You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.
Just trying to slag off Johnson.
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.
Indeed - up to now it was all about keeping the First Minister out of a conference in Scotland on a subject which is very much a devolved matter, lest Mr Johnson have to share the limelight.
How is international diplomacy a devolved matter?
Renewables, energy etc. are devolved matters.
But international diplomacy over them is not.
COP26 is international diplomacy. That is not devolved, it never has been.
How Scotland handles environmental issues domestically may be devolved, but how the UK negotiates environmental issues internationally most definitely is not and never has been.
You’re wholly missing the point…
There is no point.
Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26 because she's not an international stateswoman leading an independent country in international negotiations. As much as she wishes to cosplay as the leader of an independent country, it isn't true.
The Times yesterday: “Boris Johnson has extended an olive branch to Nicola Sturgeon by offering her a role in Cop26, after having said that the first minister should be barred from the climate conference.”
So, apart from you’re being uncharacteristically so completely wrong, the point is: why the change?
The PM can delegate to whoever he wants to, including the devolved leaders if he chooses to do so.
That does not make it her role by right, any more than the Governor of New York or Mayor of Paris has a role automatically. That does not make it a devolved issue.
If the PM wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon or Burnham or any other devolved leaders, that's his prerogative.
You just told us "Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26".
In her own right she doesn't, because she's not the leader of a country participating in its own right.
As part of the UK's delegation, if she wishes to collaborate with Boris and play a part in the UK's efforts then that's of course a possibility. That's a completely different issue.
But it doesn't make it a devolved issue. International negotiations are not devolved.
You’re still missing the point entirely…
What point?
International diplomacy is not devolved and never has been devolved. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Johnson doesn't agree with you, all of a sudden, after agreeing very, very, very strongly with you.
Philip is finding out what it means to be a govt minister sent out to the Today Programme at 8.10am to push a particular line, only for it to be flatly rescinded hours later by No10.
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.
But that's Johnson's problem.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem. It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
Other way round too. It is this factor that you describe, that often it was the last pit in an area, that left desolated pit villages and one-industry towns, that does make what happened in the 1980s qualitatively different, and not mitigated by pointing to closures under other governments. iirc even Sir Geoffrey Howe acknowledged this.
Yes, but the alternative was to leave those pits open, filling them with useless money as the coal left. And IMV it is mitigated by closures under other governments - especially later ones. It was a long-term trend.
No, the alternative was to have accessible other employment. Which, for example, was eventually brought to NE County Durham in the form of Nissan.
Nissan is in Sunderland which post 1974 isn't County Durham,
Also it shows the scale of the problem - Nissan didn't even replace all the jobs lost in the Sunderland / Shields area and is actually a very poorly paying employer - one current issue for Nissan is that Amazon Warehouses pays more.
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.
Just trying to slag off Johnson.
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.
Indeed - up to now it was all about keeping the First Minister out of a conference in Scotland on a subject which is very much a devolved matter, lest Mr Johnson have to share the limelight.
How is international diplomacy a devolved matter?
Renewables, energy etc. are devolved matters.
But international diplomacy over them is not.
COP26 is international diplomacy. That is not devolved, it never has been.
How Scotland handles environmental issues domestically may be devolved, but how the UK negotiates environmental issues internationally most definitely is not and never has been.
You’re wholly missing the point…
There is no point.
Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26 because she's not an international stateswoman leading an independent country in international negotiations. As much as she wishes to cosplay as the leader of an independent country, it isn't true.
The Times yesterday: “Boris Johnson has extended an olive branch to Nicola Sturgeon by offering her a role in Cop26, after having said that the first minister should be barred from the climate conference.”
So, apart from you’re being uncharacteristically so completely wrong, the point is: why the change?
The PM can delegate to whoever he wants to, including the devolved leaders if he chooses to do so.
That does not make it her role by right, any more than the Governor of New York or Mayor of Paris has a role automatically. That does not make it a devolved issue.
If the PM wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon or Burnham or any other devolved leaders, that's his prerogative.
You just told us "Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26".
In her own right she doesn't, because she's not the leader of a country participating in its own right.
As part of the UK's delegation, if she wishes to collaborate with Boris and play a part in the UK's efforts then that's of course a possibility. That's a completely different issue.
But it doesn't make it a devolved issue. International negotiations are not devolved.
You’re still missing the point entirely…
What point?
International diplomacy is not devolved and never has been devolved. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Johnson doesn't agree with you, all of a sudden, after agreeing very, very, very strongly with you.
Philip is finding out what it means to be a govt minister sent out to the Today Programme at 8.10am to push a particular line, only for it to be flatly rescinded hours later by No10.
Not quite; the news of 'We are at peace with Eastasia' came out yesterday, as TUD was well aware.
This morning, as an example, I received a message from one of my deputy clerks which was: "Thanks, I will await developments".
This is yet another entry in my mail box which I often find a full time job just to keep on top of.
This type of email has increased enormously during lockdown and with remote working. Why? Is it the need to show that you are actually reading the emails sent? Or just to have contact? Or does my deputy clerk actually think that this is "work"? I very much fear the last of these. I am sure that there were studies which showed that emails were not in fact boosting productivity some years ago but if this exercise was repeated now with home working I have no doubt at all that it would show a diminution in output.
I get 50-150 work related emails a day. They ask me to do work. They are not work. They are a distraction from work. Leave me alone to get on with some work*!
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.
Just trying to slag off Johnson.
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.
Indeed - up to now it was all about keeping the First Minister out of a conference in Scotland on a subject which is very much a devolved matter, lest Mr Johnson have to share the limelight.
How is international diplomacy a devolved matter?
Renewables, energy etc. are devolved matters.
But international diplomacy over them is not.
COP26 is international diplomacy. That is not devolved, it never has been.
How Scotland handles environmental issues domestically may be devolved, but how the UK negotiates environmental issues internationally most definitely is not and never has been.
You’re wholly missing the point…
There is no point.
Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26 because she's not an international stateswoman leading an independent country in international negotiations. As much as she wishes to cosplay as the leader of an independent country, it isn't true.
The Times yesterday: “Boris Johnson has extended an olive branch to Nicola Sturgeon by offering her a role in Cop26, after having said that the first minister should be barred from the climate conference.”
So, apart from you’re being uncharacteristically so completely wrong, the point is: why the change?
The PM can delegate to whoever he wants to, including the devolved leaders if he chooses to do so.
That does not make it her role by right, any more than the Governor of New York or Mayor of Paris has a role automatically. That does not make it a devolved issue.
If the PM wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon or Burnham or any other devolved leaders, that's his prerogative.
You just told us "Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26".
In her own right she doesn't, because she's not the leader of a country participating in its own right.
As part of the UK's delegation, if she wishes to collaborate with Boris and play a part in the UK's efforts then that's of course a possibility. That's a completely different issue.
But it doesn't make it a devolved issue. International negotiations are not devolved.
You’re still missing the point entirely…
What point?
International diplomacy is not devolved and never has been devolved. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Johnson doesn't agree with you, all of a sudden, after agreeing very, very, very strongly with you.
Philip is finding out what it means to be a govt minister sent out to the Today Programme at 8.10am to push a particular line, only for it to be flatly rescinded hours later by No10.
Not following any line. Diplomacy isn't devolved, diplomacy has never been devolved.
If Boris wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon, or Sharma, or Burnham, or anyone else, that's his prerogative. Doesn't make the issue devolved.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
Went 50 miles along the A1 very recently. Hundreds of lorries trundling up and down. Numberplates from all over.
Really can't see anything changing over the next nine years.
But, but, they aren't allowed to come because of brexit are they? How come we have this widespread hunger and desperation, let alone a shortage of flaked parmesan, if lorry drivers are still coming from "all over"? This surely doesn't compute.
Yes, but we are not applying inward checks at the ports and tunnel are we? Those lorries from the EU can enter freely, though they do need to declare on return.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.
But that's Johnson's problem.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem. It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
Other way round too. It is this factor that you describe, that often it was the last pit in an area, that left desolated pit villages and one-industry towns, that does make what happened in the 1980s qualitatively different, and not mitigated by pointing to closures under other governments. iirc even Sir Geoffrey Howe acknowledged this.
Yes, but the alternative was to leave those pits open, filling them with useless money as the coal left. And IMV it is mitigated by closures under other governments - especially later ones. It was a long-term trend.
No, the alternative was to have accessible other employment. Which, for example, was eventually brought to NE County Durham in the form of Nissan.
So you have to ask why the predecessor government who were busy closing pits in these areas didn't do it?
The Thatcher government actually did it, though.
As an aside, education also plays a part in this. As I've said passim, I know two ex-miners who were both told it was not worth educating them as they would end up down the pit. This was in the late 70's.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, and which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
Quite so. Liked because I agree - not because I like the prospect. The very fact of his U-turn on the devolved administrations (btw did he mention NI?) after so emphatically talking about banning Ms Sturgeon etc is a strong indicator of the way the wind is blowing - and the muck spreader is upwind of him.
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.
But that's Johnson's problem.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem. It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
Other way round too. It is this factor that you describe, that often it was the last pit in an area, that left desolated pit villages and one-industry towns, that does make what happened in the 1980s qualitatively different, and not mitigated by pointing to closures under other governments. iirc even Sir Geoffrey Howe acknowledged this.
Yes, but the alternative was to leave those pits open, filling them with useless money as the coal left. And IMV it is mitigated by closures under other governments - especially later ones. It was a long-term trend.
No, the alternative was to have accessible other employment. Which, for example, was eventually brought to NE County Durham in the form of Nissan.
Nissan is in Sunderland which post 1974 isn't County Durham,
Also it shows the scale of the problem - Nissan didn't even replace all the jobs lost in the Sunderland / Shields area and is actually a very poorly paying employer - one current issue for Nissan is that Amazon Warehouses pays more.
Technically I think Nissan is in Washington New Town which, when I lived in the area, definitely wasn't in Sunderland. It's still in the ceremonial County Palatine, though, AIUI.
But I'm obliged for your second point; didn't realise that Nissan was a very poorly paying employer; always been led to believe that it replaced the mines and shipyards income-wise as well as actual work. But if Amazon pays more ........
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.
Just trying to slag off Johnson.
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.
Indeed - up to now it was all about keeping the First Minister out of a conference in Scotland on a subject which is very much a devolved matter, lest Mr Johnson have to share the limelight.
How is international diplomacy a devolved matter?
Renewables, energy etc. are devolved matters.
But international diplomacy over them is not.
COP26 is international diplomacy. That is not devolved, it never has been.
How Scotland handles environmental issues domestically may be devolved, but how the UK negotiates environmental issues internationally most definitely is not and never has been.
You’re wholly missing the point…
There is no point.
Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26 because she's not an international stateswoman leading an independent country in international negotiations. As much as she wishes to cosplay as the leader of an independent country, it isn't true.
The Times yesterday: “Boris Johnson has extended an olive branch to Nicola Sturgeon by offering her a role in Cop26, after having said that the first minister should be barred from the climate conference.”
So, apart from you’re being uncharacteristically so completely wrong, the point is: why the change?
The PM can delegate to whoever he wants to, including the devolved leaders if he chooses to do so.
That does not make it her role by right, any more than the Governor of New York or Mayor of Paris has a role automatically. That does not make it a devolved issue.
If the PM wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon or Burnham or any other devolved leaders, that's his prerogative.
You just told us "Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26".
In her own right she doesn't, because she's not the leader of a country participating in its own right.
As part of the UK's delegation, if she wishes to collaborate with Boris and play a part in the UK's efforts then that's of course a possibility. That's a completely different issue.
But it doesn't make it a devolved issue. International negotiations are not devolved.
You’re still missing the point entirely…
What point?
International diplomacy is not devolved and never has been devolved. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Johnson doesn't agree with you, all of a sudden, after agreeing very, very, very strongly with you.
Philip is finding out what it means to be a govt minister sent out to the Today Programme at 8.10am to push a particular line, only for it to be flatly rescinded hours later by No10.
Not following any line. Diplomacy isn't devolved, diplomacy has never been devolved.
If Boris wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon, or Sharma, or Burnham, or anyone else, that's his prerogative. Doesn't make the issue devolved.
Diplomacy isn't a branch of Govt eg like Health or Transport. It is just a word that has a specific meaning. Being devolved or not is neither relevant or even applicable, although admittedly if Foreign Affairs isn't devolved it does leave the scope for diplomacy somewhat limited.
So anyone can be involved with diplomacy if asked so if Boris wants to give me a ring I'm up for it. However in the case of Sturgeon I have no doubt she gets involved in a lot of diplomacy both informally and formally, even though Foreign Affairs is not devolved.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
Sure; almost all the other COPs have been lacklustre and failed to deliver what activists hoped, but somehow this one will specifically be Boris Johnson's fault, because some other theoretical UK leader could have somehow persuaded China and India to stop doing things they really want to keep doing.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
'Liked' but that's not right. Can we have an Agree button, instead, please.
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.
Just trying to slag off Johnson.
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.
Indeed - up to now it was all about keeping the First Minister out of a conference in Scotland on a subject which is very much a devolved matter, lest Mr Johnson have to share the limelight.
How is international diplomacy a devolved matter?
Renewables, energy etc. are devolved matters.
But international diplomacy over them is not.
COP26 is international diplomacy. That is not devolved, it never has been.
How Scotland handles environmental issues domestically may be devolved, but how the UK negotiates environmental issues internationally most definitely is not and never has been.
You’re wholly missing the point…
There is no point.
Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26 because she's not an international stateswoman leading an independent country in international negotiations. As much as she wishes to cosplay as the leader of an independent country, it isn't true.
The Times yesterday: “Boris Johnson has extended an olive branch to Nicola Sturgeon by offering her a role in Cop26, after having said that the first minister should be barred from the climate conference.”
So, apart from you’re being uncharacteristically so completely wrong, the point is: why the change?
The PM can delegate to whoever he wants to, including the devolved leaders if he chooses to do so.
That does not make it her role by right, any more than the Governor of New York or Mayor of Paris has a role automatically. That does not make it a devolved issue.
If the PM wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon or Burnham or any other devolved leaders, that's his prerogative.
You just told us "Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26".
In her own right she doesn't, because she's not the leader of a country participating in its own right.
As part of the UK's delegation, if she wishes to collaborate with Boris and play a part in the UK's efforts then that's of course a possibility. That's a completely different issue.
But it doesn't make it a devolved issue. International negotiations are not devolved.
You’re still missing the point entirely…
What point?
International diplomacy is not devolved and never has been devolved. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Johnson doesn't agree with you, all of a sudden, after agreeing very, very, very strongly with you.
Philip is finding out what it means to be a govt minister sent out to the Today Programme at 8.10am to push a particular line, only for it to be flatly rescinded hours later by No10.
Not quite; the news of 'We are at peace with Eastasia' came out yesterday, as TUD was well aware.
It's a good example of how BJ operates though, a perpetual evacuation of obfuscation and contradictions after which no one is the wiser but have mostly lost the will to live. Last men standing are the fanbois justifying every twist & turn; should really be an Olympic endurance event.
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.
Just trying to slag off Johnson.
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.
Indeed - up to now it was all about keeping the First Minister out of a conference in Scotland on a subject which is very much a devolved matter, lest Mr Johnson have to share the limelight.
How is international diplomacy a devolved matter?
Renewables, energy etc. are devolved matters.
But international diplomacy over them is not.
COP26 is international diplomacy. That is not devolved, it never has been.
How Scotland handles environmental issues domestically may be devolved, but how the UK negotiates environmental issues internationally most definitely is not and never has been.
You’re wholly missing the point…
There is no point.
Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26 because she's not an international stateswoman leading an independent country in international negotiations. As much as she wishes to cosplay as the leader of an independent country, it isn't true.
The Times yesterday: “Boris Johnson has extended an olive branch to Nicola Sturgeon by offering her a role in Cop26, after having said that the first minister should be barred from the climate conference.”
So, apart from you’re being uncharacteristically so completely wrong, the point is: why the change?
The PM can delegate to whoever he wants to, including the devolved leaders if he chooses to do so.
That does not make it her role by right, any more than the Governor of New York or Mayor of Paris has a role automatically. That does not make it a devolved issue.
If the PM wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon or Burnham or any other devolved leaders, that's his prerogative.
You just told us "Sturgeon has no role to play in COP26".
In her own right she doesn't, because she's not the leader of a country participating in its own right.
As part of the UK's delegation, if she wishes to collaborate with Boris and play a part in the UK's efforts then that's of course a possibility. That's a completely different issue.
But it doesn't make it a devolved issue. International negotiations are not devolved.
You’re still missing the point entirely…
What point?
International diplomacy is not devolved and never has been devolved. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Johnson doesn't agree with you, all of a sudden, after agreeing very, very, very strongly with you.
Philip is finding out what it means to be a govt minister sent out to the Today Programme at 8.10am to push a particular line, only for it to be flatly rescinded hours later by No10.
Not quite; the news of 'We are at peace with Eastasia' came out yesterday, as TUD was well aware.
It's a good example of how BJ operates though, a perpetual evacuation of obfuscation and contradictions after which no one is the wiser but have mostly lost the will to live. Last men standing are the fanbois justifying every twist & turn; should really be an Olympic endurance event.
Last persons and bots, you mean. I do wonder about one or two of our colleagues on PB.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.
But that's Johnson's problem.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem. It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
Other way round too. It is this factor that you describe, that often it was the last pit in an area, that left desolated pit villages and one-industry towns, that does make what happened in the 1980s qualitatively different, and not mitigated by pointing to closures under other governments. iirc even Sir Geoffrey Howe acknowledged this.
Yes, but the alternative was to leave those pits open, filling them with useless money as the coal left. And IMV it is mitigated by closures under other governments - especially later ones. It was a long-term trend.
No, the alternative was to have accessible other employment. Which, for example, was eventually brought to NE County Durham in the form of Nissan.
So you have to ask why the predecessor government who were busy closing pits in these areas didn't do it?
The Thatcher government actually did it, though.
As an aside, education also plays a part in this. As I've said passim, I know two ex-miners who were both told it was not worth educating them as they would end up down the pit. This was in the late 70's.
As others have pointed out, in many areas Thatcher's closures were last in line, and there were therefore no other mining jobs. Agree about the education though. A glance at the career choices of my second cousins, children of my miner great-uncles and their sisters show quite a lot of them taking the opportunities offered by education.
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
We're committed to doing our bit - which is going to be the big political issue of the next decade - who cares what the rest of the world does? As if China give two fucks about this issue.
This morning, as an example, I received a message from one of my deputy clerks which was: "Thanks, I will await developments".
This is yet another entry in my mail box which I often find a full time job just to keep on top of.
This type of email has increased enormously during lockdown and with remote working. Why? Is it the need to show that you are actually reading the emails sent? Or just to have contact? Or does my deputy clerk actually think that this is "work"? I very much fear the last of these. I am sure that there were studies which showed that emails were not in fact boosting productivity some years ago but if this exercise was repeated now with home working I have no doubt at all that it would show a diminution in output.
I get 50-150 work related emails a day. They ask me to do work. They are not work. They are a distraction from work. Leave me alone to get on with some work*!
/end rant.
Or post on PB natch.
That looks like one of the default replies offered by Gmail.
A few days ago we had a discussion around random horses in modern pentathlon causing chaos. Imagine being the female German competitor today. Quote below is from the BBC live news feed:
That fine ride in the equestrian event has really helped Kate French's medal prospects in the modern pentathlon.
Four events down and she's up to fifth place, helped by a couple of nightmare rides from rivals, most notably German Annika Schleu, who started the show jumping in the gold medal spot but has plummeted to 31st after failing to complete her round on a horse, Saint Boy, that just was not having it. Sinner Boy he should be renamed.
She was winning and now has no chance of anything thanks to an awful horse. 4 years of training for nothing.
Boris “Boris” Johnson makes an arch little crack (about Maggie and the mines) designed to wind up the po-faced left and showcase his vaunted GSOH. So what? It’s totally on brand. The sort of shtick you’d expect – possibly even appreciate - from some revolving bow tie wearing “character” at a dinner party, relaxed and amongst friends in the country, or invited to liven up a dull affair in town, is now the sort of shtick we expect from the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So I doubt this latest iteration will move the needle much. "Boris being Boris" splits opinion, on here and IRL. Some see a perverse authenticity, a charismatic charmer who doesn’t take himself too seriously, a refreshing change from sterile politicians so wary about what they say and how they look in public. Others see an entitled airhead with no soul or substance, unsuitable to run anything let alone the country. I’m in the latter camp. I do not rate or appreciate this bloke and him being PM is a stone in my sandal. This is a trivial story, sure, but it isn’t because it illustrates that precise feature of Johnson – his triviality. It’s a feature that has largely got him where he is today and – fate willing – it’s the bug that will in due course bite his bum and bring him down.
I wish they'd stop playing Jerusalem before the start of play at test matches in England because it's strange to have an anthem for only one of the teams, and I'm not a fan of both anthems being played every day.
This morning, as an example, I received a message from one of my deputy clerks which was: "Thanks, I will await developments".
This is yet another entry in my mail box which I often find a full time job just to keep on top of.
This type of email has increased enormously during lockdown and with remote working. Why? Is it the need to show that you are actually reading the emails sent? Or just to have contact? Or does my deputy clerk actually think that this is "work"? I very much fear the last of these. I am sure that there were studies which showed that emails were not in fact boosting productivity some years ago but if this exercise was repeated now with home working I have no doubt at all that it would show a diminution in output.
I get 50-150 work related emails a day. They ask me to do work. They are not work. They are a distraction from work. Leave me alone to get on with some work*!
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
Oh I do so hope you are wrong Richard.
So do I, but I don't think I will be.
I'm sure everyone will try to be very professional about it. But, deep down, perhaps even at a sub-conscious level, there are now just too may people severely lacking in motivation to give Boris any sniff of a triumph.
I wish they'd stop playing Jerusalem before the start of play at test matches in England because it's strange to have an anthem for only one of the teams, and I'm not a fan of both anthems being played every day.
Agreed. I was cringing this morning.
The tune may rouse certain types but the words are ridiculous nonsense.
A few days ago we had a discussion around random horses in modern pentathlon causing chaos. Imagine being the female German competitor today. Quote below is from the BBC live news feed:
That fine ride in the equestrian event has really helped Kate French's medal prospects in the modern pentathlon.
Four events down and she's up to fifth place, helped by a couple of nightmare rides from rivals, most notably German Annika Schleu, who started the show jumping in the gold medal spot but has plummeted to 31st after failing to complete her round on a horse, Saint Boy, that just was not having it. Sinner Boy he should be renamed.
She was winning and now has no chance of anything thanks to an awful horse. 4 years of training for nothing.
Its absolutely ridiculous. Another athelete also had that horse and it did the same.
I'm sure this has been mentioned by others but we shouldn't see Thatcher's mine closures in isolation. It was part of a deliberate policy of not having state intervention in industry. She and some of her coterie like Alan Walters and Keith Joseph were passionately committed to laissez-faire and private sector solutions to all crises.
In this regard Thatcher is poles apart from Boris Johnson. But that's also a sign of the times. State intervention is all the rage right now.
I wish they'd stop playing Jerusalem before the start of play at test matches in England because it's strange to have an anthem for only one of the teams, and I'm not a fan of both anthems being played every day.
Agreed. I was cringing this morning.
The tune may rouse certain types but the words are ridiculous nonsense.
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.
But that's Johnson's problem.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem. It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
Other way round too. It is this factor that you describe, that often it was the last pit in an area, that left desolated pit villages and one-industry towns, that does make what happened in the 1980s qualitatively different, and not mitigated by pointing to closures under other governments. iirc even Sir Geoffrey Howe acknowledged this.
Yes, but the alternative was to leave those pits open, filling them with useless money as the coal left. And IMV it is mitigated by closures under other governments - especially later ones. It was a long-term trend.
No, the alternative was to have accessible other employment. Which, for example, was eventually brought to NE County Durham in the form of Nissan.
So you have to ask why the predecessor government who were busy closing pits in these areas didn't do it?
The Thatcher government actually did it, though.
As an aside, education also plays a part in this. As I've said passim, I know two ex-miners who were both told it was not worth educating them as they would end up down the pit. This was in the late 70's.
As others have pointed out, in many areas Thatcher's closures were last in line, and there were therefore no other mining jobs. Agree about the education though. A glance at the career choices of my second cousins, children of my miner great-uncles and their sisters show quite a lot of them taking the opportunities offered by education.
I believe that it was government policy (in the sense of administrative policy) since before WWII to discourage other industries appearing in coal mining areas. Keeping the coal miners in the mines was policy... the mandarins were worried that working in a factory might be more attractive.
IIRC there are some memos about this available at Kew...
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
He precedes that with
"All too often, Johnson's climate change strategy is essentially 'everyone should have their own electric car': a solution that is neither possible (there aren't enough rare earth materials in the world to replace every car currently in use in the UK..."
That assumes the requirement for rare earth materials can't massively be reduced, which it can.
I'm sure this has been mentioned by others but we shouldn't see Thatcher's mine closures in isolation. It was part of a deliberate policy of not having state intervention in industry. She and some of her coterie like Alan Walters and Keith Joseph were passionately committed to laissez-faire and private sector solutions to all crises.
In this regard Thatcher is poles apart from Boris Johnson. But that's also a sign of the times. State intervention is all the rage right now.
Not quite - one reason she didn't believe in rail privatisation was "where's the competition"
What she was against was the propping up of failure.
To understand the politics of this...
A large number of industries had been nationalised. Over time, they had become uncompetitive and produced obsolete products at high prices. The reason for this was that (a) investment was seen by the treasury as a cost and (b) the Unions and many others believed in the Lump of Work fallacy - that increases in productivity meant an overall contraction in the labour market.
So, politically it was far simpler to subsidise the industry concerned to the next election, rather than actually fix the problems.
This led to things like, in Sheffield, it was cheaper to by stainless steel cutlery from abroad to melt down to form raw stainless than it was to buy stainless from the local steel mills.
A number of non-nationalised industries were also being supported directly and indirectly......
Mr. Oracle, it's been a while since I watched news regularly but one thing that stuck with me was Nick Robinson, as BBC political editor, having a bizarre line on attempts to reduce net migration (I believe by the Coalition Government or it may even have been a Cameron policy in opposition). He implied heavily it was essentially racist because most EU (then unaffected) migrants were white and most non-EU migrants had 'black and brown faces'.
I think sometimes journalists decide they have an opinion and go hunting for evidence and witnesses to support it, rather than gathering information and presenting it.
If you set out grievance hunting over BBC reporting you'll come up with all kinds of stuff. As a regular listener, it seems to me that he mostly just tries to put the opposing case to whomever he happens to be interviewing.
That was what so odd about the interview. The "devil's advocate" and reverse position is very common, and the norm. What was very odd, in this case, was that he was anxiously applying this as if in a normal political interview, but the farmers were not politicians and Brexit wasn't their starting "opposing side". They were mainly interested in talking about day-to-day issues, and the last interviewee only finally confirmed that the underlying reason was Brexit because he could see that Robinson kept trying to pull the interview in irrelevant directions.
It smacks very much to me of the BBC having a strong political anxiety around its coverage of Brexit, to the extent of trying to inject an opposing "balance" into the discussion in all contexts even irrelevantly, and when not interviewing politicians.
I didn't hear this one, but your comments sound reasonable.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
He precedes that with
"All too often, Johnson's climate change strategy is essentially 'everyone should have their own electric car': a solution that is neither possible (there aren't enough rare earth materials in the world to replace every car currently in use in the UK..."
That assumes the requirement for rare earth materials can't massively be reduced, which it can.
The first thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't rare The second thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't earths The third thing to know about rare earths is that lithium isn't a rare earth. And it isn't rare either.
I just received an email headed "10 Stools That Illustrate the Diversity of Form", I'm relieved to reveal it was furniture art.
You want the “Bristol Stool Chart” for the other…
Edit: do NOT Google it unless you are prepared for the consequences.
Baking Bristol Stool Chart cakes is apparently a popular amusement for related medical professionals. The ones that make effective use of Maltesers are my favourites.
I wish they'd stop playing Jerusalem before the start of play at test matches in England because it's strange to have an anthem for only one of the teams, and I'm not a fan of both anthems being played every day.
Agreed. I was cringing this morning.
The tune may rouse certain types but the words are ridiculous nonsense.
I can remember when the start of a day of test cricket would involve a ripple of applause as the umpires walked out onto the field about 5 minutes before the start of play, followed by much louder applause as the players walked or ran out. And then play would begin. That's how I liked it. Nothing overbearing.
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.
But that's Johnson's problem.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem. It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
Other way round too. It is this factor that you describe, that often it was the last pit in an area, that left desolated pit villages and one-industry towns, that does make what happened in the 1980s qualitatively different, and not mitigated by pointing to closures under other governments. iirc even Sir Geoffrey Howe acknowledged this.
Yes, but the alternative was to leave those pits open, filling them with useless money as the coal left. And IMV it is mitigated by closures under other governments - especially later ones. It was a long-term trend.
No, the alternative was to have accessible other employment. Which, for example, was eventually brought to NE County Durham in the form of Nissan.
So you have to ask why the predecessor government who were busy closing pits in these areas didn't do it?
The Thatcher government actually did it, though.
As an aside, education also plays a part in this. As I've said passim, I know two ex-miners who were both told it was not worth educating them as they would end up down the pit. This was in the late 70's.
As others have pointed out, in many areas Thatcher's closures were last in line, and there were therefore no other mining jobs. Agree about the education though. A glance at the career choices of my second cousins, children of my miner great-uncles and their sisters show quite a lot of them taking the opportunities offered by education.
The problem wasn't that there were no other mining jobs. That was true under Wilson too in the 1960s when many mines were closed. (Labour closed more pits than the Tories by far.) It's that in the mid-1980s there were few other jobs at all. Unemployment hadn't been so high since the 1930s.
Incidentally the Thatcher government did not admit at the time that its aim was to destroy the coal industry (or much of industry tout court). If 21st century language had been used, that would have been called a "conspiracy theory" (one that happened to be true). One can also reference the Ridley Plan which was drawn up even before the 1979 election.
As for education, there was a very strong and admirable tradition of working-class self-education among British coalminers.
I wish they'd stop playing Jerusalem before the start of play at test matches in England because it's strange to have an anthem for only one of the teams, and I'm not a fan of both anthems being played every day.
Agreed. I was cringing this morning.
The tune may rouse certain types but the words are ridiculous nonsense.
There are four questions in the first verse.
The answer to all of them is ‘no.’
You speak for the countenance divine ? At least as possible as moonshine's UFOs, surely ?
I fully expect COP26 to be a disaster in multiple ways. The big problem with it is that Boris Johnson is the diametric opposite of the leader required as host, if any progress is to be made. What is required is lots of patient, painstaking, detailed work in the lead up, and lots of gentle nudging and smoothing-over in the conference itself. Instead we have a government which is in near-total chaos on everything, is interested only in photo-ops, which has managed to alienate our European ex-friends and the US, has just cut aid to the struggling poorer countries, and which (for admittedly good reasons) is not exactly best friends with China and Russia.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
I think COP26 will achieve something, if only because it has to as the situation is so serious, but you're right that it won't achieve as much as it could have done.
Our diplomatic corp is quite good and their efforts will be in spite of Boris not because of him.
"Covid Season" - the man is a buffoon. His Presidency hopes are evaporating this week unless Cases peak in the next few days.
Another week of growth and Florida Hospitals are gonna be crushed.
I'm really not sure how much it will hurt him, though it ought to.
According to the replies, it's probably the fault of teh immigrants. ...Of those who are sick, hospitalized, and dying from COVID, how many of them are illegal immigrants? How many cases are transmitted b/c of illegal immigrants?...
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
He precedes that with
"All too often, Johnson's climate change strategy is essentially 'everyone should have their own electric car': a solution that is neither possible (there aren't enough rare earth materials in the world to replace every car currently in use in the UK..."
That assumes the requirement for rare earth materials can't massively be reduced, which it can.
It also makes some pretty odd assumptions about the world supply of rare earth minerals. Probably making the mistake of conflating the reserves (i.e. the amount of stuff were we know exactly where it is and mining can extract it economically) with the total amount available. Reserves cost money to prove, so it’s unusual for mining companies to bother doing so for more than a few decades worth.
Of those hospitalised with the delta variant 55.1% were unvaccinated and 34.9% had received both doses
PHE
As more of the population gets vaccinated, we will see a higher relative percentage of vaccinated people in hospital
Yup - I presume the Professor Peston FRS DipSHit will need more education soon.
Oh gawd.....
"Only three weeks before my debut thriller, the Whistleblower, is published."
haha
I presume the plot is that the heroic whistleblower turned out to have completely misunderstood some basic facts and proved that black is white. And then got killed at a Zebra crossing.
Boris Johnson accused by Tory MPs of 'spitting in the face' of red wall communities after claiming Thatcher's coal mine closures boosted climate change ambitions
They suggest it's the prime minister's 'Ratner moment'
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
Thatcher's government could have done more to promote tide/wave power instead of nuclear though.
Love the modern pentathlon - gut punch for the competitors though.
Drama in the modern pentathlon - German Annika Schleu who had a massive lead going into the riding has a horse that is just refusing to jump and is out! Poor poor woman in absolute floods.
Of those hospitalised with the delta variant 55.1% were unvaccinated and 34.9% had received both doses
PHE
As more of the population gets vaccinated, we will see a higher relative percentage of vaccinated people in hospital
Yes, and less usefulness for the kind of stat you cite. More interesting would be rates per x000 people of hospitalisations and deaths, respectively among the unvaccinated and the "fully" [*] vaccinated. Those who cross from the first group to the second can be discounted from the denominator.
Note (*) "Fully" is in scare quotes because of the likelihood of booster campaigns. Double-vaxed is anyway not great as a group definition because there is Janssen which is single-dose.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
Thatcher's government could have done more to promote tide/wave power instead of nuclear though.
The problem was getting a tide/wave system that could survive in the sea.
There have been prototypes of various systems since the 70s. Which generally ended up being destroyed by wave action.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
He precedes that with
"All too often, Johnson's climate change strategy is essentially 'everyone should have their own electric car': a solution that is neither possible (there aren't enough rare earth materials in the world to replace every car currently in use in the UK..."
That assumes the requirement for rare earth materials can't massively be reduced, which it can.
The first thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't rare The second thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't earths The third thing to know about rare earths is that lithium isn't a rare earth. And it isn't rare either.
The "there aren't enough rare earths in the world to do X" is a bullshit argument, 999 out of 1000.
Rare earth availability can be a severe constraint - they might not be particularly rare, but they're often expensive and difficult to produce in large quantities, especially if you need to ramp up production significantly. Lithium (again, other than the cost of producing it) isn't a problem at all. And there are, of course, other possible chemistries using much cheaper materials.
Love the modern pentathlon - gut punch for the competitors though.
Drama in the modern pentathlon - German Annika Schleu who had a massive lead going into the riding has a horse that is just refusing to jump and is out! Poor poor woman in absolute floods.
Love the modern pentathlon - gut punch for the competitors though.
Drama in the modern pentathlon - German Annika Schleu who had a massive lead going into the riding has a horse that is just refusing to jump and is out! Poor poor woman in absolute floods.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
He precedes that with
"All too often, Johnson's climate change strategy is essentially 'everyone should have their own electric car': a solution that is neither possible (there aren't enough rare earth materials in the world to replace every car currently in use in the UK..."
That assumes the requirement for rare earth materials can't massively be reduced, which it can.
The first thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't rare The second thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't earths The third thing to know about rare earths is that lithium isn't a rare earth. And it isn't rare either.
The "there aren't enough rare earths in the world to do X" is a bullshit argument, 999 out of 1000.
Rare earth availability can be a severe constraint - they might not be particularly rare, but they're often expensive and difficult to produce in large quantities, especially if you need to ramp up production significantly. Lithium (again, other than the cost of producing it) isn't a problem at all. And there are, of course, other possible chemistries using much cheaper materials.
The main issue with rare earths is actual in permanent magnets for *some* electric motors. Not the batteries....
The other issue is that there are plenty of rare earth deposits - and the number of mines is steadily ramping up.
I wish they'd stop playing Jerusalem before the start of play at test matches in England because it's strange to have an anthem for only one of the teams, and I'm not a fan of both anthems being played every day.
Agreed. I was cringing this morning.
The tune may rouse certain types but the words are ridiculous nonsense.
Really? Has it occurred to you that you don't understand them? I mean, a big name author is no guarantee of anything, but when a poem is by William Blake, who you may not have heard of, and has the knockout, world beating phrase count of this one (dark satanic mills, arrows of desire, chariot of fire, green and pleasant land) in as short a space as this, you have to consider whether the problem is with the poem, or you.
As to the questions, the answer to the fourth is obviously a no because otherwise what's going on in the final stanza? Doesn't say rebuilt. So why is it a point against the poem that the answer is no? Perhaps the previous 3 questions also invite a no, or are a bit ambiguous?
But let me guess: you have no time for hi falutin theories of ambiguity, you think a poem should say what it means loud and clear, like Gunga Din, and your wife's the same.
The oddity is it being treated as nationalist. It's like one of the Bushes (I think it was) thinking Springsteen's Born in the USA should be the national anthem.
I did enjoy that they were having problems with the finishing tape, with an official desperately leaping across at the last second to make sure French could run into it properly, rather than over it on the floor.
British coal was replaced by South African, Polish and Colombian coal.
Which was then replaced by Qatari and Russian gas.
Which is currently being replaced by Danish wind turbines and Chinese photovoltaics.
But there's now a fecking great big TK Maxx warehouse in Pontefract.
Let's hope that the 'green industrial revolution' starts to develop a home grown supply chain from the outset. All this investment in carbon capture, hydrogen, etc. in the next decade should mean lots of jobs. Hopefully British jobs for British workers, as someone once said.
Boris Johnson accused by Tory MPs of 'spitting in the face' of red wall communities after claiming Thatcher's coal mine closures boosted climate change ambitions
They suggest it's the prime minister's 'Ratner moment'
It was certainly naive at best, across the western world coal mining areas from West Virginia to Queensland to the Red Wall to the Pas-de-Calais have been moving right.
While Boris may have been right about the fact that coal is no longer environmentally sustainable he should have recognised that the green brigade are not going to vote for him anyway and also tend to be anti nuclear, shale gas etc.
Trump by contrast for all his faults would never have made this mistake of insulting the heritage of an increasingly conservative voting block.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
Thatcher's government could have done more to promote tide/wave power instead of nuclear though.
The problem was getting a tide/wave system that could survive in the sea.
There have been prototypes of various systems since the 70s. Which generally ended up being destroyed by wave action.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's daily email has been commenting on the contrast re Mrs T and Mr J - an extract:
"If you want to actually tackle the climate crisis, you have to be willing to do big and radical things that upset people, and that do, in the short term at least, create some losers [...]
Our Prime Minister is very far from being willing to level with the public about that (to 'tell the truth', as Extinction Rebellion puts it) and further still from being willing to tell the public that this might involve some difficult or radical changes to how we live. Again, that is very far from how Margaret Thatcher approached any issue, including climate change.
But the biggest problem we face, and the one our politicians should be angriest about, isn't that Boris Johnson makes jokes about British mining. It's that it is frankly impossible to imagine him doing something as big or as significant in the fight to tackle the climate crisis today."
But its not true.
We don't need radical change in how we live. We need radical change in our technologies we use.
We need to switch from petrol cars to electric cars; we do not need to abandon driving. We need to switch from dirty electricity to clean electricity; we do not need to stop using electricity. We need to switch from jet oil to clean jet zero aircraft; we do not need to stop flying.
The hairshirt environmentalists are wrong. Science and technology are the solution, not economic vandalism. Something that both Thatcher and Johnson could both equally grasp.
Thatcher's government could have done more to promote tide/wave power instead of nuclear though.
The problem was getting a tide/wave system that could survive in the sea.
There have been prototypes of various systems since the 70s. Which generally ended up being destroyed by wave action.
British coal was replaced by South African, Polish and Colombian coal.
Which was then replaced by Qatari and Russian gas.
Which is currently being replaced by Danish wind turbines and Chinese photovoltaics.
But there's now a fecking great big TK Maxx warehouse in Pontefract.
Let's hope that the 'green industrial revolution' starts to develop a home grown supply chain from the outset. All this investment in carbon capture, hydrogen, etc. in the next decade should mean lots of jobs. Hopefully British jobs for British workers, as someone once said.
Comments
Also it shows the scale of the problem - Nissan didn't even replace all the jobs lost in the Sunderland / Shields area and is actually a very poorly paying employer - one current issue for Nissan is that Amazon Warehouses pays more.
https://www.calnewport.com/books/a-world-without-email/
If Boris wishes to offer a role to Sturgeon, or Sharma, or Burnham, or anyone else, that's his prerogative. Doesn't make the issue devolved.
Excellent sprint ride by the Dutch Champ Lavreysen, especially as Boardman just commented that Hoogland tried to take him up the banking....
It is called "taking back control".
Somebody has put up a fake thread offering counterfeit money on Vanilla Forums.
So I expect Boris to be snubbed, and little progress on the meat of reducing CO2 emissions to be made. This is going to be a woefully bad missed opportunity, if I'm right.
It's quite honest really. You'll never be able to detect the money once you've paid for it..
The Thatcher government actually did it, though.
As an aside, education also plays a part in this. As I've said passim, I know two ex-miners who were both told it was not worth educating them as they would end up down the pit. This was in the late 70's.
But I'm obliged for your second point; didn't realise that Nissan was a very poorly paying employer; always been led to believe that it replaced the mines and shipyards income-wise as well as actual work.
But if Amazon pays more ........
So anyone can be involved with diplomacy if asked so if Boris wants to give me a ring I'm up for it. However in the case of Sturgeon I have no doubt she gets involved in a lot of diplomacy both informally and formally, even though Foreign Affairs is not devolved.
There is a spam article in the comments system, by the look of it.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussions
"BUY UNDETECTABLE COUNTERFEIT MONEY AND DOCUMENTS ONLINE"
Agree about the education though. A glance at the career choices of my second cousins, children of my miner great-uncles and their sisters show quite a lot of them taking the opportunities offered by education.
That fine ride in the equestrian event has really helped Kate French's medal prospects in the modern pentathlon.
Four events down and she's up to fifth place, helped by a couple of nightmare rides from rivals, most notably German Annika Schleu, who started the show jumping in the gold medal spot but has plummeted to 31st after failing to complete her round on a horse, Saint Boy, that just was not having it. Sinner Boy he should be renamed.
She was winning and now has no chance of anything thanks to an awful horse. 4 years of training for nothing.
Boris “Boris” Johnson makes an arch little crack (about Maggie and the mines) designed to wind up the po-faced left and showcase his vaunted GSOH. So what? It’s totally on brand. The sort of shtick you’d expect – possibly even appreciate - from some revolving bow tie wearing “character” at a dinner party, relaxed and amongst friends in the country, or invited to liven up a dull affair in town, is now the sort of shtick we expect from the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So I doubt this latest iteration will move the needle much. "Boris being Boris" splits opinion, on here and IRL. Some see a perverse authenticity, a charismatic charmer who doesn’t take himself too seriously, a refreshing change from sterile politicians so wary about what they say and how they look in public. Others see an entitled airhead with no soul or substance, unsuitable to run anything let alone the country. I’m in the latter camp. I do not rate or appreciate this bloke and him being PM is a stone in my sandal. This is a trivial story, sure, but it isn’t because it illustrates that precise feature of Johnson – his triviality. It’s a feature that has largely got him where he is today and – fate willing – it’s the bug that will in due course bite his bum and bring him down.
: “Those remarks are both crass and offensive. The damage done to Welsh coal mine areas was incalculable”
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1423532661394624518
EDIT: Risen by a thousand in 2 days. The equivalent of >3000 more in hospital for the UK.
Edit: do NOT Google it unless you are prepared for the consequences.
The tune may rouse certain types but the words are ridiculous nonsense.
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/florida
In this regard Thatcher is poles apart from Boris Johnson. But that's also a sign of the times. State intervention is all the rage right now.
The answer to all of them is ‘no.’
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1423359744585129988
"Covid Season" - the man is a buffoon. His Presidency hopes are evaporating this week unless Cases peak in the next few days.
Another week of growth and Florida Hospitals are gonna be crushed.
IIRC there are some memos about this available at Kew...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/florida-rebekah-jones-covid-data-analyst-arrest-warrant
There are a number of people who think that numbers out of Florida might need careful checking....
Of those hospitalised with the delta variant 55.1% were unvaccinated and 34.9% had received both doses
PHE
As more of the population gets vaccinated, we will see a higher relative percentage of vaccinated people in hospital
https://theathletic.com/2751525/2021/08/06/introducing-expected-threat-or-xt-the-new-metric-on-the-block
What she was against was the propping up of failure.
To understand the politics of this...
A large number of industries had been nationalised. Over time, they had become uncompetitive and produced obsolete products at high prices. The reason for this was that (a) investment was seen by the treasury as a cost and (b) the Unions and many others believed in the Lump of Work fallacy - that increases in productivity meant an overall contraction in the labour market.
So, politically it was far simpler to subsidise the industry concerned to the next election, rather than actually fix the problems.
This led to things like, in Sheffield, it was cheaper to by stainless steel cutlery from abroad to melt down to form raw stainless than it was to buy stainless from the local steel mills.
A number of non-nationalised industries were also being supported directly and indirectly......
Also has poll for leader doing best overall.
Boris 41% Starmer 24% DK 35%
The second thing to know about rare earths is that they aren't earths
The third thing to know about rare earths is that lithium isn't a rare earth. And it isn't rare either.
Lastly - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/07/11/teslas-shift-to-cobalt-free-batteries-is-its-most-important-move-yet/?sh=7bf96b2d46b4
The "there aren't enough rare earths in the world to do X" is a bullshit argument, 999 out of 1000.
Hack?
'Why is Boris Johnson rubbing salt into the wounds of old mining communities, with his crass comments about Thatcher closing the coal mines?
Does he even understand the red wall? Madness.'
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1423378408634003458?s=20
Incidentally the Thatcher government did not admit at the time that its aim was to destroy the coal industry (or much of industry tout court). If 21st century language had been used, that would have been called a "conspiracy theory" (one that happened to be true). One can also reference the Ridley Plan which was drawn up even before the 1979 election.
As for education, there was a very strong and admirable tradition of working-class self-education among British coalminers.
At least as possible as moonshine's UFOs, surely ?
Our diplomatic corp is quite good and their efforts will be in spite of Boris not because of him.
"Only three weeks before my debut thriller, the Whistleblower, is published."
'Tory MP: 'It is spitting in face of communities that still haven’t recovered
'If you were at the Oxford student union in the 1980s you might have thought the miners strike was all jolly japes.
'Boris’s success is that people think he’s one of them. This shows he’s not'
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1423587217818193922?s=20
'Another Tory MP says: 'It shows an astounding level of ignorance of the views and feelings of people who have put their trust in him
'There's a genuine level of naivety in taking Conservative ownership of pit closures
'Any Red Wall Tory MP will tell you Wilson closed more'
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1423588027536973825?s=20
According to the replies, it's probably the fault of teh immigrants.
...Of those who are sick, hospitalized, and dying from COVID, how many of them are illegal immigrants? How many cases are transmitted b/c of illegal immigrants?...
Tim Worstal has more on this: https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/31/rare_metals_mineral_reserves_talk_preamble/?page=3
I presume the plot is that the heroic whistleblower turned out to have completely misunderstood some basic facts and proved that black is white. And then got killed at a Zebra crossing.
Definition of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting a different results...and all that.
Boris Johnson accused by Tory MPs of 'spitting in the face' of red wall communities after claiming Thatcher's coal mine closures boosted climate change ambitions
They suggest it's the prime minister's 'Ratner moment'
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/backlash-after-boris-johnson-says-thatchers-coal-mine-closures-were-eco-friendly-bcsz9sswb
Drama in the modern pentathlon - German Annika Schleu who had a massive lead going into the riding has a horse that is just refusing to jump and is out! Poor poor woman in absolute floods.
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1423585327629971458
Note
(*) "Fully" is in scare quotes because of the likelihood of booster campaigns. Double-vaxed is anyway not great as a group definition because there is Janssen which is single-dose.
Randomly assigning horses just seems wrong.
There have been prototypes of various systems since the 70s. Which generally ended up being destroyed by wave action.
Lithium (again, other than the cost of producing it) isn't a problem at all. And there are, of course, other possible chemistries using much cheaper materials.
Important moment which will confidence that the rest of the summer is going to be fine.
Also falling in Scotland and Wales
https://twitter.com/Smyth_Chris/status/1423601435720179714
PM’s spokesman says Boris Johnson recognises “huge impact and pain” closure of mines had on communities across UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58107009
Apparently there was also another competitor who got the same horse and it refused to jump for them either.
The other issue is that there are plenty of rare earth deposits - and the number of mines is steadily ramping up.
As to the questions, the answer to the fourth is obviously a no because otherwise what's going on in the final stanza? Doesn't say rebuilt. So why is it a point against the poem that the answer is no? Perhaps the previous 3 questions also invite a no, or are a bit ambiguous?
But let me guess: you have no time for hi falutin theories of ambiguity, you think a poem should say what it means loud and clear, like Gunga Din, and your wife's the same.
The oddity is it being treated as nationalist. It's like one of the Bushes (I think it was) thinking Springsteen's Born in the USA should be the national anthem.
Which was then replaced by Qatari and Russian gas.
Which is currently being replaced by Danish wind turbines and Chinese photovoltaics.
But there's now a fecking great big TK Maxx warehouse in Pontefract.
Let's hope that the 'green industrial revolution' starts to develop a home grown supply chain from the outset. All this investment in carbon capture, hydrogen, etc. in the next decade should mean lots of jobs. Hopefully British jobs for British workers, as someone once said.
While Boris may have been right about the fact that coal is no longer environmentally sustainable he should have recognised that the green brigade are not going to vote for him anyway and also tend to be anti nuclear, shale gas etc.
Trump by contrast for all his faults would never have made this mistake of insulting the heritage of an increasingly conservative voting block.
Indeed he even donned a coal miner's hat at a West Virginia rally
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/trump-dons-miners-hat-in-coal-country
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/worlds-most-powerful-tidal-turbine-starts-to-export-power-to-grid-.html
No advance on £60, btw.