The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
I don't think that's right - because the work can only be done at weekends and because there simply isn't enough people to do more than a few miles every weekend you end up with over-engineered solutions to all the old and new to run in parallel and provide any chance of switching from the old to the new without a long "getting ready" shutdown.
Simply put its easier to build new rather than upgrade railway lines - the issue we have is NIMBYs and insane desires to make projects financially risk free result in completely insane prices. The southern part of HS2 is so expensive because the risk was transferred to the constructors (who simply picked a price that ensured they could make a profit come what may) with extended designs costs and timeframes to ensure risk was minimised.
IT projects used to do that 20 years ago, we don't do it now because we know it just adds costs.
The same pattern has been seen in defence projects for decades - we need the shiniest shiny thing ever. At a fixed cost.
So everyone pads the numbers, and by using a vast pyramid of outsourced contractors, no *one* company seems to be taking the piss...
Then a mad Safr gets a bunch of reneck welders and LA rocket scientists together in a Texas swamp....
It's worth pointing out here that that mad Safr couldn't have used his approach in the 1960s or even the 1990s.
The build, blow up and rebuild approach works because a lot of sensors can send data in real time out of the rocket so there is data is available to see where things went wrong.
I remember when the initial Shuttle disaster occurred most people failed to notice the flames coming from the side of the booster until well after the initial event.
The diagnostics SpaceX and NASA did after the CRS-7 inflight failure was amazing. They used all the data to develop a sequence of events at the millisecond level - a brilliant bit of forensics.
It also showed that SpaceX's procedures were not as robust as they should be: they did not use the correct grade steel for a supporting strut, and did not test the struts in a cryogenic environment. Worse, engineers had been photographed standing on the strut during construction.
SpaceX disagreed with this, and wanted to throw their supplier to the wolves. Personally, I think NASA got it right...
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
You seem to be missing the point of Brexit. The 'nimble' UK can now sever its red tape / compromise on standards * on a whim to undercut the lumbering, bureaucracy-ridden EU. Why should the EU allow us that competitive advantage while retaining full SM access?
* Delete as appropriate
Perfectly decent point. But does it trump the importance of peace in the island of Ireland? And what is it about our food production which means it is going to be OK in Londonderry but not Kilkenny. And does the EU think Boris plans to win elections by poisoning his own people with rotting warthog offal?
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Excellent post.
About once a year a cogent thought slips into my mind. Normal service will now be resumed.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
Do you mean 'cannot' in the legal, moral, or practical sense?
Everyone agrees that Ireland is a special case - so special that the EU expects the UK the bend the normal rules of internal markets to accommodate it. Boris is trying out whether a non-state like the EU might do the same to avoid damage to the island of Ireland.
legal and practical - whatever concessions we get for shipping goods to Ireland, Norway could insist on for Sweden / Denmark and given that WTO are being broken in Ireland it would be hard to argue legally that Norway couldn't do the same.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
I don't think that's right - because the work can only be done at weekends and because there simply isn't enough people to do more than a few miles every weekend you end up with over-engineered solutions to all the old and new to run in parallel and provide any chance of switching from the old to the new without a long "getting ready" shutdown.
Simply put its easier to build new rather than upgrade railway lines - the issue we have is NIMBYs and insane desires to make projects financially risk free result in completely insane prices. The southern part of HS2 is so expensive because the risk was transferred to the constructors (who simply picked a price that ensured they could make a profit come what may) with extended designs costs and timeframes to ensure risk was minimised.
IT projects used to do that 20 years ago, we don't do it now because we know it just adds costs.
The same pattern has been seen in defence projects for decades - we need the shiniest shiny thing ever. At a fixed cost.
So everyone pads the numbers, and by using a vast pyramid of outsourced contractors, no *one* company seems to be taking the piss...
Then a mad Safr gets a bunch of reneck welders and LA rocket scientists together in a Texas swamp....
It's worth pointing out here that that mad Safr couldn't have used his approach in the 1960s or even the 1990s.
The build, blow up and rebuild approach works because a lot of sensors can send data in real time out of the rocket so there is data is available to see where things went wrong.
I remember when the initial Shuttle disaster occurred most people failed to notice the flames coming from the side of the booster until well after the initial event.
The seal failures were known and documented within NASA. Telephone book thickness reports had been written. A new joint design was in the works. But it wasn't a big issue. Because of those nice, comforting telephone book reports.
Then, on a extra cold day, with a set of booster segments that were slight out of round more than previous sets.....
Ditto with the external tile failures that brought down Columbia, and the tank foam that caused it. Known about, and long predicted as a failure mode, several previous lucky escapes convinced everyone with lots of meetings and papers, that they’d stay safe.
Fourteen lives lost on those two shuttles.
Find a problem. Fix it.
Wayne Hale described the post Columbia project to remove all the waivers on the shuttle, on his blog....
I see we read some of the same blogs.
One of his latest is about the bolt-catchers for the SRB hold-down bolts that were blown at launch - it was seen as a significant risk after Columbia, and it turned out a fix had been designed, but not implemented, twenty years earlier!
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Thursday that new cases of Covid-19 in her country were rising "exponentially", driven by the Delta variant, as EU officials said more than half of all European adults had been fully vaccinated, short of a 70% target set for the summer.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
It’s a very valid observation. As someone just right of centre I get tired of hearing “Thatcher was the worst, then it was Major, then Cameron then May then Boris…” they’re all very different PMs and to suggest the most recent is the biggest enemy just isn’t something the rest of us to buy into and feels a bit boy who cried Wolf.
For the record I think most Tories probably think for all his recent failings Starmer is a step up from Corbyn and a preferred choice as PM. The FBPE types you mention would do well to gain a sense of historical perspective. There are certainly policies on the environment, economy and immigration for example where he (Boris) is appealing to the liberal masses and this would be recognised if the discourse was not so tribal.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
Do you mean 'cannot' in the legal, moral, or practical sense?
Everyone agrees that Ireland is a special case - so special that the EU expects the UK the bend the normal rules of internal markets to accommodate it. Boris is trying out whether a non-state like the EU might do the same to avoid damage to the island of Ireland.
Johnson's approach is very similar to the villain cuddling and stroking a cat, then bringing a gun out from behind him and saying "do as I say or the cat gets it!".
What really gets me is the sheer number of people who seemed to think that because the trial used a 3 week interval, in order to get the trial done quickly, that must be the optimal and even the only effective interval. People who ought to know better, like some medics, couldn't even seem to grasp the point that there was no reason to think a longer interval would be markedly less effective, we know this from experience with other vaccines, and certainly should make no difference to safety. In the end stretching the intervals has not only sped up protecting the population but also enhanced vaccine protection. So a bloody good decision was made by UK regulators.
As to the most vociferous critics who were virtually saying "Boris is going to kill you" by the decision to go for 12 weeks, they are simply gobshites.
I used to be very familiar with this sort of claim when I was an active part of the Wikimedia community. Interesting they have a new and unexpected ally (but they are not picky!)
Well, contrary to what many here have been saying, the statistic that matters most is the growth rate of infections, because the rates of hospitalisation and death have been falling only quite gradually. If infections had carried on doubling every three weeks, as the peak rate would have implied, daily hospitalisations would have been heading for several thousand a day very soon.
But despite the growth rates of hospitalisations and deaths now looking quite alarming, the weekly growth rate in positive tests has plummeted from 74% three weeks ago to only 24% now. That is its lowest value for about 8 weeks. In fact yesterday the seven-day total was actually lower than the day before.
Of course, the effect of 19 July still remains to be seen.
I do think that we have seen the peak of new cases per day, subject to some random statistical freak, but hospitalisations and deaths are not there yet given the lags. Peak hospitalisations will probably be the first or second week in August and deaths a week or two after that. The government will want to have clear evidence that we are past the worst before the ping nonsense is switched off. Their caution about the exemptions for this suggests to me that they are still a bit twitchy about this.
Remember, deaths within 28 days is going to be an increasingly flawed metric if we have, as we do, high cases but reasonably low hospitalisations in comparison to previous waves. More people will die with COVID rather than from COVID, than in previous waves.
We should be able to calculate how many deaths we would expect to be coincidental with Covid infection by looking at the ONS survey for population infection rates by age and actuarial life tables.
Although lots of people raise this point, so that they can handwave away the increasing death numbers, no-one wants to do the calculation.
Maybe they're worried they will still be mostly deaths from Covid and they'd rather not know?
Well, contrary to what many here have been saying, the statistic that matters most is the growth rate of infections, because the rates of hospitalisation and death have been falling only quite gradually. If infections had carried on doubling every three weeks, as the peak rate would have implied, daily hospitalisations would have been heading for several thousand a day very soon.
But despite the growth rates of hospitalisations and deaths now looking quite alarming, the weekly growth rate in positive tests has plummeted from 74% three weeks ago to only 24% now. That is its lowest value for about 8 weeks. In fact yesterday the seven-day total was actually lower than the day before.
Of course, the effect of 19 July still remains to be seen.
I do think that we have seen the peak of new cases per day, subject to some random statistical freak, but hospitalisations and deaths are not there yet given the lags. Peak hospitalisations will probably be the first or second week in August and deaths a week or two after that. The government will want to have clear evidence that we are past the worst before the ping nonsense is switched off. Their caution about the exemptions for this suggests to me that they are still a bit twitchy about this.
Remember, deaths within 28 days is going to be an increasingly flawed metric if we have, as we do, high cases but reasonably low hospitalisations in comparison to previous waves. More people will die with COVID rather than from COVID, than in previous waves.
We should be able to calculate how many deaths we would expect to be coincidental with Covid infection by looking at the ONS survey for population infection rates by age and actuarial life tables.
Although lots of people raise this point, so that they can handwave away the increasing death numbers, no-one wants to do the calculation.
Maybe they're worried they will still be mostly deaths from Covid and they'd rather not know?
The easier way is to consult death certificates and/or excess deaths.
I'm certainly not handwaving the deaths. I follow both of those things closely and I'll be looking our for an actuarial calculation. I remember some from the previous waves, but we know this wave is affecting a different cohort.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Excellent post.
About once a year a cogent thought slips into my mind.
As someone who voted for Hunt, the dark days of the Johnson administration are not, in my view, with us yet.
The question is whether they are coming and whether they will end with Johnson himself. More than ever I am relieved that there is no similar candidate in the wings, at least, yet.
What really gets me is the sheer number of people who seemed to think that because the trial used a 3 week interval, in order to get the trial done quickly, that must be the optimal and even the only effective interval. People who ought to know better, like some medics, couldn't even seem to grasp the point that there was no reason to think a longer interval would be markedly less effective, we know this from experience with other vaccines, and certainly should make no difference to safety. In the end stretching the intervals has not only sped up protecting the population but also enhanced vaccine protection. So a bloody good decision was made by UK regulators.
As to the most vociferous critics who were virtually saying "Boris is going to kill you" by the decision to go for 12 weeks, they are simply gobshites.
Nuance and thinking are not something most people want to do. They really do want to be told what to do.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
I don't think that's right - because the work can only be done at weekends and because there simply isn't enough people to do more than a few miles every weekend you end up with over-engineered solutions to all the old and new to run in parallel and provide any chance of switching from the old to the new without a long "getting ready" shutdown.
Simply put its easier to build new rather than upgrade railway lines - the issue we have is NIMBYs and insane desires to make projects financially risk free result in completely insane prices. The southern part of HS2 is so expensive because the risk was transferred to the constructors (who simply picked a price that ensured they could make a profit come what may) with extended designs costs and timeframes to ensure risk was minimised.
IT projects used to do that 20 years ago, we don't do it now because we know it just adds costs.
The same pattern has been seen in defence projects for decades - we need the shiniest shiny thing ever. At a fixed cost.
So everyone pads the numbers, and by using a vast pyramid of outsourced contractors, no *one* company seems to be taking the piss...
Then a mad Safr gets a bunch of reneck welders and LA rocket scientists together in a Texas swamp....
It's worth pointing out here that that mad Safr couldn't have used his approach in the 1960s or even the 1990s.
The build, blow up and rebuild approach works because a lot of sensors can send data in real time out of the rocket so there is data is available to see where things went wrong.
I remember when the initial Shuttle disaster occurred most people failed to notice the flames coming from the side of the booster until well after the initial event.
The seal failures were known and documented within NASA. Telephone book thickness reports had been written. A new joint design was in the works. But it wasn't a big issue. Because of those nice, comforting telephone book reports.
Then, on a extra cold day, with a set of booster segments that were slight out of round more than previous sets.....
Ditto with the external tile failures that brought down Columbia, and the tank foam that caused it. Known about, and long predicted as a failure mode, several previous lucky escapes convinced everyone with lots of meetings and papers, that they’d stay safe.
Fourteen lives lost on those two shuttles.
Find a problem. Fix it.
Wayne Hale described the post Columbia project to remove all the waivers on the shuttle, on his blog....
I see we read some of the same blogs.
One of his latest is about the bolt-catchers for the SRB hold-down bolts that were blown at launch - it was seen as a significant risk after Columbia, and it turned out a fix had been designed, but not implemented, twenty years earlier!
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
I don't think that's right - because the work can only be done at weekends and because there simply isn't enough people to do more than a few miles every weekend you end up with over-engineered solutions to all the old and new to run in parallel and provide any chance of switching from the old to the new without a long "getting ready" shutdown.
Simply put its easier to build new rather than upgrade railway lines - the issue we have is NIMBYs and insane desires to make projects financially risk free result in completely insane prices. The southern part of HS2 is so expensive because the risk was transferred to the constructors (who simply picked a price that ensured they could make a profit come what may) with extended designs costs and timeframes to ensure risk was minimised.
IT projects used to do that 20 years ago, we don't do it now because we know it just adds costs.
Perhaps - I am only reporting what the industry say about electrification. As for HS2, the government are batshit crazy with those contracts they issued.
As of today, a major overhaul of UK government and NHS comms to emphasize being outdoors, ventilation, avoiding crowds - stuff that actually works. "Hands/Face/Space" gone completely, and handwashing relegated to the bottom of the list. Delightful to see!
Well, contrary to what many here have been saying, the statistic that matters most is the growth rate of infections, because the rates of hospitalisation and death have been falling only quite gradually. If infections had carried on doubling every three weeks, as the peak rate would have implied, daily hospitalisations would have been heading for several thousand a day very soon.
But despite the growth rates of hospitalisations and deaths now looking quite alarming, the weekly growth rate in positive tests has plummeted from 74% three weeks ago to only 24% now. That is its lowest value for about 8 weeks. In fact yesterday the seven-day total was actually lower than the day before.
Of course, the effect of 19 July still remains to be seen.
I do think that we have seen the peak of new cases per day, subject to some random statistical freak, but hospitalisations and deaths are not there yet given the lags. Peak hospitalisations will probably be the first or second week in August and deaths a week or two after that. The government will want to have clear evidence that we are past the worst before the ping nonsense is switched off. Their caution about the exemptions for this suggests to me that they are still a bit twitchy about this.
Remember, deaths within 28 days is going to be an increasingly flawed metric if we have, as we do, high cases but reasonably low hospitalisations in comparison to previous waves. More people will die with COVID rather than from COVID, than in previous waves.
We should be able to calculate how many deaths we would expect to be coincidental with Covid infection by looking at the ONS survey for population infection rates by age and actuarial life tables.
Although lots of people raise this point, so that they can handwave away the increasing death numbers, no-one wants to do the calculation.
Maybe they're worried they will still be mostly deaths from Covid and they'd rather not know?
Did you see my post ?
I think the crude number of deaths we can expect today 'with covid' is ~ 22, assuming covid was equally distributed amongst all ages... The correct calculation would be somewhat less as it's more prevalent in younger cohorts.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
All parties lived up the commitments they signed up to in the GFA.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
Thanks
Also, I may have missed if you commented on this, but I wondered yesterday if tanks actually have any use in today's world. Though not an army man you seem like youd know the answer.
NEW: EU talks with US on vaccine passports are making little progress. But negotiations with the UK are at an advanced stage and the EU is also optimistic about a deal with Canada by September
Could have very big implications for Israel and the US heading into winter. Loads of EU countries also stuck to the manufacturer recommendation of 3 weeks as well.
Hopefully everyone who wants a booster dose will be able to get one.
To be fair to Pfizer, they never said that was the optimal period - it was just the one they had data for
The thing is, though, that we in the UK now have vastly more data than Pfizer had from the trials. So it seems rather odd keeping the advice unchanged. Of course I realise that the UK data isn't from a formal double-blind trial, but the world doesn't have the luxury of waiting for more formal trials.
The FDA doesn’t like real world data.
That’s why JVCI recommendations were the right way to go
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
Do you mean 'cannot' in the legal, moral, or practical sense?
Everyone agrees that Ireland is a special case - so special that the EU expects the UK the bend the normal rules of internal markets to accommodate it. Boris is trying out whether a non-state like the EU might do the same to avoid damage to the island of Ireland.
Johnson's approach is very similar to the villain cuddling and stroking a cat, then bringing a gun out from behind him and saying "do as I say or the cat gets it!".
A perfectly fair description of how much of international politics works. One reason Boris is enduringly popular, though not with the Guardian, is that it is widely believed that he is going to support UK interests with whatever means necessary, while being reluctant to invade middle eastern countries and allow others to kill our troops for little return.
All solutions to the Ireland problem appear to involve anomaly (eg NI being out of the UK internal market), illegality (EU suffering Scottish sausage), a shifting of red lines (ditto), impossibility (R o I joining UK or NI joining RoI - my preferred solution), civil disorder (the status quo).
The choice is not for the perfect but for the most acceptable. Boris is trying for the solution in which the EU gives a bit of ground. As PM of the UK it may be thought that is his job.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
When you compare the rail sector manufacturing R&D prowess in this country in the late 1970s/early 80s to what we are reduced to now, bolting together imported Japanese kit, it's an absolute tragedy.
My recollection of 1970/80s rail travel is slam-door carriages on rolling stock from the 1950s.
You've never travelled in an HST then (in service for 50 years) or a Pendolino (tilting train tech derived from the APT).
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
I don't think that's right - because the work can only be done at weekends and because there simply isn't enough people to do more than a few miles every weekend you end up with over-engineered solutions to all the old and new to run in parallel and provide any chance of switching from the old to the new without a long "getting ready" shutdown.
Simply put its easier to build new rather than upgrade railway lines - the issue we have is NIMBYs and insane desires to make projects financially risk free result in completely insane prices. The southern part of HS2 is so expensive because the risk was transferred to the constructors (who simply picked a price that ensured they could make a profit come what may) with extended designs costs and timeframes to ensure risk was minimised.
IT projects used to do that 20 years ago, we don't do it now because we know it just adds costs.
Perhaps - I am only reporting what the industry say about electrification. As for HS2, the government are batshit crazy with those contracts they issued.
Yep - it's one reason why I regard Osbourne as an idiot..
It seems the government has set up a complicated and bureaucratic exemption scheme for what is only guidance, and that they expect to last for all of 3 weeks. At least that is how it is being reported and the government are doing nothing to stop it.
Why should employers fill in lengthy forms when the app pings are simply guidance? Why are they not making clear this should be for NHS Test and Trace only?
The lack of clarity on pingdemic will continue to be big news over the weekend unless something major happens elsewhere. They really are completely incompetent.
Have we found out why earth they are determined to wait until mid August to lift pingdemic? If we have, then I have missed it. Seems completely arbitrary date.
I suspect it was a way to announce Freedom Day while effectively keeping a dampener on activity (in the same way people suggested keeping the WFH recommendation as an option)
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
I think the T20 concept makes sense* (obviously, given the commercial success it has had). But from our point of view, it was created to give the counties some revenue from games that could be completed in the early evening.
Just looking at the current format, I think the group stage is a bit long. I think two groups of nine with each side playing each other giving four home games and four away games would be enough. Play it over 18 days or so from the middle to the end of June. Then have quarter finals and finals day as and when it fits with everything else.
Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, but I used to go to the Guildford cricket festival every year to watch a one day game on the Sunday. I understand the attraction of the shorter format, but I think there is a place for a full day's cricket where possible. As it is, the schedule is a complete mess, though I'm heartened to see that Surrey appear to have sold out for a game at Guildford on Tuesday:
* The only thing I'd have done differently is to only have six wickets. That is, only seven of the 11 can bat. It would make wickets worth that little bit more and potentially create quite exciting finishes where the fielding team actually tries to get wickets rather than preventing runs. It would also have meant four players would be selected purely for their bowling/fielding ability.
I don't agree on the restricting wickets element. Wickets are worth a substantial amount in T20s still, due to the nature of the more aggressive play making losing wickets already more likely. Its far from that unusual to see teams bowled out in a T20; indeed in two of the three IT20s versus Pakistan recently England were bowled All Out, while Sri Lanka were in one of the IT20s recently too.
Plus I don't see why having players selected purely for their bowling/fielding ability makes things better. Bowlers already are selected for their bowling ability but to excise entirely an element of the game from their play - and to remove the drama of seeing a team bowling against tail enders, or tail enders desperately trying to rotate the strike to get on the talented batsman, is to weaken the game not strengthen it.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
When you compare the rail sector manufacturing R&D prowess in this country in the late 1970s/early 80s to what we are reduced to now, bolting together imported Japanese kit, it's an absolute tragedy.
My recollection of 1970/80s rail travel is slam-door carriages on rolling stock from the 1950s.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
I don't think that's right - because the work can only be done at weekends and because there simply isn't enough people to do more than a few miles every weekend you end up with over-engineered solutions to all the old and new to run in parallel and provide any chance of switching from the old to the new without a long "getting ready" shutdown.
Simply put its easier to build new rather than upgrade railway lines - the issue we have is NIMBYs and insane desires to make projects financially risk free result in completely insane prices. The southern part of HS2 is so expensive because the risk was transferred to the constructors (who simply picked a price that ensured they could make a profit come what may) with extended designs costs and timeframes to ensure risk was minimised.
IT projects used to do that 20 years ago, we don't do it now because we know it just adds costs.
The same pattern has been seen in defence projects for decades - we need the shiniest shiny thing ever. At a fixed cost.
So everyone pads the numbers, and by using a vast pyramid of outsourced contractors, no *one* company seems to be taking the piss...
Then a mad Safr gets a bunch of reneck welders and LA rocket scientists together in a Texas swamp....
It's worth pointing out here that that mad Safr couldn't have used his approach in the 1960s or even the 1990s.
The build, blow up and rebuild approach works because a lot of sensors can send data in real time out of the rocket so there is data is available to see where things went wrong.
I remember when the initial Shuttle disaster occurred most people failed to notice the flames coming from the side of the booster until well after the initial event.
The seal failures were known and documented within NASA. Telephone book thickness reports had been written. A new joint design was in the works. But it wasn't a big issue. Because of those nice, comforting telephone book reports.
Then, on a extra cold day, with a set of booster segments that were slight out of round more than previous sets.....
Ditto with the external tile failures that brought down Columbia, and the tank foam that caused it. Known about, and long predicted as a failure mode, several previous lucky escapes convinced everyone with lots of meetings and papers, that they’d stay safe.
Fourteen lives lost on those two shuttles.
Find a problem. Fix it.
Wayne Hale described the post Columbia project to remove all the waivers on the shuttle, on his blog....
I see we read some of the same blogs.
One of his latest is about the bolt-catchers for the SRB hold-down bolts that were blown at launch - it was seen as a significant risk after Columbia, and it turned out a fix had been designed, but not implemented, twenty years earlier!
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
All parties lived up the commitments they signed up to in the GFA.
No. This is realpolitik for sure but Boris is not trying the fudge the GFA. He is trying to get the EU to engage in fudge itself rather than forcing it all on the UK. He is UK PM and has a job to do. It's horrible job in a tough world. One of the reasons he is preferred to all others as PM is that he approaches it more like Bismarck than like Mother Theresa.
What really gets me is the sheer number of people who seemed to think that because the trial used a 3 week interval, in order to get the trial done quickly, that must be the optimal and even the only effective interval. People who ought to know better, like some medics, couldn't even seem to grasp the point that there was no reason to think a longer interval would be markedly less effective, we know this from experience with other vaccines, and certainly should make no difference to safety. In the end stretching the intervals has not only sped up protecting the population but also enhanced vaccine protection. So a bloody good decision was made by UK regulators.
As to the most vociferous critics who were virtually saying "Boris is going to kill you" by the decision to go for 12 weeks, they are simply gobshites.
I believe something similar applies to the need for very cold storage for the Pfizer vaccine. This was initially the case simply because they were sure it would keep at these low temperatures, but more testing would be needed to see if it would also be OK at higher temperatures. Since they wanted to get it our quickly, they simply specified the low temperatures. As it turned out, though, subsequent tests have shown that such low temperature storage isn't actually necessary after all.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
Thanks
Also, I may have missed if you commented on this, but I wondered yesterday if tanks actually have any use in today's world. Though not an army man you seem like youd know the answer.
I'm no expert but the MBT is rapidly falling out of favour but not disappearing. The USMC and Israeli Defence Force, two organisations that are generally held to know what the fuck they are doing, are reducing their fleets or getting out of the tank game altogether.
I mean the UK obviously needs them to suppress outbreaks of Scottish nationalism but beyond that it's difficult to see a compelling strategic case for them. However "number of tanks" is a concept so simple that even tory MPs and the Daily Mail comments section can understand it so it's politically difficult for the government to cut the fleet too much. Hence a large number of Challenger 3 hulls upgrades but only a small subset of them will actually be equipped for operations in hostile environments.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
It wasn't anything much to do with privatisation IMO (*). It's quite simple: between 1997 and 2010, the Blair and Brown government only electrified 16-odd miles of existing railway - Crewe-Stoke. What we really needed was a constant, rolling electrification program, with advance work teams being followed by the masts and knitting teams. Do one line, and move onto another. This is pretty much what happened under Thatcher, of all people ...
The long gap with no major electrification schemes in the early 2000s meant a heck of a lot of knowledge, experience and expertise was lost.
(*) There is scuttlebutt that privatisation had one major effect: Railtrack threw out a lot of paperwork about the existing infrastructure. This made it harder to know where anything was, making placing of masts etc harder. Although others claim most of the information thrown out was old, inaccurate and worse than useless. But the lesson is simple: asset management is vital.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
The funny thing about the libertarian pirate's desired fudge, to make the Euro Single Market's boundaries more porous, is that I can see what the EU/EEA/EFTA would be giving up, but not what the libertarian pirates would sacrifice.
How can giving one party what they wanted all along be a compromise?
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
When you compare the rail sector manufacturing R&D prowess in this country in the late 1970s/early 80s to what we are reduced to now, bolting together imported Japanese kit, it's an absolute tragedy.
My recollection of 1970/80s rail travel is slam-door carriages on rolling stock from the 1950s.
More likely the 20's and 30's.
Until January this year, the Isle of Wight still used rolling stock built in 1938:
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
I have no qualms with the UK having to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA.
Having to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the UK is a different matter though.
That's interesting in Leicester. One of the concerns with Kier's Batley poster with BoJo /Modi was that it would p1ss off Indian non-Muslim voters. Possible sign of this?
Kier not popular in Liecester?
It's Keir.
My BiL works for Kier so autocorrect has a field day…
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
Do you mean 'cannot' in the legal, moral, or practical sense?
Everyone agrees that Ireland is a special case - so special that the EU expects the UK the bend the normal rules of internal markets to accommodate it. Boris is trying out whether a non-state like the EU might do the same to avoid damage to the island of Ireland.
Johnson's approach is very similar to the villain cuddling and stroking a cat, then bringing a gun out from behind him and saying "do as I say or the cat gets it!".
A perfectly fair description of how much of international politics works. One reason Boris is enduringly popular, though not with the Guardian, is that it is widely believed that he is going to support UK interests with whatever means necessary, while being reluctant to invade middle eastern countries and allow others to kill our troops for little return.
All solutions to the Ireland problem appear to involve anomaly (eg NI being out of the UK internal market), illegality (EU suffering Scottish sausage), a shifting of red lines (ditto), impossibility (R o I joining UK or NI joining RoI - my preferred solution), civil disorder (the status quo).
The choice is not for the perfect but for the most acceptable. Boris is trying for the solution in which the EU gives a bit of ground. As PM of the UK it may be thought that is his job.
It may be that his means of doing so is felt to he ineffective or inappropriate. Opinions will vary.
That said, there was during the core periods of Brexit wrangling rather silly suggestion that asking for things and exceptions was inherently unreasonable, that cherry picking as it was put, was inherently unreasonable.
I always felt it might well be we were asking for unreasonable things, but the whole point of negotiations is to cherry pick as much as you can. If sides declaring their red lines meant there was no point discussing things why do negotiations even take place?
It felt like an example of when the way in which something happened being wrong/bad was confused with the idea of it being declared bad.
In this, Boris might not be acting reasonably in the specifics, particularly so brazenly soon, I think you're right a lot of people would see the aim as reasonable.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
All parties lived up the commitments they signed up to in the GFA.
No. This is realpolitik for sure but Boris is not trying the fudge the GFA. He is trying to get the EU to engage in fudge itself rather than forcing it all on the UK. He is UK PM and has a job to do. It's horrible job in a tough world. One of the reasons he is preferred to all others as PM is that he approaches it more like Bismarck than like Mother Theresa.
Always worth remembering that the entire problem wouldn't exist if the UK hadn't chosen to leave the EU.
Rail privatisation has been a disaster. Even the Tories agree.
I'm not a Tory, but I utterly disagree. Despite the tragedy last year, rail is safer than ever, whilst passenger numbers have increased massively pre-Covid. In what way do you see it as being a 'disaster'?
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Yes.
1 Because Ireland is a special case. 2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly. 3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true. 4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association. 5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Bascially Brexit was a rubbish idea with hardly any upside. And why hasn't BoJo allowed the Russia report to be published.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
All parties lived up the commitments they signed up to in the GFA.
No. This is realpolitik for sure but Boris is not trying the fudge the GFA. He is trying to get the EU to engage in fudge itself rather than forcing it all on the UK. He is UK PM and has a job to do. It's horrible job in a tough world. One of the reasons he is preferred to all others as PM is that he approaches it more like Bismarck than like Mother Theresa.
I think you'll find squareroot2 is gargling Johnson's balls full time this week. You'll have to wait for your turn.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
The funny thing about the libertarian pirate's desired fudge, to make the Euro Single Market's boundaries more porous, is that I can see what the EU/EEA/EFTA would be giving up, but not what the libertarian pirates would sacrifice.
How can giving one party what they wanted all along be a compromise?
This libertarian pirate's personal solution is for the UK's boundaries to be more porous too.
IE for Northern Ireland I would follow the principle of the GFA and have businesses able to follow EEA and UK rules, just as people in NI can have both Irish and UK passports.
So hypothetically for example if the UK criminalises foie gras and says it is illegal to sell foie gras in the UK, but the EU says foie gras is legal, then I would say allow foie gras in Northern Ireland despite UK rules.
So hypothetically for example if the EU criminalises hormone treated beef and says it is illegal to sell hormone treated beef in the EU, but the UK says hormone treated beef is legal, then I would say allow hormone treated beef in Northern Ireland despite EU rules.
So Northern Ireland would essentially be subject to the lowest denominator, anything that is legal in either the UK or the EU is legal there. Anything that is illegal in both the UK and the EU is illegal there.
Yes that makes the EU's border more porous, but it makes the UK's border more porous too.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
And that’s the fundamental problem with their mindset.
For REASONS the Irish / Northern Irish border is particular complicated and sensitive.
It needs to be handled creatively.
In just saying “these are our rules now F*** off” (I paraphrase) the EU is creating unbelievable strain.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Bascially Brexit was a rubbish idea with hardly any upside. And why hasn't BoJo allowed the Russia report to be published.
Is that the same Russia report that was published about a year or so ago and was a completely boring damp squib which is probably why you've forgotten it was published already?
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Bascially Brexit was a rubbish idea with hardly any upside. And why hasn't BoJo allowed the Russia report to be published.
The only decent idea at the time was a reformed EU. Because of the Euro, FoM etc neither continuing in the EU nor Brexit were top ideas. The UK had to choose between two sub optimal ones. On balance it just chose Brexit on the basis that it was clear the EU would not be reformable.
The discussion however has to be about now, not 2016.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
Absolutely not the case whatsoever. The EU can write and change its own rules if it chooses to do so and it absolutely can recognise NI and the GFA as a special case and show favouritism to NI (or even the UK) if it wanted to do so without offering other third party countries the same.
If the EU doesn't want to do that, then that's politics not the law.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
And that’s the fundamental problem with their mindset.
For REASONS the Irish / Northern Irish border is particular complicated and sensitive.
It needs to be handled creatively.
In just saying “these are our rules now F*** off” (I paraphrase) the EU is creating unbelievable strain.
How do you handle things creatively when whole sets of countries are waiting for the creative response so they can go and now give us the same rights.
There was a twitter thread on Wednesday which covered options including ignoring goods that were never going to head across the Irish border. It looks great at first glance and then you wonder what goods would be arriving in Northern Ireland that have zero chance of going south of the border - unless M&S or whatever company doing so closed all their Southern Ireland stores.
I know you think there are magic solutions that will solve everything, I just don't think they exist and I can see the EUs concerns as highlighted in my first paragraph.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
Update: I had 19 minutes to get from Manchester Victoria to Piccadilly and made it with 3 minutes to spare. Now sweating buckets.
This train very quiet.
It's remarkable how long the journey from Victoria to Piccadilly takes - the only upside of walking is that all other options are slower (including any through trains that usually spend minutes sat at Oxford Road waiting for their platform at Piccadilly to empty.
King Cole, is this a surprise? I haven't kept up with it, but assuming it's a hundred each way, that's just 100 vs 120 for T20.
Sounds daft to me, though I'm not a cricketist.
The thing that struck me was that it was 5 ball sets rather than over. When Manchester were chasing it wasnt as easy because they wanted Brathwaite on strike but had one less ball per change of ends Oval looked very balanced as both Currans can bat and bowl at very high standard.
Setting aside the tacky trappings, I actually don't utterly despise The Hundred. It's potentially quite an interesting format, for the sort of reasons that you note.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
He's been the centre of attention since the referendum. These tactics have not worked and are not working. The polls are stuck at a roughly 41/31/8 Tory/Lab/LD split since forever. It's not cutting through. It's not a question of anyone changing their feelings towards him, it a question of presenting something better. Or something at all.
Well, contrary to what many here have been saying, the statistic that matters most is the growth rate of infections, because the rates of hospitalisation and death have been falling only quite gradually. If infections had carried on doubling every three weeks, as the peak rate would have implied, daily hospitalisations would have been heading for several thousand a day very soon.
But despite the growth rates of hospitalisations and deaths now looking quite alarming, the weekly growth rate in positive tests has plummeted from 74% three weeks ago to only 24% now. That is its lowest value for about 8 weeks. In fact yesterday the seven-day total was actually lower than the day before.
Of course, the effect of 19 July still remains to be seen.
I do think that we have seen the peak of new cases per day, subject to some random statistical freak, but hospitalisations and deaths are not there yet given the lags. Peak hospitalisations will probably be the first or second week in August and deaths a week or two after that. The government will want to have clear evidence that we are past the worst before the ping nonsense is switched off. Their caution about the exemptions for this suggests to me that they are still a bit twitchy about this.
Remember, deaths within 28 days is going to be an increasingly flawed metric if we have, as we do, high cases but reasonably low hospitalisations in comparison to previous waves. More people will die with COVID rather than from COVID, than in previous waves.
We should be able to calculate how many deaths we would expect to be coincidental with Covid infection by looking at the ONS survey for population infection rates by age and actuarial life tables.
Although lots of people raise this point, so that they can handwave away the increasing death numbers, no-one wants to do the calculation.
Maybe they're worried they will still be mostly deaths from Covid and they'd rather not know?
It's never been clear to me why seeking transparent, detailed, authoritative data is to facilitate "handwaving"*. It would be good to know how many people died of covid rather than with it. It could be useful.
(*whatever that means, I mean it's bloody awful phrase that I have never heard a single person use IRL – I have only ever encountered it in PB... do you mean 'excuse'?)
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Yes.
1 Because Ireland is a special case. 2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly. 3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true. 4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association. 5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
Even if you were right, surely we had a responsibility to agree these issues before we signed a binding treaty that included the Northern Ireland protocol, rather than after the event? Reneging on the protocol, or expecting it to be renegotiated after seven months, or signing it knowing it could not be implemented, seems to many of us to be pure bad faith rather than Machiavellian.
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
All parties lived up the commitments they signed up to in the GFA.
AIUI the EU agreed to collaborate to find a work around. They haven’t done so at all. So the UK is coming up with its own approach.
More generally: I don’t give a flying fuck. If the protocol is endangering peace and community harmony in Northern Ireland then the only right thing to do is bin it.
Update: I had 19 minutes to get from Manchester Victoria to Piccadilly and made it with 3 minutes to spare. Now sweating buckets.
This train very quiet.
It's remarkable how long the journey from Victoria to Piccadilly takes - the only upside of walking is that all other options are slower (including any through trains that usually spend minutes sat at Oxford Road waiting for their platform at Piccadilly to empty.
I ran the whole thing once – I had ten minutes to make the connection and did make it, but was covered in sweat and had a very uncomfortable onward journey. As you say, walking/running is quicker than the tram once you have factored in the faffing around.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
He's been the centre of attention since the referendum. These tactics have not worked and are not working. The polls are stuck at a roughly 41/31/8 Tory/Lab/LD split since forever. It's not cutting through. It's not a question of anyone changing their feelings towards him, it a question of presenting something better. Or something at all.
Surely the answer is you need both, not either one or the other. The oppositions best pitch is that the government are incompetent and led by someone incompetent. What they are missing is why we should vote for them, but they still have time to flesh that out post pandemic, regardless they should still keep pointing out the trouble with this government, its leader and style.
What really gets me is the sheer number of people who seemed to think that because the trial used a 3 week interval, in order to get the trial done quickly, that must be the optimal and even the only effective interval. People who ought to know better, like some medics, couldn't even seem to grasp the point that there was no reason to think a longer interval would be markedly less effective, we know this from experience with other vaccines, and certainly should make no difference to safety. In the end stretching the intervals has not only sped up protecting the population but also enhanced vaccine protection. So a bloody good decision was made by UK regulators.
As to the most vociferous critics who were virtually saying "Boris is going to kill you" by the decision to go for 12 weeks, they are simply gobshites.
I believe something similar applies to the need for very cold storage for the Pfizer vaccine. This was initially the case simply because they were sure it would keep at these low temperatures, but more testing would be needed to see if it would also be OK at higher temperatures. Since they wanted to get it our quickly, they simply specified the low temperatures. As it turned out, though, subsequent tests have shown that such low temperature storage isn't actually necessary after all.
The decision to extend to 12 weeks was based, in part, on looking at the trial data and looking at the immune response curves. And further reinforced by early real world data.
I've noticed in the American context, that real world data seems to be ignored. Only trial data is good - and that only in the context of the original trial. Deriving new information from the trial data seems to be frowned on as well.
Which seems strange. Yes, real world data is a bit messy, and there are issues with samples etc. But when you have datasets of millions of people, in some cases....
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
He also knew how to amplify the messages on the bus - the statements were also things that could be argued against as they were exaggerated but there was enough truth within them that the arguing provided confirmation rather than denial (£350m was an exaggeration, but £150m was accurate, Turkey wasn't joining tomorrow, but you couldn't deny Turkey was in the process of joining).
The only possible solution is, as always in NI, a very large dollop of fudge.
There was no "fudge" in the GFA. The obligations and occasionally painful compromises of all parties were clear. That's why it worked.
Is not compromise itself an example of a fudge?
Not in the context of this discussion which appears to be signing an agreement with the EU then trying to get them to do something else in practice that is to their detriment because that's more convenient for the UK.
The funny thing about the libertarian pirate's desired fudge, to make the Euro Single Market's boundaries more porous, is that I can see what the EU/EEA/EFTA would be giving up, but not what the libertarian pirates would sacrifice.
How can giving one party what they wanted all along be a compromise?
It’s all part of the debasement of language and meaning: we have designed & signed a marvellous, mutually satisfactory agreement>several months pass>it’s a shit agreement that was never going to work.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
And that’s the fundamental problem with their mindset.
For REASONS the Irish / Northern Irish border is particular complicated and sensitive.
It needs to be handled creatively.
In just saying “these are our rules now F*** off” (I paraphrase) the EU is creating unbelievable strain.
How do you handle things creatively when whole sets of countries are waiting for the creative response so they can go and now give us the same rights.
There was a twitter thread on Wednesday which covered options including ignoring goods that were never going to head across the Irish border. It looks great at first glance and then you wonder what goods would be arriving in Northern Ireland that have zero chance of going south of the border - unless M&S or whatever company doing so closed all their Southern Ireland stores.
I know you think there are magic solutions that will solve everything, I just don't think they exist and I can see the EUs concerns as highlighted in my first paragraph.
You get them labelled as being for NI and if there is significant leakage then a firm gets kicked out of the scheme
And the EU should be very willing to extend the same privileges to any border situation where there has been 100 years (off and on) of conflict
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Bascially Brexit was a rubbish idea with hardly any upside. And why hasn't BoJo allowed the Russia report to be published.
Is that the same Russia report that was published about a year or so ago and was a completely boring damp squib which is probably why you've forgotten it was published already?
You are correct that it was published, eventually, and the reason for it's delay, perhaps, and also why it was a damp squib as you put it, was because the government had not looked into Russian interference in the 2016 referendum at all.
Seeing as Putin has made no secret of his support for Brexit (because he wants to destabilise the West), it seems very unlikely that they did not seek to influence it using similar methods to Cambridge Analytica. Whether it was of importance in swinging the vote is open to debate, but I think it is fair to speculate that the Government did not want to investigate because they knew the possible truth on the balance of probability, and that had they done so, they would have revealed Boris Johnson to have been a useful idiot to a hostile foreign power.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
I post because I have to call out stupid, not because I am trying to shift votes. It is up to the Tories to get shut of the clown, I can't see the electorate backing Starmer in enough places to change the government.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Yes.
1 Because Ireland is a special case. 2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly. 3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true. 4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association. 5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
Even if you were right, surely we had a responsibility to agree these issues before we signed a binding treaty that included the Northern Ireland protocol, rather than after the event? Reneging on the protocol, or expecting it to be renegotiated after seven months, or signing it knowing it could not be implemented, seems to many of us to be pure bad faith rather than Machiavellian.
Absolutely not the case whatsoever.
Renegotiations happen all the time, its part and parcel of how life operates. If you agree a salary last year are you expected to then be bound to the same salary five years later? Or can you renegotiate your package annually seeking pay rises every year - if you're able to get them?
Is the EU still bound by the Treaty of Rome unamended? Or Maastricht Treaty unamended? Or have further treaties like Lisbon, Nice etc amended the rules.
The UK is not bound not to seek renegotiations, its perfectly within its rights to renegotiate whatever it doesn't like, at any time it chooses to do so. The UK is also not bound not to exercise Article 16 - Article 16 is literally a part of the Treaty the EU ratified and it is fully a part of international law on that basis so the UK exercising Article 16 if we choose to do so is a good faith action within the law, not a breach of the law.
Rail privatisation has been a disaster. Even the Tories agree.
I'm not a Tory, but I utterly disagree. Despite the tragedy last year, rail is safer than ever, whilst passenger numbers have increased massively pre-Covid. In what way do you see it as being a 'disaster'?
The problem is that the youngsters cannot recall how bad British rail had got in the 70's and 80's. Starved off investment, old rolling stock, tatty outlook and a very classic nationlized outlook on life. They see the shiny new rolling stock, and vastly improved services and think, ah yes, but it could all be better if nationalized because no-one would be making profits.
You can argue, very cogently, that the model of privatisation was terrible. I think it was. Choice works in things like groceries - I have a range of supermarkets, at a range of prices and quality (not always the same thing). I can pick and choose. That doesn't work for rail services. On the whole to go from A to B there will be one company only, so no choice at the point of service, only companies competing to run franchises for a period of years.
We have also continued to subsidize rail travel, but in a way that makes people think that we don't. This leads to complaints that we don't support rail in the same way that other countries do, and this is unfair. Its just not as obvious.
I think the best thing for a young chap (say under 35) who wants to privatise the rail network again, would be to watch comedy from the 70's and 80's and see how often BR is mocked. Its instructive...
I got to know the model a little through Bridgeman.
AIUI, you can own the copyright on the *image* of the art work but not on the art work itself. So I doubt the Uffizi has a leg to stand on
I suspect PH has used photography from the Uffizi and the Louvre, and is reliant on Bridgeman v Corel. The two galleries neither accept that decision, nor do they accept their photography is a exact reproduction (you can see them cite compression as a difference in their response to PH).
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
Yet that is what they seem to have done eg with Equivalence.
I think they think they can do whatever they like because they are "THE EUROPEAN UNION", and the EuCo need several more landing-on-their-butt-in-a-puddle experiences to bring it to reality. They think they *can* show favouritism for political / mercantilist reasons, with no consequences.
But consider the Trade Negotiations now struggling or dead : TTIP, EU-Mercosaur, EU-Switzerland, EU-UK.
I would not be surprised if there are more.
I think EuCo needs a good deal more flexibility, and to make fewer decisions to cut their nose off to spite their face.
Here in Edinburgh we're getting cool and cloudy mornings, warming up and some sun in the afternoons and gloriously sunny pleasant evenings to enjoy ourselves.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
Yes, I agree the southern route is the best option available and if they went north there'd be a bunch of practical disadvantages and merely a different set of villagers who'd rather not be next to a railway line; it comes down to "can we actually bloody build anything in a reasonable timeframe, or will the planning and consultation process take forever and allow the people who it disadvantages (there will always be some) to knock it off course or delay it?". (My input to the consultation was along the lines of "put the line wherever you think best, but just get on with it, oh, and PS really it should have been electrified from the start"...)
This morning's run involved going from Barrington over towards Haslingfield, and the campaigners have painted lines on the road showing where the cutting may go, along with boards to show the cutting slope. I saw another in Haslingfield on the drive back.
The 'southerners' have a very efficient and organised campaign. As far as I can see, the 'northerners' are nowhere near as organised. I'd love to know who's behind CamsBedRailRoad.
And yes, it should have been electrified from the start.
we are absolutely shite at doing electrified railways in this country. Heck, they even cut the electrification of the GWML and the MML back to Cardiff and Kettering (later Market Harborough) respectively whereas any fool could see both schemes were pretty well worthless, even counterproductive, if not carried through to Swansea and at the very least Derby and arguably all the way to Sheffield respectively.
And as for the failure to electrify the reopened stretches of the Waverley route, don’t get me started.
It is very simple: privatisation killed our knowledge base and research drive. So when it came to Great Western they had to start from scratch, over-engineered and had massive cost overruns. That project has pushed the government into believing that wires cost more money than they are worth hence the absurd situation we're now in where we are both trying to reduce emissions and have electric units going to scrap thanks to lack of use.
It wasn't anything much to do with privatisation IMO (*). It's quite simple: between 1997 and 2010, the Blair and Brown government only electrified 16-odd miles of existing railway - Crewe-Stoke. What we really needed was a constant, rolling electrification program, with advance work teams being followed by the masts and knitting teams. Do one line, and move onto another. This is pretty much what happened under Thatcher, of all people ...
The long gap with no major electrification schemes in the early 2000s meant a heck of a lot of knowledge, experience and expertise was lost.
(*) There is scuttlebutt that privatisation had one major effect: Railtrack threw out a lot of paperwork about the existing infrastructure. This made it harder to know where anything was, making placing of masts etc harder. Although others claim most of the information thrown out was old, inaccurate and worse than useless. But the lesson is simple: asset management is vital.
Like I said, as a result of Privatisation. Failtrack actively demolished not just the ability to upgrade but even do basic essential maintenance. When they were finally put out of their misery Network Rail had to start from scratch.
One journalist has had a fun couple of days putting that piece together! Very well written.
When you think about it, there's some pretty twisted thinking behind a lot of those 19th/early 20th century paintings showing beautiful women in various states of undress . It was acceptable to depict a woman naked if she was being sold as a slave, or carried off by barbarians, or martyred by pagans, or being dragged down to hell - but quite beyond the pale to actually paint a nude.
FPT - On railways, you can reopen anything if you're prepared to pay and get an Act of Parliament.
However, the planning process and public inquiry aspects become more difficult and protracted once you have to start compulsorily purchasing property for demolition, which is why just a few house on the old trackbed can block a minor line. My local line - Alton to Winchester - is probably permanently blocked beyond Alresford by only 11 or 12 houses and some school playing fields but that's really because of its business case.
This doesn't apply for major lines with political will, like the Waverley Line or HS2, because the politicians view it as strategic and are willing to invest.
The central section of the EWR is an interesting one for this. They want to reopen the line between Bedford and Cambridge - except it will be going nowhere near where the old line was. So it is a reopening of a capability, albeit on a new line.
Instead, it'll probably be taking a more northerly route near my village.
There are two alternatives from there to Cambridge; a southerly route and a northerly route. The southerly route is preferred, but has people in the villages up in arms, and there is a well-organised campaign to get a northerly route chosen. A campaign group have basically 'designed' this northern route by drawing on a map in crayon, and it's been interesting to see how they've adapted it as I, and others, have highlighted its issues.
In response, people in villages to the northeast are organising, but their campaign is much more lacklustre.
It'll be interesting to see which way it goes; my own view is that the northern route is unsustainable - especially if it involves building a chord on the meadows in Cambridge. There's a whole host of other nimbys to fight right there. My fear is that the opposition will be so strong that the entire scheme gets dropped.
It's funny how we've gone back to the 19th Century on railway new builds - "I don't want those fangled railways, my land value will be destroyed, my cows won't give milk etc."
Reopening old railway lines where the formation still exists is far more popular, and I can only assume that's because people already know and can see the measure of it and that there won't be lots of noisy or unsightly construction - they just get the restored service.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
He's been the centre of attention since the referendum. These tactics have not worked and are not working. The polls are stuck at a roughly 41/31/8 Tory/Lab/LD split since forever. It's not cutting through. It's not a question of anyone changing their feelings towards him, it a question of presenting something better. Or something at all.
Surely the answer is you need both, not either one or the other. The oppositions best pitch is that the government are incompetent and led by someone incompetent. What they are missing is why we should vote for them, but they still have time to flesh that out post pandemic, regardless they should still keep pointing out the trouble with this government, its leader and style.
Sure. I buy that. But we've flogged one of the two to death already.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
Sorry Roger but having remainers shrieking that this was completely unfair and it was only £200m a week net was political genius.
Rail privatisation has been a disaster. Even the Tories agree.
I'm not a Tory, but I utterly disagree. Despite the tragedy last year, rail is safer than ever, whilst passenger numbers have increased massively pre-Covid. In what way do you see it as being a 'disaster'?
Disaster is far too strong a word. A "unique in the world failed experiment" is a better description. The real problem is the huge cost of such a complex system, something that they are in the process of sweeping away.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Yes.
1 Because Ireland is a special case. 2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly. 3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true. 4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association. 5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
Even if you were right, surely we had a responsibility to agree these issues before we signed a binding treaty that included the Northern Ireland protocol, rather than after the event? Reneging on the protocol, or expecting it to be renegotiated after seven months, or signing it knowing it could not be implemented, seems to many of us to be pure bad faith rather than Machiavellian.
Absolutely not the case whatsoever.
Renegotiations happen all the time, its part and parcel of how life operates. If you agree a salary last year are you expected to then be bound to the same salary five years later? Or can you renegotiate your package annually seeking pay rises every year - if you're able to get them?
Is the EU still bound by the Treaty of Rome unamended? Or Maastricht Treaty unamended? Or have further treaties like Lisbon, Nice etc amended the rules.
The UK is not bound not to seek renegotiations, its perfectly within its rights to renegotiate whatever it doesn't like, at any time it chooses to do so. The UK is also not bound not to exercise Article 16 - Article 16 is literally a part of the Treaty the EU ratified and it is fully a part of international law on that basis so the UK exercising Article 16 if we choose to do so is a good faith action within the law, not a breach of the law.
So you agree then? Despite your protestations to the contrary at the time, Boris's deal is, and always was, a little bit crap?
One journalist has had a fun couple of days putting that piece together! Very well written.
When you think about it, there's some pretty twisted thinking behind a lot of those 19th/early 20th century paintings showing beautiful women in various states of undress . It was acceptable to depict a woman naked if she was being sold as a slave, or carried off by barbarians, or martyred by pagans, or being dragged down to hell - but quite beyond the pale to actually paint a nude.
I seem to recall that in the 60s, in America at least, some producers got around rules around pornos by pretending they were 'educational'.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Yes.
1 Because Ireland is a special case. 2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly. 3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true. 4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association. 5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
Even if you were right, surely we had a responsibility to agree these issues before we signed a binding treaty that included the Northern Ireland protocol, rather than after the event? Reneging on the protocol, or expecting it to be renegotiated after seven months, or signing it knowing it could not be implemented, seems to many of us to be pure bad faith rather than Machiavellian.
Absolutely not the case whatsoever.
Renegotiations happen all the time, its part and parcel of how life operates. If you agree a salary last year are you expected to then be bound to the same salary five years later? Or can you renegotiate your package annually seeking pay rises every year - if you're able to get them?
Is the EU still bound by the Treaty of Rome unamended? Or Maastricht Treaty unamended? Or have further treaties like Lisbon, Nice etc amended the rules.
The UK is not bound not to seek renegotiations, its perfectly within its rights to renegotiate whatever it doesn't like, at any time it chooses to do so. The UK is also not bound not to exercise Article 16 - Article 16 is literally a part of the Treaty the EU ratified and it is fully a part of international law on that basis so the UK exercising Article 16 if we choose to do so is a good faith action within the law, not a breach of the law.
If everyone negotiated international treaties in the way that Johnson did this one there would soon be no international treaties.
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
The EU cannot be seen to show favoritism to one third party country without offering other third party countries similar concessions.
That is the biggest issue here - and one most people do seem to be completely missing
And that’s the fundamental problem with their mindset.
For REASONS the Irish / Northern Irish border is particular complicated and sensitive.
It needs to be handled creatively.
In just saying “these are our rules now F*** off” (I paraphrase) the EU is creating unbelievable strain.
How do you handle things creatively when whole sets of countries are waiting for the creative response so they can go and now give us the same rights.
There was a twitter thread on Wednesday which covered options including ignoring goods that were never going to head across the Irish border. It looks great at first glance and then you wonder what goods would be arriving in Northern Ireland that have zero chance of going south of the border - unless M&S or whatever company doing so closed all their Southern Ireland stores.
I know you think there are magic solutions that will solve everything, I just don't think they exist and I can see the EUs concerns as highlighted in my first paragraph.
You get them labelled as being for NI and if there is significant leakage then a firm gets kicked out of the scheme
And the EU should be very willing to extend the same privileges to any border situation where there has been 100 years (off and on) of conflict
That led to a majority of 80 and ended the Brexit crisis that had paralyzed the country for two years.
One could argue that "the Brexit Crisis" is still very much alive and kicking. The result of a majority of 80 under Johnson is not necessarily in the long term interest of the Tory Party. The Tories USP used to be competent government. If he completely blows that USP, which I think he will (and possibly is close to achieving already) then his election as leader may well prove to be a dark day. We will have to see.
Anyone else watch the mens Hundred cricket last night? Apart from playing silly whatsits with the overs, the time-outs (which are apparently for the benefit of advertisers) and the dreadful graphics, I don't see any difference from t20. Even the songs the crowd were singing were the same as t20.
Shan't bother any more. Not really interested in watching games where I've no local interest.
Of course, as someone who watches cricket anyway and doesn't live in a conurbation, I'm not part of the target audience!
Losing it (and evidently still smarting over having his claims trashed yesterday)
one of highest COVID rates in 🌍 - vaccinations slowing to crawl & not starting 💉 teenagers due to supply problems - truck driver shortage leading to empty supermarkets - Govt wants to tear up NI Protocol, 🇪🇺 rejects - MP expelled from Commons for telling truth about PM
Point 2 comprehensively debunked yesterday, but he repeats it…
Blame it on Boris.....its the only game in town. Keir Starmer is a poor LOTO.. that's why all the shit is being pourer over Boris..
It's a serious problem for those, like myself, who dislike the PM. There is an element of truth in what the right here call "Boris Derangement Syndrome". The entire opposition to him at the moment, and I mean all of it, is focussed on the perceived personal failings of him and his cabinet. That just keeps him as the centre of attention. Have the combined posts of Scott and RP on here shifted a single vote? No. Have FBPE managed to get any traction outside their own Twitter bubble? No. It's makes us look like ranters and plays into Johnson's hands, he is successfully winding us up. Classic Dom said the other day that the 2016 Bus Pledge was there to wind up us Remainers. I can believe it frankly,
If we want to get anywhere in removing this shower then we simply have to start ignoring him a bit more and get on with presenting our alternative to the country. Those persuadable that they're pants have been persuaded, now it's time to get on with persuading those who think that they are 'meh' that there is a better option.
Interesting but I don't agree. People decide on people products and prejudices over a long period. It was well described as the way birds build a nest. We form our opinions bit by bit and they're not easy to dismantle.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him. That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
He's been the centre of attention since the referendum. These tactics have not worked and are not working. The polls are stuck at a roughly 41/31/8 Tory/Lab/LD split since forever. It's not cutting through. It's not a question of anyone changing their feelings towards him, it a question of presenting something better. Or something at all.
Surely the answer is you need both, not either one or the other. The oppositions best pitch is that the government are incompetent and led by someone incompetent. What they are missing is why we should vote for them, but they still have time to flesh that out post pandemic, regardless they should still keep pointing out the trouble with this government, its leader and style.
Sure. I buy that. But we've flogged one of the two to death already.
To be fair to Starmer his first job was to move the hard left out, that seems to be happening but would have been much harder if he had pitched his policy tent already. Far easier within the Labour party to take on Corbyn on electability and antisetism than policy, where he would still be popular. The policy stuff needs to come but not at all sure it would have been better to have had that front and centre at this stage.
I got to know the model a little through Bridgeman.
AIUI, you can own the copyright on the *image* of the art work but not on the art work itself. So I doubt the Uffizi has a leg to stand on
I suspect PH has used photography from the Uffizi and the Louvre, and is reliant on Bridgeman v Corel. The two galleries neither accept that decision, nor do they accept their photography is a exact reproduction (you can see them cite compression as a difference in their response to PH).
So what is the heart of the problem? It is not the great Ulster sausage famine. It does not lie in the complexities of phytosanitary standards or the mechanisms of legal interpretation – all of which could be solved with pragmatism and mutual trust. When this problem is dissected, the message written on its heart will be: Boris Johnson is constitutionally incapable of accepting the relationship between cause and effect
Wrong. What is at the heart of the problem is that the EU and the UK want a good relationship in this new situation but that the EU assumes it is OK for the UK to bend its red lines over UK sovereignty and integrity but not OK for the EU to bend its red lines over the single market forbidding entry to high quality products with equivalent standards.
The RoI and UK are sovereign states, the EU is an elaborate trade association. Its elevation into a body that could give sovereign states the runaround is one of the reasons Brexit won the referendum. They are not learning.
It is far simpler than that. The UK was part of something that has red lines which apply to everyone who isn't part of it. We chose to depart, create our own red lines which clash with the EU's lines, then complain that the EU are being inflexible.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Yes.
1 Because Ireland is a special case. 2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly. 3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true. 4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association. 5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
Even if you were right, surely we had a responsibility to agree these issues before we signed a binding treaty that included the Northern Ireland protocol, rather than after the event? Reneging on the protocol, or expecting it to be renegotiated after seven months, or signing it knowing it could not be implemented, seems to many of us to be pure bad faith rather than Machiavellian.
Absolutely not the case whatsoever.
Renegotiations happen all the time, its part and parcel of how life operates. If you agree a salary last year are you expected to then be bound to the same salary five years later? Or can you renegotiate your package annually seeking pay rises every year - if you're able to get them?
Is the EU still bound by the Treaty of Rome unamended? Or Maastricht Treaty unamended? Or have further treaties like Lisbon, Nice etc amended the rules.
The UK is not bound not to seek renegotiations, its perfectly within its rights to renegotiate whatever it doesn't like, at any time it chooses to do so. The UK is also not bound not to exercise Article 16 - Article 16 is literally a part of the Treaty the EU ratified and it is fully a part of international law on that basis so the UK exercising Article 16 if we choose to do so is a good faith action within the law, not a breach of the law.
If everyone negotiated international treaties in the way that Johnson did this one there would soon be no international treaties.
Everyone does negotiate international treaties in that way. Look at the Swiss, they've been renegotiating and in dispute as to how treaties operate for decades.
Johnson is acting to represent the UK's best interest not the EU's. That's how every country operates around the globe.
Comments
It also showed that SpaceX's procedures were not as robust as they should be: they did not use the correct grade steel for a supporting strut, and did not test the struts in a cryogenic environment. Worse, engineers had been photographed standing on the strut during construction.
SpaceX disagreed with this, and wanted to throw their supplier to the wolves. Personally, I think NASA got it right...
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/public_summary_nasa_irt_spacex_crs-7_final.pdf
One of his latest is about the bolt-catchers for the SRB hold-down bolts that were blown at launch - it was seen as a significant risk after Columbia, and it turned out a fix had been designed, but not implemented, twenty years earlier!
https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/exploding-stovepipes/
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Thursday that new cases of Covid-19 in her country were rising "exponentially", driven by the Delta variant, as EU officials said more than half of all European adults had been fully vaccinated, short of a 70% target set for the summer.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210723-germany-sees-covid-19-spike-as-eu-wide-vaccinations-fall-short-of-70-target
For the record I think most Tories probably think for all his recent failings Starmer is a step up from Corbyn and a preferred choice as PM. The FBPE types you mention would do well to gain a sense of historical perspective. There are certainly policies on the environment, economy and immigration for example where he (Boris) is appealing to the liberal masses and this would be recognised if the discourse was not so tribal.
As to the most vociferous critics who were virtually saying "Boris is going to kill you" by the decision to go for 12 weeks, they are simply gobshites.
A dark day for the Tory Party
Although lots of people raise this point, so that they can handwave away the increasing death numbers, no-one wants to do the calculation.
Maybe they're worried they will still be mostly deaths from Covid and they'd rather not know?
I'm certainly not handwaving the deaths. I follow both of those things closely and I'll be looking our for an actuarial calculation. I remember some from the previous waves, but we know this wave is affecting a different cohort.
The question is whether they are coming and whether they will end with Johnson himself. More than ever I am relieved that there is no similar candidate in the wings, at least, yet.
See you all after lunch!
Fudge = lack of clarity
Sometimes there is an overlap but they are completely separate things.
https://twitter.com/StuartJRitchie/status/1418506428738936834?s=20
I think the crude number of deaths we can expect today 'with covid' is ~ 22, assuming covid was equally distributed amongst all ages...
The correct calculation would be somewhat less as it's more prevalent in younger cohorts.
All parties lived up the commitments they signed up to in the GFA.
Also, I may have missed if you commented on this, but I wondered yesterday if tanks actually have any use in today's world. Though not an army man you seem like youd know the answer.
https://twitter.com/AlbertoNardelli/status/1418506360862527490?s=20
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/10/21-1427_article
(most important thing these is no severe cases despite a high prevelance of conditions that would be classic signifies of getting severe Covid)
That’s why JVCI recommendations were the right way to go
All solutions to the Ireland problem appear to involve anomaly (eg NI being out of the UK internal market), illegality (EU suffering Scottish sausage), a shifting of red lines (ditto), impossibility (R o I joining UK or NI joining RoI - my preferred solution), civil disorder (the status quo).
The choice is not for the perfect but for the most acceptable. Boris is trying for the solution in which the EU gives a bit of ground. As PM of the UK it may be thought that is his job.
We knew their position when we left. Nothing is new or unknown. We demanded 3rd country status and now complain about our treatment as a 3rd country.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Plus I don't see why having players selected purely for their bowling/fielding ability makes things better. Bowlers already are selected for their bowling ability but to excise entirely an element of the game from their play - and to remove the drama of seeing a team bowling against tail enders, or tail enders desperately trying to rotate the strike to get on the talented batsman, is to weaken the game not strengthen it.
I mean the UK obviously needs them to suppress outbreaks of Scottish nationalism but beyond that it's difficult to see a compelling strategic case for them. However "number of tanks" is a concept so simple that even tory MPs and the Daily Mail comments section can understand it so it's politically difficult for the government to cut the fleet too much. Hence a large number of Challenger 3 hulls upgrades but only a small subset of them will actually be equipped for operations in hostile environments.
The long gap with no major electrification schemes in the early 2000s meant a heck of a lot of knowledge, experience and expertise was lost.
(*) There is scuttlebutt that privatisation had one major effect: Railtrack threw out a lot of paperwork about the existing infrastructure. This made it harder to know where anything was, making placing of masts etc harder. Although others claim most of the information thrown out was old, inaccurate and worse than useless. But the lesson is simple: asset management is vital.
How can giving one party what they wanted all along be a compromise?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_483
Having to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the UK is a different matter though.
That said, there was during the core periods of Brexit wrangling rather silly suggestion that asking for things and exceptions was inherently unreasonable, that cherry picking as it was put, was inherently unreasonable.
I always felt it might well be we were asking for unreasonable things, but the whole point of negotiations is to cherry pick as much as you can. If sides declaring their red lines meant there was no point discussing things why do negotiations even take place?
It felt like an example of when the way in which something happened being wrong/bad was confused with the idea of it being declared bad.
In this, Boris might not be acting reasonably in the specifics, particularly so brazenly soon, I think you're right a lot of people would see the aim as reasonable.
1 Because Ireland is a special case.
2 Because politics is pragmatic. Machiavelli is a better guide than Buddha or the Quakers over how it is to be done. Sadly.
3 Because there is current equivalence in food production standards. We would not think of questioning EU food products. The opposite is also true.
4 Because the expectation that the UK compromise its internal market over NI in neither more nor less realistic than the EU doing so. And the UK and RoI are states, the EU is a trade association.
5 Because it is in the interests of RoI to compromise.
IE for Northern Ireland I would follow the principle of the GFA and have businesses able to follow EEA and UK rules, just as people in NI can have both Irish and UK passports.
So hypothetically for example if the UK criminalises foie gras and says it is illegal to sell foie gras in the UK, but the EU says foie gras is legal, then I would say allow foie gras in Northern Ireland despite UK rules.
So hypothetically for example if the EU criminalises hormone treated beef and says it is illegal to sell hormone treated beef in the EU, but the UK says hormone treated beef is legal, then I would say allow hormone treated beef in Northern Ireland despite EU rules.
So Northern Ireland would essentially be subject to the lowest denominator, anything that is legal in either the UK or the EU is legal there. Anything that is illegal in both the UK and the EU is illegal there.
Yes that makes the EU's border more porous, but it makes the UK's border more porous too.
For REASONS the Irish / Northern Irish border is particular complicated and sensitive.
It needs to be handled creatively.
In just saying “these are our rules now F*** off” (I paraphrase) the EU is creating unbelievable strain.
This train very quiet.
Glad you caught your train though.
The discussion however has to be about now, not 2016.
If the EU doesn't want to do that, then that's politics not the law.
AIUI, you can own the copyright on the *image* of the art work but not on the art work itself. So I doubt the Uffizi has a leg to stand on
There was a twitter thread on Wednesday which covered options including ignoring goods that were never going to head across the Irish border. It looks great at first glance and then you wonder what goods would be arriving in Northern Ireland that have zero chance of going south of the border - unless M&S or whatever company doing so closed all their Southern Ireland stores.
I know you think there are magic solutions that will solve everything, I just don't think they exist and I can see the EUs concerns as highlighted in my first paragraph.
He's been around for several years and the ludicrous figure Cummings described appeals to some and repulses others. Finding someone who we like better isn't likely to change our feelings towards him.
That'll be achieved as it is being at the moment. Slowly bit by bit.
Cummings didn't say the bus side was to 'wind up the Remainers. He's far too experienced in the dark arts of persuasion to think that would win him any support at all.. He did it because he 'd worked out his target market and by relatively simple research discovered the buttons to push to attract that market.
It's the way advertisers have done it for years. Johnson will be in trouble when the drip drip drip of his behaviour starts to irritate and/or the zeitgeist changes.
It's potentially quite an interesting format, for the sort of reasons that you note.
The polls are stuck at a roughly 41/31/8 Tory/Lab/LD split since forever. It's not cutting through. It's not a question of anyone changing their feelings towards him, it a question of presenting something better. Or something at all.
(*whatever that means, I mean it's bloody awful phrase that I have never heard a single person use IRL – I have only ever encountered it in PB... do you mean 'excuse'?)
More generally: I don’t give a flying fuck. If the protocol is endangering peace and community harmony in Northern Ireland then the only right thing to do is bin it.
I ran the whole thing once – I had ten minutes to make the connection and did make it, but was covered in sweat and had a very uncomfortable onward journey. As you say, walking/running is quicker than the tram once you have factored in the faffing around.
I've noticed in the American context, that real world data seems to be ignored. Only trial data is good - and that only in the context of the original trial. Deriving new information from the trial data seems to be frowned on as well.
Which seems strange. Yes, real world data is a bit messy, and there are issues with samples etc. But when you have datasets of millions of people, in some cases....
And that really was a great skill.
And the EU should be very willing to extend the same privileges to any border situation where there has been 100 years (off and on) of conflict
Seeing as Putin has made no secret of his support for Brexit (because he wants to destabilise the West), it seems very unlikely that they did not seek to influence it using similar methods to Cambridge Analytica. Whether it was of importance in swinging the vote is open to debate, but I think it is fair to speculate that the Government did not want to investigate because they knew the possible truth on the balance of probability, and that had they done so, they would have revealed Boris Johnson to have been a useful idiot to a hostile foreign power.
Renegotiations happen all the time, its part and parcel of how life operates. If you agree a salary last year are you expected to then be bound to the same salary five years later? Or can you renegotiate your package annually seeking pay rises every year - if you're able to get them?
Is the EU still bound by the Treaty of Rome unamended? Or Maastricht Treaty unamended? Or have further treaties like Lisbon, Nice etc amended the rules.
The UK is not bound not to seek renegotiations, its perfectly within its rights to renegotiate whatever it doesn't like, at any time it chooses to do so. The UK is also not bound not to exercise Article 16 - Article 16 is literally a part of the Treaty the EU ratified and it is fully a part of international law on that basis so the UK exercising Article 16 if we choose to do so is a good faith action within the law, not a breach of the law.
You can argue, very cogently, that the model of privatisation was terrible. I think it was. Choice works in things like groceries - I have a range of supermarkets, at a range of prices and quality (not always the same thing). I can pick and choose. That doesn't work for rail services. On the whole to go from A to B there will be one company only, so no choice at the point of service, only companies competing to run franchises for a period of years.
We have also continued to subsidize rail travel, but in a way that makes people think that we don't. This leads to complaints that we don't support rail in the same way that other countries do, and this is unfair. Its just not as obvious.
I think the best thing for a young chap (say under 35) who wants to privatise the rail network again, would be to watch comedy from the 70's and 80's and see how often BR is mocked. Its instructive...
I think they think they can do whatever they like because they are "THE EUROPEAN UNION", and the EuCo need several more landing-on-their-butt-in-a-puddle experiences to bring it to reality. They think they *can* show favouritism for political / mercantilist reasons, with no consequences.
But consider the Trade Negotiations now struggling or dead : TTIP, EU-Mercosaur, EU-Switzerland, EU-UK.
I would not be surprised if there are more.
I think EuCo needs a good deal more flexibility, and to make fewer decisions to cut their nose off to spite their face.
Reopening old railway lines where the formation still exists is far more popular, and I can only assume that's because people already know and can see the measure of it and that there won't be lots of noisy or unsightly construction - they just get the restored service.
Life, and pornography, finds a way.
Johnson is acting to represent the UK's best interest not the EU's. That's how every country operates around the globe.