On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).
So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.
Cars are probably a big one.
For years now all Labour wants to talk about are the railways. In one way the Tories sorting out the railways may be self-harming politically, since the more Labour talks about railways, the more Labour is just talking to them in cities.
If you drive around, but one party only wants to talk about public transport and acts like the very notion of driving is evil, then what does that say about what that party thinks about you?
I can say with experience that anti-car sentiment is very strong at the top of the public sector and within transportation.
Part of that is self-interest, of course. The latest is to major on the fact that electric cars will still be very bad for pollution due to the Oslo Effect of tyre and brake friction particulates and road dust emissions; tail pipe gas being only about 50-60% of it.
I get the impression that ditching the unrealistic green targets would be very popular outside London. Or at least implementing them by forcing people to stop driving and get their boilers changed when they work fine will be extremely unpopular. I just wonder which country will be the first to break the collective hysteria.
Which green targets are the unrealistic ones?
Getting rid of all new Petrol and diesel cars by 2035. I am not sure anyone has yet clocked what a massive change that will mean to our lives unless we start to see some of these technological breakthroughs we are promised.
Haven't you just given the Government the benefit of another 5 years to achieve their unrealistic target? 2030?
Yes - it's 2030.
Not sure how unrealistic I would call that. Though I would go with "demanding".
Pure electric car sales have jumped from 1% to 6% in 2 years.
In about five years electric cars ought to be significantly cheaper to manufacture than their ICE equivalents. The market will then do much of the rest, and if government doesn't provide for the charging infrastructure, whether directly or by subsidy/coercion, it will suffer the consequences.
Its not just the infrastructure, it is the changes made to how we drive. Right now there are around 90,000 petrol and diesel pumps in the country. Filling up takes 3-4 minutes and there are still regular queues at many stations. The very best electric cars charge at the equivalent of between 30 and 80 miles per hour. So to get the equivalent of filling your car up you would have to charge for somewhere between 5 and 12 hours.
Of course we all hope this will change but right now we are making plans based on technology that doesn't even exist.
And before people go on about home charging, there are large parts of the country where that is just no practical as there is no drive on which to park your car or garage to put it in.
The reason why the Tesla experience is hassle free is that it is a unified network with no faff. Until all of the different operators stop pissing around with stand alone charging systems and setups it will never be a viable solution if we are going to have all cars electrified.
AIUI there’s one massively expensive (to the consumer) charging operator that quickly signed up all the existing motorway service stations on long exclusive contracts. The best thing govt can do is buy up some fields adjacent to motorways and make more charging stations.
Seems decent for a Thursday. Over a quarter million first doses, interesting that first doses seem to be really kicking up a gear now again? Are we near the end of catching up on second doses?
On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).
So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.
Cars are probably a big one.
For years now all Labour wants to talk about are the railways. In one way the Tories sorting out the railways may be self-harming politically, since the more Labour talks about railways, the more Labour is just talking to them in cities.
If you drive around, but one party only wants to talk about public transport and acts like the very notion of driving is evil, then what does that say about what that party thinks about you?
I can say with experience that anti-car sentiment is very strong at the top of the public sector and within transportation.
Part of that is self-interest, of course. The latest is to major on the fact that electric cars will still be very bad for pollution due to the Oslo Effect of tyre and brake friction particulates and road dust emissions; tail pipe gas being only about 50-60% of it.
I get the impression that ditching the unrealistic green targets would be very popular outside London. Or at least implementing them by forcing people to stop driving and get their boilers changed when they work fine will be extremely unpopular. I just wonder which country will be the first to break the collective hysteria.
Which green targets are the unrealistic ones?
Getting rid of all new Petrol and diesel cars by 2035. I am not sure anyone has yet clocked what a massive change that will mean to our lives unless we start to see some of these technological breakthroughs we are promised.
Haven't you just given the Government the benefit of another 5 years to achieve their unrealistic target? 2030?
Yes - it's 2030.
Not sure how unrealistic I would call that. Though I would go with "demanding".
Pure electric car sales have jumped from 1% to 6% in 2 years.
In about five years electric cars ought to be significantly cheaper to manufacture than their ICE equivalents. The market will then do much of the rest, and if government doesn't provide for the charging infrastructure, whether directly or by subsidy/coercion, it will suffer the consequences.
There's actually rather alot of work on charging infrastructure happening at the moment. Billions being spent on it. Just not very sexy as a news story.
Of course. Be interesting to see how adequate it is when the numbers really start to take off. It's not the most complex of problems, so it might well be fine.
The biggest problems are rip off pricing and poor usability.
The difference between the Tesla superchargers and the other systems as a user experience is massive. With Tesla, plug in and go, pretty much. With the others, lots of fiddling around seems to be required.
The difference is nowhere near as big as it was even 12 months ago. As long you've got accounts with ecotricity and PolarPlus you're fine.
BMW, Merc, Ford and VAG are collaborating on the Europe wide Ionity charging network specifically to destroy Tesla's competitive advantage in that area.
Tesla aren't in trouble yet but VAG in particular are coming for them very hard.
I'd say, from a recent trip with a relative who has a Tesla that the non-Tesla network needs a lot of work.
Covid - Professor Andrew Hayward of SAGE told the BBC - "we could be at the start of a third wave. I can't think of any reason why this variant won't spread around the country in the same way as the currently infected areas. It's very transmissable"
What ANY reason? None at all? Not the fact that it seems to be predominant in areas with relatively low volume take-up? And may find more resistance elsewhere?
And anyway what is "a third wave"? Large numbers of cases everywhere? Or actually a significant effect on public health? The almost complete lack of discussion about the (quite high likelihood) that high transmission does not equal serious public health problem is incredibly frustrating. Ministers keep referencing it. But day after day we just get SAGE scientists appearing on the news saying that the main criteria to judge the risk of the variant is transmissibility.
AZ has 90% efficacy after 2 doses with our current 12 week dosing strategy. For a vaccine that has taken so many PR hits, it's absolutely amazing in the real world.
I fear this may err on the billowy, flabby side in the same way that The Pacific did, but here’s hoping. I think they’ve built at least one B17 from the ground up.
Mega vaccine numbers today as well, good pick up in first doses and that number will continue to rise throughout the week until it hits about 300-325k per day on average by the end of May.
Labour might win Batley but heading into a pub and asking "Will you be voting for Jo Cox's sister" - which is about what the ConHome chap did is going to elicit a bias response. Most voters will have no idea who she is.
It is a hard call for Labour, IMO
Kim Leadbetter appears a very capable, personable candidate with local roots. She has a unifying appeal with "More in Common". And David Herdson speaks very highly of her.
But, she has no political experience (was she even a member of the Labour party before deciding to put her name forward ?)
This is likely to be a messy by-election and (at the risk of echoing Gordon Brown), this is no time for a novice. She is likely to receive much more scrutiny and even hostility as a political candidate than she has ever experienced before in running local charity.
Hard call ... Labour need a very safe pair of hands.
I'm scratching my head, but no, I can't think of that safe pair of hands.
My temptation would be give Pidcock another try out, when she sinks without trace, hopefully that will be her done for eternity.
Caroline Flint.
Tony Blair...
Would that convert the current 64% likelihood of a Tory gain to 100% ? (Particularly if one is a punter from the Corbyn wing of life).
Seems decent for a Thursday. Over a quarter million first doses, interesting that first doses seem to be really kicking up a gear now again? Are we near the end of catching up on second doses?
I had thought the same but if we compare with 3 months ago then we were averaging about 350K jabs/day with peak days around 500K. It was mid-March where the average got close to 500K jabs/day. Unless we are getting more doses from somewhere then I would expect 1st jabs to slow down again.
If the government needs to build on Green Belt land, it could impose this rule on councils: for every acre of less desirable Green Belt taken, it must turn two acres of tedious neighbouring monocultural farmland into woodland, and wildflower meadow.
That way they beautify the nation even as they build. That way might just be acceptable to voters
That's a good idea, does increase costs, of course.
Our present house backs on to a stream, followed by a meadow, maybe 100m wide, that floods 2m deep 2-3 times per year, then (crop) farmland. The local plan has the farmland (and, on the maps, the meadow) earmarked for development. Developing the meadow seems like a very bad idea - it floods, frequently and, judging from the birds of prey that frequent it, is a pretty good habitat for small mammals. Our neighbours are pretty distraught at the idea of building there, but I could certainy be won round by a good scheme - the loss of the intensively farmed fields is not a bad thing and if the meadow survives and there's some tree planting/landscaping/putting in of public footpaths then I can't see it as a bad thing for the town overall. I will miss the sunsets across the fields, I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but there are ways of developing the site that I could recognise as better than what was there before.
Of course the problem with outsiders telling locals that they are no longer Lancastrians / Yorkshire / Durham is that it tends to provoke all kinds of nasty reactions. Durham runs from the Tyne to the Tees, always has, always will do. Yorkshire is North, West and East despite South also being a new Ceremonial county. Same thing with T&W - giving it a Lord Lieutenant doesn't suddenly give it value.
A ceremonial county is not a historic country. Twatting around with borders is a touchy subject in my part of England that seems to drive the natives absolutely mental. Did have to laugh though when His Eminence the Mayor for Life of Thornaby-on-Tees gobbed off about county names and had his sizeable arse handed to him by the Chair of the Yorkshire Ridings Socirty.
What point did mayor of Thornaby on Tees try to make?
Leantossup made absolute fucking dicks of themselves with their Scottish Election prediction.
Utter clownshoes.
How?
They predicted an SNP minority, with a 66.4% chance of an SNP minority, 32.9% chance of an SNP majority, SNP 61 seats. The result was SNP 64 seats. That seems reasonably close.
Leantossup had a great 2019 result UK wide. They predicted an 82 seat Tory majority, versus the 80 seat Tory majority that was the result. Best seat prediction by far as far as I know - though they overestimated the Lib Dems.
Of course the problem with outsiders telling locals that they are no longer Lancastrians / Yorkshire / Durham is that it tends to provoke all kinds of nasty reactions. Durham runs from the Tyne to the Tees, always has, always will do. Yorkshire is North, West and East despite South also being a new Ceremonial county. Same thing with T&W - giving it a Lord Lieutenant doesn't suddenly give it value.
A ceremonial county is not a historic country. Twatting around with borders is a touchy subject in my part of England that seems to drive the natives absolutely mental. Did have to laugh though when His Eminence the Mayor for Life of Thornaby-on-Tees gobbed off about county names and had his sizeable arse handed to him by the Chair of the Yorkshire Ridings Socirty.
LOL. Wishful thinking.
I actually have a lot of time for the traditional counties but putting boundaries down the middle of rivers in the middle of big cities is senseless. Just as London is rightfully one unit (rather than split between Surrey and Middlesex) so should be Newcastle.
By the way, guess what, it's generational? In his excellent book Engel's England Matthew Engels was dismayed to find younger people baffled by the idea that Barnoldswick* was in Yorkshire.
Engels asked 10 people which county it was in:
Four said Lancashire, three said Yorkshire and three didn't care... A teenage girl kindly switched off her iPad to talk to me and looked disgusted."Yorkshire? It's just the elderly people who think that."
Have just been for a bike ride. London (not central). Caned it around leafy west London and have come back gagging* as though something, dust or something, is in my throat. All is good now, so did a bit of turbo google and someone mentioned Lime trees can do this. Can they?
*No melons were involved.
Depends if you are sensitive and to what.
I have an asthma diagnosis, and am sensitive to some tree pollen at its height sometimes.
And lime is very productive (listen to the insects buzzing).
So .. possible.
Keep drinking water if you feel dusty, and wait a day or two.
Thanks. It went after 10 mins but was an "interesting" sensation. And the first time it's ever happened.
Ideally we’ve got the Aussies to open up on services at the same time as we drop tariffs on goods. The result being both cheaper goods here, and our firms clean up in a jurisdiction that speaks (almost) the same language and has similar laws.
Comments
Seems decent for a Thursday. Over a quarter million first doses, interesting that first doses seem to be really kicking up a gear now again? Are we near the end of catching up on second doses?
What ANY reason? None at all? Not the fact that it seems to be predominant in areas with relatively low volume take-up? And may find more resistance elsewhere?
And anyway what is "a third wave"? Large numbers of cases everywhere? Or actually a significant effect on public health? The almost complete lack of discussion about the (quite high likelihood) that high transmission does not equal serious public health problem is incredibly frustrating. Ministers keep referencing it. But day after day we just get SAGE scientists appearing on the news saying that the main criteria to judge the risk of the variant is transmissibility.
https://twitter.com/ladbible/status/1387412756144566272?s=21
Our present house backs on to a stream, followed by a meadow, maybe 100m wide, that floods 2m deep 2-3 times per year, then (crop) farmland. The local plan has the farmland (and, on the maps, the meadow) earmarked for development. Developing the meadow seems like a very bad idea - it floods, frequently and, judging from the birds of prey that frequent it, is a pretty good habitat for small mammals. Our neighbours are pretty distraught at the idea of building there, but I could certainy be won round by a good scheme - the loss of the intensively farmed fields is not a bad thing and if the meadow survives and there's some tree planting/landscaping/putting in of public footpaths then I can't see it as a bad thing for the town overall. I will miss the sunsets across the fields, I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but there are ways of developing the site that I could recognise as better than what was there before.
Utter clownshoes.
They predicted an SNP minority, with a 66.4% chance of an SNP minority, 32.9% chance of an SNP majority, SNP 61 seats. The result was SNP 64 seats. That seems reasonably close.
Leantossup had a great 2019 result UK wide. They predicted an 82 seat Tory majority, versus the 80 seat Tory majority that was the result. Best seat prediction by far as far as I know - though they overestimated the Lib Dems.
I actually have a lot of time for the traditional counties but putting boundaries down the middle of rivers in the middle of big cities is senseless. Just as London is rightfully one unit (rather than split between Surrey and Middlesex) so should be Newcastle.
By the way, guess what, it's generational? In his excellent book Engel's England Matthew Engels was dismayed to find younger people baffled by the idea that Barnoldswick* was in Yorkshire.
Engels asked 10 people which county it was in:
Four said Lancashire, three said Yorkshire and three didn't care... A teenage girl kindly switched off her iPad to talk to me and looked disgusted."Yorkshire? It's just the elderly people who think that."
(*It's been in Lancashire since 1974)