, because consequently nothing is identified as being of any more importance than anything else. If everything is a priority then nothing is. If everything is a threat then nothing is.
The green belt regulations aren't fit for purpose. What is required is a pragmatic approach in which the most valuable landscapes and best agricultural land are very strictly protected, and the focus elsewhere is on the type, density and quality of development that should be allowed. If the supply of housing and commercial property in some areas is choked off then all that achieves is to artificially inflate prices, to the general detriment of everyone except for landowners looking to make a fortune by selling up or gouging rents.
Responding to you from earlier. Won't do the chain for some reason.
It's not particular to Labour but you're so right about conflicts being fudged. Everything has to be presented as benefiting everyone or at least damaging nobody. Forget all the "wokeness" nonsense, this is what truly has a "chilling effect" on political discourse.
Domestic vs international can be at odds, yes. For example, globalization (imo a net plus and in any case unstoppable) has increased world GDP and reduced inequality between the west and the rest but has hit the working class here. For me, a Labour government should have the UK as its priority and restrict itself to a “do no harm” dictum in overseas matters.
Equality of opportunity and outcome are different. I agree with this. But they are strongly linked and must be considered together. An outcome is the result of an opportunity. People who say they care only about equal opportunities are usually not in truth overly bothered about the whole issue. They are virtue-signalling. Either that or they’ve not thought about it properly.
If you have great inequality of outcome it is evidence either of great inequality of opportunity (since the spread of ability across children and young people starting out is not so great) and/or it’s evidence of a country that is structurally unbalanced and treats its poorest citizens badly. For example, if society consisted of 100 slots, 5 bringing immense wealth and 95 barely enough to live on, sure it might be preferable if everyone, regardless of class (by which I largely mean parental affluence) or race or gender, had an equal shot at bagging one of the 5 prizes, but would this mean we are “sorted” on fighting inequality? Surely not.
So it’s about both these things, opportunities, outcomes, you can’t silo off the first and say it’s only about that. That’s a cop out and it’s nonsensical. Another example but this time in the other direction, how inequality of outcome prevents equality of opportunity. If the monied people created via inequality of outcome buy a better education for their kids, it creates inequality of opportunity in the next generation, which then crystallizes in yet more inequality of outcome, and then opportunity for their kids, and thus again outcome, etc etc. A vicious circle. Hard-coded and increasing inequality over time. Labour should be about radically disrupting this.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m talking about reducing inequality, nothing more than that. The 21st century domestic knowledge economy will naturally widen the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged and I want (Labour) government policies which act seriously against the grain of that. The goal is to move from a very unequal society to a fairly unequal one. This is not some utopian dream requiring totalitarianism and a recasting of human nature to achieve. It’s challenging but imo eminently achievable. It’s why I vote Labour.
Bit of wonkery on a Sunday afternoon.
Many hospitality businesses won't have the capacity to make enough money to break even through operating outdoors exclusively, and those that do will be entirely at the mercy of the weather. If we have a Spring like the last one then bingo. If we have a normal Spring then bollocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to excuse cutting them off from the furlough scheme too early so as to save a few quid.
Why can the Faroes do it but we are incapable of doing it? The technology is there, its just a question of willpower.
Right now it's early adopters and more luxury EV cars that are selling but as battery costs* come down and range improves the changeover will gather pace. After all an electric car is much simpler vehicle, many fewer moving parts, easier to maintain.
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/09/22/tesla-reveals-plan-to-halve-ev-battery-costs-at-battery-day-2020/?sh=654d43227f74
People want to live in places that are convenient and pleasant, and definitions of both will be affected long-term by the experience of lockdown. Once the worst of the Plague is over and the economy begins to recover then if property prices are going to skyrocket anywhere it'll be in the Home Counties, because supply and demand will end up being even more imbalanced than they were before all of this started.
For another, I don't know if the projects would be of similar scale, but I am pretty confident that a UK project would be massively delayed and massively overbudget, and given we cannot even figure out how to get enough houses built ever year I cannot say I'd be confident.
PS: I agree with you on most things. But on one matter, you are fundamentally wrong. Spiral. Laure Berthaud is, in every respect, much more appealing than Josephine Karlsson. (I finished it last night and am already missing it/her).
I see YouGov is showing a small Tory lead of I think 3 points, I frankly thought it would be a lot higher in the current circumstances with the Tories doing fantastically well on the vaccines and Starmer's numbers seemingly declined. Is the country just that split now?
https://twitter.com/ridgeonsunday/status/1363420553407848449
I see Starmer has gone against the left again on schools and calling for Hancock to resign. Strategically these plays against the "loonies" will I think come to benefit him in time. He is charting out a long-term course back to the centre-left.
He's got the vision to actually get stuff done. Its others who are adamant it can't but with him as top dog maybe he can actually get it going?
Its possible, just need the willpower to do it.
Belfast to Stranraer never made that much sense to me besides as a bung to the DUP. Not really worth doing.
Linking together Belfast, Liverpool, IOM, Stanraer etc - that would be a job well done.
I think the government's treatment of NI has been shoddy but I have very little time for the Unionist politicians there who backed Brexit without explaining the implications to their electorate - indeed ridiculously acted as if there wouldn't really be any in spite of the warnings fro Major, Blair and Brown.
It's all complete hogwash, but if you're elderly, a teenager, or a vulnerable person, the first few letters may well be terrifying. Which is the intended, and utterly immoral, result.
Having the willpower to do something is not the be all and end all as to whether it should be done, or if it can be done in a way that is worth it. Qin Shi Huang had the power to get projects done too, but no one would suggest we should try the same things.
Why? Because the cost of making batteries is falling faster than the cost of making ICEs. The fuel (electrons) for electric cars is also cheaper, and the price of differential with petrol is also likely to grow over time. Maintenance too is simpler (and cheaper) for electric. And you get more usable space in the vehicle too, as well as better perfomance.
At this point the question becomes, really, for what reason other than range would anyone choose to buy a petrol powered car over an electric one?
(And there's a price for everything: how many long distance trips do you make a year? If it's two, then the total downside of an electric car is a couple of 20 minute longer charging stops. And against that, charging infrastrcture will be everywhere. Your car will always be "topped up", and therefore you will save on those regular time consuming stops at petrol stations.)
It took 57 years from the first tunnel to last in the Faroes.
There are a couple of pubs near me that have beer gardens well in excess of 5,000 sq ft. The idea that they should remain enforceably closed is completely ridiculous. Just open them for table service and/or rule of six from 2 April.
It's no coincidence that only an English magazine was prepared to take legal action over Salmond's inquiry submission. No Scottish paper or TV channel would even consider that.
Now, I understand that tunneling has gotten cheaper. And it's also entirely possible that the geological conditions make Liverpool - IoM - Belfast easier.
But I do wonder just how much latent demand there is to travel from Liverpool to Belfast? The lesson from Japan is that a lot of expensive infrastructure projects to "nowhere" do little to boost economic growth. And wouldn't improving the rail network in Northern England not provide more "bang for the buck"?
The idea that we can send rovers to Mars but we're incapable of building a tunnel between Liverpool, Isle of Man and Belfast is absurd.
Perhaps its worth getting a certain manic South African billionaire involved in the project?
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1363528127738167297?s=20
Back to a more interesting topic. Toi.
I will absolutely not be badgering you about this but I return to the matter of you resigning from the Tory Party in disgust at what you saw as Mrs May's rank xenophobia. It was before my time, PBwise, so I was curious if you posted about it on here at the time. I imagine you did?
If you want to know why China is winning The Long War, it’s because negative, can’t do, moaning like this has become so prevalent in the old democracies. Open your eyes to the rest of the world and see what’s possible.
But looking over his shoulder.
There's also many things we cannot do, or at least cannot do in way that is worth the cost, even though we have sent rovers to Mars.
Technology has moved on since then.
Well done Tories!
And no matter how much people try to suggest it, expressing doubts about costs or benefits is not the same as saying it is impossible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLRKrCEzaEI
from case data
from hospital admissions
Also, will there be a customs post halfway along ;-)
I joined the Tories in 2004, was disgusted by May's speech in 2016 (said so at the time) and quit when May was elected leader (before the 2017 election).
https://electrek.co/2019/07/02/tesla-supercharger-v3-range-minutes/
As for the Press and Journal, etc., you may recall the surprise and discussion here a month or two back when they ran a couple of stories mildly agreeing with the Scottish Gmt and SNP on the impact of Brexit on the economy in Scotland.
Its entirely doable, just whether you're prepared to do it is another question.
A number of them built on land created in shallow water, for the purpose.
Cost benefit analyses have been used by the treasury for decades to put the skids on new infrastructure. Who was the senior mandarin who considered delayed crossrail by 20 years to be his greatest career achievement?
The tone you get as soon as big infrastructure is proposed in this country is: BORIS IS MAD, PIE IN THE SKY. The unattributed source in that article compared the PM with Hitler for wanting a study done into a new piece of infrastructure.
To Robert’s point, while Japan Rail has doubtless suffered from mission creep, we still haven’t even got as far as the Osaka - Tokyo line, much less Tokyo to Sapporo. Fixed links between the main islands of the union should have been done a lifetime ago, whether the Treasury’s bean counters said it was profitable or not.
Think dozens of spaces...
So, ok, back in 2016 you posted here on PB.com that you were disgusted by Mrs May's xenophobia and for that reason were resigning from the Tory Party.
Is this your final sworn testimony?
However, given it carries over 20 million passengers a year and 20 million tons of goods a year (over £100 billion of annual trade goes through it) it's good enough for something that'd probably cost £15-25bn to do today. Particularly since low-cost flights and ferries will face decarbonisation and tax pressure in future. It's certainly not a white elephant. Just a bit of a disappointment for a commercial investor.
It's not even necessary to do detailed calculations for a GB-NI tunnel equivalent. Just note that the cost would be the same (if not more, due to remote transport links and the fact it's longer and not tunnelling through soft chalk marl) and then just think about how feasible those same volumes of passengers and cargo might be.