I'm sure after all the pieties expressed over Owen 'Smasher' Smith, everyone would like to take a moment to bloviate sanctimoniously over the good, old Express.
'Sturgeon kicked in teeth as SNP's guardian plan for Scots ruled UNLAWFUL by Supreme Court'
In the last week the Express was lauding the Q2 GDP figures as evidence of a post-Brexit boom, the day before reporting a voodoo poll with 98% of respondents wanting to exit the EU RIGHT NOW.
I've nothing left to give. The Express are the Right's mad.,senile aunt that we keep locked in the attic and feed exclusively on fish heads. She won't ever shut up.
Enough bloviation for ya?
You were meant to say it's shocking they they are normalising violence against women
The excitement on here yesterday was all about the double entendre of 'smash'.
The excitement on Twitter was due to the usual collection of fuckwits whose goal in life is to be outraged by something, anything.
I can see the logic in not publishing propagandas videos / photos, but no names seems like a bad idea.
I posted a link to a Department of Justice (in the US) study into lone wolf terrorists - it said that they were primarily motivated by seeing their name in lights, and that you could significantly cut the number of attacks by denying perpetrators the oxygen of publicity.
Not just that but, as I pointed out yesterday, the bulk of the cost to society of terrorism comes from our (over)reaction to it. If we limit the publicity, we also limit that overreaction.
It is a fine line to walk - between informing and preparing the public for resilience, and limiting the effectiveness and hence attractiveness of terrorism in the first place.
I'd strongly argue that the trust bond here has been broken. Pretending the problem doesn't exist, nothing to do with Islam, not tackling issues re political correctness, not publishing suspect details when they're brown.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
The issue is that Trump's base don't like the liberal media. The more hysterical they become, the more support he gets.
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
Here's hoping. Trump will be shackled as President but boot the establishment around. I am all for it.
Will he? He could refuse to sign TTIP and take the U.S. out of NAFTA and the WTO and he still has significant powers to do what he wants militarily
I'm sure after all the pieties expressed over Owen 'Smasher' Smith, everyone would like to take a moment to bloviate sanctimoniously over the good, old Express.
'Sturgeon kicked in teeth as SNP's guardian plan for Scots ruled UNLAWFUL by Supreme Court'
In the last week the Express was lauding the Q2 GDP figures as evidence of a post-Brexit boom, the day before reporting a voodoo poll with 98% of respondents wanting to exit the EU RIGHT NOW.
I've nothing left to give. The Express are the Right's mad.,senile aunt that we keep locked in the attic and feed exclusively on fish heads. She won't ever shut up.
Enough bloviation for ya?
You were meant to say it's shocking they they are normalising violence against women
The excitement on here yesterday was all about the double entendre of 'smash'.
The excitement on Twitter was due to the usual collection of fuckwits whose goal in life is to be outraged by something, anything.
No one was really taking the double entendre of smash seriously. That was just TSE on one of his Urban Dictionary adventures.
The actual case against Smith [still faux outrage imho] was that "heels" was a specific reference to Theresa May, thus converting a standard metaphor into something more personal. That doesn't apply here as Sturgeon isn't famous for her teeth.
kick in the teeth is also a very common colloquialism and is rarely if ever used in its literal sense.
Similar to saying someone is F***** rarely if ever implies that they have just been copulating.
The Smith phrase isnt to my knowledge a well known colloquialism and the reference to heels is referring to her kitten heel trademark. It just came across as expressing a real dislike of her.
Smash is what you do to a performance target, or a tennis shot - or mashed potato. It sounded really aggressive to me. The heels thing sounded rather personal. Maybe it's rugby slang, but it didn't feel good to me.
Trust me, to a younger generation, smash could either mean a complete demolition, or an aggressive desire for intercourse, usually in a misogynistic setting.
It also sounded faux-aggressive, which really is the worst of all possible combinations. A "Hell yes I'm tough enough" moment.
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Do you not find that the minute anyone uses the phrase "neo-liberal economics" that it is an immediate turn off? I know I do, and I'm still going to read this book because Stiglitz is an uncommonly smart person. Maybe I'm not part of the target audience.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
They're more like buses.
A ticketed service in the way you envisage would be the train equivalent of a coach.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
I'm sure after all the pieties expressed over Owen 'Smasher' Smith, everyone would like to take a moment to bloviate sanctimoniously over the good, old Express.
'Sturgeon kicked in teeth as SNP's guardian plan for Scots ruled UNLAWFUL by Supreme Court'
In the last week the Express was lauding the Q2 GDP figures as evidence of a post-Brexit boom, the day before reporting a voodoo poll with 98% of respondents wanting to exit the EU RIGHT NOW.
I've nothing left to give. The Express are the Right's mad.,senile aunt that we keep locked in the attic and feed exclusively on fish heads. She won't ever shut up.
Enough bloviation for ya?
You were meant to say it's shocking they they are normalising violence against women
The excitement on here yesterday was all about the double entendre of 'smash'.
The excitement on Twitter was due to the usual collection of fuckwits whose goal in life is to be outraged by something, anything.
No one was really taking the double entendre of smash seriously. That was just TSE on one of his Urban Dictionary adventures.
The actual case against Smith [still faux outrage imho] was that "heels" was a specific reference to Theresa May, thus converting a standard metaphor into something more personal. That doesn't apply here as Sturgeon isn't famous for her teeth.
kick in the teeth is also a very common colloquialism and is rarely if ever used in its literal sense.
Similar to saying someone is F***** rarely if ever implies that they have just been copulating.
The Smith phrase isnt to my knowledge a well known colloquialism and the reference to heels is referring to her kitten heel trademark. It just came across as expressing a real dislike of her.
Smash is what you do to a performance target, or a tennis shot - or mashed potato. It sounded really aggressive to me. The heels thing sounded rather personal. Maybe it's rugby slang, but it didn't feel good to me.
Trust me, to a younger generation, smash could either mean a complete demolition, or an aggressive desire for intercourse, usually in a misogynistic setting.
It also sounded faux-aggressive, which really is the worst of all possible combinations. A "Hell yes I'm tough enough" moment.
"Smash the Tories" carries no double entendre.
'Never Smashed a Tory ' t-shirts coming soon to a store near you.
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
The issue is that Trump's base don't like the liberal media. The more hysterical they become, the more support he gets.
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
The Democratic convention (and it's clear that posters here aren't following it) is the optimistic, patriotic version, to stand against the GOP project terror, whereby they learn completely the wrong lessons of 'leave' winning. Obama even quoted Reagan and the 'shining city on a hill' last night. The message, that true conservatives do not support Trump. Peel enough of them away and he's left with no path to 270 EV.
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
They're more like buses.
A ticketed service in the way you envisage would be the train equivalent of a coach.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
I'm pleased you lost.
The europhile multiculturalist who lives in Japan. It's good for all of us but not for our Edmund. Do as I say, not as I do. The Europhile rule of life.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
I'm pleased you lost.
The europhile multiculturalist who lives in Japan. It's good for all of us but not for our Edmund. Do as I say, not as I do. The Europhile rule of life.
Edmund gets a pass for eternity on all issues for the widget (may it rest in peace).
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
Because airlines sell seats and rail companies don't - and can't, because of the number of season ticket holders with variable travel patterns.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
I'm pleased you lost.
The europhile multiculturalist who lives in Japan. It's good for all of us but not for our Edmund. Do as I say, not as I do. The Europhile rule of life.
Edmund gets a pass for eternity on all issues for the widget (may it rest in peace).
Anyone using Firefox can use it - I do.
Download Greasemonkey widget using Add Ons, then save his PB script from his website - Edmund Edgar IIRC. Sure he'll provide details - unless he has me on Ignore
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
The issue is that Trump's base don't like the liberal media. The more hysterical they become, the more support he gets.
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
The Democratic convention (and it's clear that posters here aren't following it) is the optimistic, patriotic version, to stand against the GOP project terror, whereby they learn completely the wrong lessons of 'leave' winning. Obama even quoted Reagan and the 'shining city on a hill' last night. The message, that true conservatives do not support Trump. Peel enough of them away and he's left with no path to 270 EV.
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
... [Trump] could refuse to sign TTIP and take the U.S. out of NAFTA and the WTO ...
Do we know for sure that that is the case, at least as far as withdrawing from existing treaties is concerned? My understanding was that Congress has the ultimate say in trade deals, but I might well be wrong on that. Also it's complicated by various laws over the years delegating power over specific trade deals to the president.
How do you explain Trump's record high national poll numbers?
You mean like the ones for President Romney? Looking at polls during conventions is a mug's game (and that one has been highlighted more than once). Anyway, look into that teacking poll and it looks to have a house effect even larger than Rasmussen, it's early days for it though, so it may need time to settle down before we can see just how much. People could just as easily have posted this one.
I think in about three weeks the polls we start giving us a bit more information, once the Dem Conference bounce has worked through the system. Even more so after Labor Day
''The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers''
Disagree. It was a masterclass in how broad appeal has been built in the last 25 years.
The rules have changed. See Brexit and Trump getting the nomination for reference.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
The issue is that Trump's base don't like the liberal media. The more hysterical they become, the more support he gets.
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
The Democratic convention (and it's clear that posters here aren't following it) is the optimistic, patriotic version, to stand against the GOP project terror, whereby they learn completely the wrong lessons of 'leave' winning. Obama even quoted Reagan and the 'shining city on a hill' last night. The message, that true conservatives do not support Trump. Peel enough of them away and he's left with no path to 270 EV.
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
The most sensible proposal was Nigel Lawson's Hard ECU. Essentially it would have been a parallel currency for Europe, and over time economies might have naturally migrated towards it. Countries - like Greece - would simply never have been able to fund themselves in Hard ECUs.
I was in a Germanic mood when I invented a word. I don't call it a "thunderstorm" any more, I call it a flashbangsoggykerfuffle.
I like KrankenWagon for ambulance. They seem oddly too proud to admit they haven't invented things, so cobble together a bundle of their own words. The word for funicular railway I can't remember but it's another classic.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
Easy.
Of course but very expensive. Would it cost more than HS2? I don't know, nobody does because the work hasn't been done to find out. Would such a solution provide more benefit to more people than HS2? I am sure it would.
Here is a little thought experiment. If the railways were brought under the same regulation as every other form of longer distance transport (i.e. a ticket means a seat), the City of London would have problems - those worker bees would not be able to get in on time. The City, a very wealthy place, would then have a choice: reform its working arrangements or contribute to a serious modernisation of London's transport network. Either Way the lives of the worker bees would be significantly improved. (The same would go for Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and divers other places that rely on commuter hell to make their money).
I was in a Germanic mood when I invented a word. I don't call it a "thunderstorm" any more, I call it a flashbangsoggykerfuffle.
I like KrankenWagon for ambulance. They seem oddly too proud to admit they haven't invented things, so cobble together a bundle of their own words. The word for funicular railway I can't remember but it's another classic.
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
The Democratic convention (and it's clear that posters here aren't following it) is the optimistic, patriotic version, to stand against the GOP project terror, whereby they learn completely the wrong lessons of 'leave' winning. Obama even quoted Reagan and the 'shining city on a hill' last night. The message, that true conservatives do not support Trump. Peel enough of them away and he's left with no path to 270 EV.
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
I can see the logic in not publishing propagandas videos / photos, but no names seems like a bad idea.
I posted a link to a Department of Justice (in the US) study into lone wolf terrorists - it said that they were primarily motivated by seeing their name in lights, and that you could significantly cut the number of attacks by denying perpetrators the oxygen of publicity.
Not just that but, as I pointed out yesterday, the bulk of the cost to society of terrorism comes from our (over)reaction to it. If we limit the publicity, we also limit that overreaction.
It is a fine line to walk - between informing and preparing the public for resilience, and limiting the effectiveness and hence attractiveness of terrorism in the first place.
You can only call it an overreaction if you treat all causes of death as equivalent, which is arbitrary and wrong. I am quite prepared to get more exercised over one terrorist killing than 1,000 road deaths.
Can you specify more precisely the areas in which we are over reacting to terrorists? Too much intelligence time, too many checks at airports, too many police on streets?
Of course, Volkwagen has killed more people - due to diesel emissions cheating - than in all the terrorist incidents in Europe this year. Yet not a single person worries about that.
Personally, I think the government should treat all early curtailed life the same. If I die in a road accident that is no less a tragedy for my family than if I am blown up.
Why do light bulbs need to be connected to the internet?
So you can control them via an app. Rather than, you know, a light switch.
Mr kle, please do get with the programme. Didn't you know that the IoT is the next great thing?
Guilty admission, we do have a Nest for our HVAC system.
The IoT is only one of a vast number of things coming down the line awfully rapidly - granted it examples a lot including self driving cars but its really going to be an era of automating...
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
The Democratic convention (and it's clear that posters here aren't following it) is the optimistic, patriotic version, to stand against the GOP project terror, whereby they learn completely the wrong lessons of 'leave' winning. Obama even quoted Reagan and the 'shining city on a hill' last night. The message, that true conservatives do not support Trump. Peel enough of them away and he's left with no path to 270 EV.
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
You can't win by being not the other.
Yeah, but the DNC message was "Not Trump".
In France you win by not being Le Pen.
A couple more terrorist outrages and I think the rules of that game will have changed as well
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
The issue is that Trump's base don't like the liberal media. The more hysterical they become, the more support he gets.
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
Snip
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
You can't win by being not the other.
Yeah, but the DNC message was "Not Trump".
No, it wasn't, night one and two were all about Clinton, night three was a mix, with Biden and Bloomberg going for Trump and Obama and Kaine being about the greatness of the USA.
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
The most sensible proposal was Nigel Lawson's Hard ECU. Essentially it would have been a parallel currency for Europe, and over time economies might have naturally migrated towards it. Countries - like Greece - would simply never have been able to fund themselves in Hard ECUs.
Nice to see a paper print that the Greek crisis of 2010 wasn't a crisis for Greece itself but for the German and French banks foolish enough to have loaned Greece money - Greece really should have just left the Euro then....
Things you read too rarely in the UK press: Germany is calm, Merkel is popular, perpetrators of attacks arrived before her refugee gambit.
Hmm, Germany is not that calm. A party to the right of even UKIP could become the opposition to the grand coalition after the election. I'm not sure that's a great development.
For all his faults and egoism even Farage wasn't arguing to shoot illegal refugees on sight at the border.
An AfD spokesperson also said that Merkel would need to flee to South America soon for her own protection.
That is a fairly traditional route for disccredited German Leaders. Didn't Uncle Erich end up there as well as the Godwins lot?
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
The solution is to stop as many people needing to commute.
A sensible government policy to promote companies to allow staff to work from home would do all of the following
1) reduce congestion of the transport network . Road and rail 2) Allow staff to be more geographically widespread so allowing staff to live in cheaper areas 3) Bring much needed income into the cheaper areas as wages were spent locally 4) Give people an effective payrise while not costing the company anymore as they no longer have the cost of commuting 5) Provide an employment boost to poorer areas of the country as people are enabled to move out of the south east 6) It would also make infrastructure such as schools and hospitals potentially more effective as a better mix of people were in each area. This last is largely supposition on my part though as it seems fairly accepted that the poor and workless tend to have more health and educational issues so diluting areas with people moved from the south east may help 7) Lower the housing crisis in the south east
How do you explain Trump's record high national poll numbers?
You mean like the ones for President Romney? Looking at polls during conventions is a mug's game (and that one has been highlighted more than once). Anyway, look into that teacking poll and it looks to have a house effect even larger than Rasmussen, it's early days for it though, so it may need time to settle down before we can see just how much. People could just as easily have posted this one.
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
I am a fan of Stiglitz for his contributions to risk assessments (insights into imperfect information and its impact on behavioural economics are very helpful in understanding risk perceptions).
Of course, I am even more of a fan now that I know he feels the same about the Euro as me!
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
I'm pleased you lost.
I didn't lose, I have very little exposure to the British econony.
I wasn't wrong on the renegotiation though, was I? Likewise Juncker's appointment. The reason a lot of people here got these things wrong is that they overestimated the ability of Angela Merkel to dictate to the entire EU, and also mistook her vague impressions of helpfulness and sympathy for a willingness to fight for a foreign country's interests.
As a Corbynite (if I can pick up that job posting comments online in support of Jeremy that was mentioned earlier), I do not trust the words 'poll' or 'voters', both lie about what the people want. The people are different from the voters of course.
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
The most sensible proposal was Nigel Lawson's Hard ECU. Essentially it would have been a parallel currency for Europe, and over time economies might have naturally migrated towards it. Countries - like Greece - would simply never have been able to fund themselves in Hard ECUs.
Nice to see a paper print that the Greek crisis of 2010 wasn't a crisis for Greece itself but for the German and French banks foolish enough to have loaned Greece money - Greece really should have just left the Euro then....
Greece had plenty of opportunities to leave the Euro, most recently with the full backing of the IMF. Germany even proposed that Germany should leave the Euro (temporarily) in order to sort out its debts,
So been putting out some questions about Junker appointing Barnier as the Commission's Brexit chief. So far the reaction is all negative, on both sides of the channel. The main opinion is that it is now clear that the Commission doesn't intend to negotiate in good faith and the nations of Europe will have to either sack the commission on a classic EU fudge or just sideline them.
I've also asked about the 7 year emergency brake. No one knows what it means in practice. It seems to theoretical to work in reality. How can a country pull the trigger and then overnight bring in visas and quotas to immigration? If that's what it means. Most people agree that free movement in both senses needs reform, Schengen I'd a security risk and free movement of labour shouldn't be free movement to claim benefits.
Juncker is a colossal twat and wants to punish the UK for voting to Leave.
The EU leaders generally do not and want a practical deal.
#junckermustgo
If the British wanted a practical deal maybe they shouldn't have put together a negotiation brain trust consisting of Fox, Davis and Boris Johnson.
Yes, but you are a foaming, tin-foiled, frothing, virulent anti-US paranoiac massive europhile who's been posting about the delights of Brussels on here for about 10 years - and you were posting barely 18 months ago about how any renegotiation was futile and would achieve precisely nothing, and nor should it - so I think we can safely discount anything you say.
I'm pleased you lost.
I didn't lose, I have very little exposure to the British econony.
I wasn't wrong on the renegotiation though, was I? Likewise Juncker's appointment. The reason a lot of people here got these things wrong is that they overestimated the ability of Angela Merkel to dictate to the entire EU, and also mistook her vague impressions of helpfulness and sympathy for a willingness to fight for a foreign country's interests.
I largely agree with your second paragraph. But even Dave got more than you claimed he would: I think you'd said it might just be an amendment to the Working Time Directive for the NHS. In reality, the EU did move more than that - just not enough.
Thankfully, I think Theresa May gets this which is why she's hobnobbing across the continent.
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
The issue is that Trump's base don't like the liberal media. The more hysterical they become, the more support he gets.
In this narrow sense, it is like Brexit. If some bien-pensant wanker that you already despise tells you you're a racist Little Englander, it's hardly going to change your mind.
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
Snip
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
You can't win by being not the other.
Yeah, but the DNC message was "Not Trump".
No, it wasn't, night one and two were all about Clinton, night three was a mix, with Biden and Bloomberg going for Trump and Obama and Kaine being about the greatness of the USA.
Only if you paid attention. If you did not, it was "Not Trump"
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
I am a fan of Stiglitz for his contributions to risk assessments (insights into imperfect information and its impact on behavioural economics are very helpful in understanding risk perceptions).
Of course, I am even more of a fan now that I know he feels the same about the Euro as me!
Surprised no one is picking up on the likely go ahead today for the Hinkley Point project.
According to the interviews on R4 this am, afaicr the total cost atm is estimated at £18b, and the two similar builds being conducted currently by EDF are up to 3 times over original budget and up to 10 years over schedule. Does anyone (outside government) think this is an even half sane idea?
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
The most sensible proposal was Nigel Lawson's Hard ECU. Essentially it would have been a parallel currency for Europe, and over time economies might have naturally migrated towards it. Countries - like Greece - would simply never have been able to fund themselves in Hard ECUs.
It seems to be most Europeans are up for strong multilateral pan-European cooperation between national governments, where they agree to do so, but can get quite pissed off if the political structure of the EU force them to do something they don't want to do.
The euro shoehorned the lira, DM, Franc and peseta into the Euro overnight and just made it fit.
We're still living with the consequences of that (one of which being that visiting those countries is now just a little bit more boring as a result)
And still Trump leads in the Polls. Is Donald the new Jezza: The worse the media say about him, the more support he gets?
snip
That's not the aim. As per Corbyn, make his cultists evervmore angry and deranged and the centrists and sensible conservatives start to peel away. I just followed a Trump interview this morning about this and it's increasingly incoherent; feeding into the narrative that he is a danger to the USA. The tax releases is another issue, to point out how unamerican he is. It's probably worth a small flutter on Pence as president, given the direction of travel.
Snip
I am very wary of supposed pro Trump social media by the way, the Russian troll army has been very active in his support. I crossed swords with the, over Ukraine, they seek to close down debate and flood the internet.
A few of us are watching the DNC - I'd agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the narrative the Dems are trying to build.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future) Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers) Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record) Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I think the big thing that people are picking g up on was that the RNC message was 'Not Hilary '.
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
You can't win by being not the other.
Yeah, but the DNC message was "Not Trump".
No, it wasn't, night one and two were all about Clinton, night three was a mix, with Biden and Bloomberg going for Trump and Obama and Kaine being about the greatness of the USA.
Only if you paid attention. If you did not, it was "Not Trump"
I've watched a fair chunk and it's felt like a lot of identity politics, Bill was a great president nostalgia, Obama talked about himself, what a shame Michelle isn't the candidate. It took the main speakers three days to stop talking about Trump.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
Easy.
Rebuilding bridges and tunnels would not only be very expensive but would result in massive disruption on the existing network. Too simplistic.
@ScottyNational: Supreme Court: SNP confirm that after today's ruling, under Independence, the Supreme Court will be replaced with online petitions & a flag
Surprised no one is picking up on the likely to go ahead today for the Hinkley Point project.
According to the interviews on R4 this am, afaicr the total cost atm is estimated at £18b, and the two similar builds being conducted currently by EDF are up to 3 times over original budget and up to 10 years over schedule. Does anyone (outside government) think this is an even half sane idea?
I was so astounded that that big rail tunnel project in Switzerland recently was apparently constructed on time and on budget, which I didn't think was a possibility with big projects. Presumably the actual cost of this, far more complicated project, will be £50bn. Why even pretend it will cost what is estimated?
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
The reason that the Clapham disaster was so bad is that a third train ploughed into the wreckage.
Train injuries are so rare (modern trains are far stronger than the Mk1s in the Clapham disaster) and capacity would be reduced so much that to enforce seatbelts is considered not to be reasonably practicable.
It is not considered reasonably practicable to have seats with seatbelts and ban standing and they have far more accidents.
If you did, fares would need to triple at peak times due to the capacity reduction.
The new Class 700 trains which are being introduced to Thameslink over the next two years have 660 seats and room for 1200 to stand.
The purpose of health and safety is to keep risks as low as reasonably practicable not as low as possible.
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
The most sensible proposal was Nigel Lawson's Hard ECU. Essentially it would have been a parallel currency for Europe, and over time economies might have naturally migrated towards it. Countries - like Greece - would simply never have been able to fund themselves in Hard ECUs.
It seems to be most Europeans are up for strong multilateral pan-European cooperation between national governments, where they agree to do so, but can get quite pissed off if the political structure of the EU force them to do something they don't want to do.
The euro shoehorned the lira, DM, Franc and peseta into the Euro overnight and just made it fit.
We're still living with the consequences of that (one of which being that visiting those countries is now just a little bit more boring as a result)
As a frequent business traveller, the Euro has saved me a fair amount. In the old days, I used to have a drawer full of loose change and small denomination notes from a dozen European countries.
I realise that is pretty narrow self interest, mind
No official news on Corbyn high court case but Corbyn's legal team looking very happy. Think it's a win for the Labour leader.
Of course they might be happy because they are eyeing up the fat fees from an appeal!
I love those sought of anecdotes - they are so meaningless, but we cannot help ourselves to look for evidence. I recall on EURef night seeing two arch remainers sharing a happy conversation and laughing, but it wasn't a sign they were optimistic (the time had passed on that), they were just discussing how much they enjoyed the last episode of Game of Thrones.
Surprised no one is picking up on the likely to go ahead today for the Hinkley Point project.
According to the interviews on R4 this am, afaicr the total cost atm is estimated at £18b, and the two similar builds being conducted currently by EDF are up to 3 times over original budget and up to 10 years over schedule. Does anyone (outside government) think this is an even half sane idea?
It's fine, I was told by the experts that Brexit will stop this.
Surprised no one is picking up on the likely go ahead today for the Hinkley Point project.
According to the interviews on R4 this am, afaicr the total cost atm is estimated at £18b, and the two similar builds being conducted currently by EDF are up to 3 times over original budget and up to 10 years over schedule. Does anyone (outside government) think this is an even half sane idea?
Surprised no one is picking up on the likely to go ahead today for the Hinkley Point project.
According to the interviews on R4 this am, afaicr the total cost atm is estimated at £18b, and the two similar builds being conducted currently by EDF are up to 3 times over original budget and up to 10 years over schedule. Does anyone (outside government) think this is an even half sane idea?
I was so astounded that that big rail tunnel project in Switzerland recently was apparently constructed on time and on budget, which I didn't think was a possibility with big projects. Presumably the actual cost of this, far more complicated project, will be £50bn. Why even pretend it will cost what is estimated?
While Casino can give us more details, I believe Crossrail is on target and on budget.
How do you explain Trump's record high national poll numbers?
You mean like the ones for President Romney? Looking at polls during conventions is a mug's game (and that one has been highlighted more than once). Anyway, look into that teacking poll and it looks to have a house effect even larger than Rasmussen, it's early days for it though, so it may need time to settle down before we can see just how much. People could just as easily have posted this one.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
Easy.
I've often thought that.
You do realise it would be twice as expensive per mile to do that as HS2 will cost?
How do you explain Trump's record high national poll numbers?
You mean like the ones for President Romney? Looking at polls during conventions is a mug's game (and that one has been highlighted more than once). Anyway, look into that teacking poll and it looks to have a house effect even larger than Rasmussen, it's early days for it though, so it may need time to settle down before we can see just how much. People could just as easily have posted this one.
The solution is to stop as many people needing to commute.
A sensible government policy to promote companies to allow staff to work from home would do all of the following
1) reduce congestion of the transport network . Road and rail 2) Allow staff to be more geographically widespread so allowing staff to live in cheaper areas 3) Bring much needed income into the cheaper areas as wages were spent locally 4) Give people an effective payrise while not costing the company anymore as they no longer have the cost of commuting 5) Provide an employment boost to poorer areas of the country as people are enabled to move out of the south east 6) It would also make infrastructure such as schools and hospitals potentially more effective as a better mix of people were in each area. This last is largely supposition on my part though as it seems fairly accepted that the poor and workless tend to have more health and educational issues so diluting areas with people moved from the south east may help 7) Lower the housing crisis in the south east
Wouldn't disagree with any of that, Mr. Pagan. It would take not very much money (all of it from the employers) and provide huge benefits. It will however, really impact on middle managers (what are they going to do without employees in the office to "manage") and people whose jobs depend on meetings.
Hmmm, the more I think about it the better the idea becomes. HMG enacts legislation requiring a company to provide a guaranteed seat per ticket. The City (and the civil service) and their equivalents in Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh etc., are forced to reform their working practices. The worker bees get a better life and a whole level of pen pushers become redundant. Productivity will zoom, and it will shift employment out of London.
I can see the logic in not publishing propagandas videos / photos, but no names seems like a bad idea.
I posted a link to a Department of Justice (in the US) study into lone wolf terrorists - it said that they were primarily motivated by seeing their name in lights, and that you could significantly cut the number of attacks by denying perpetrators the oxygen of publicity.
Not just that but, as I pointed out yesterday, the bulk of the cost to society of terrorism comes from our (over)reaction to it. If we limit the publicity, we also limit that overreaction.
It is a fine line to walk - between informing and preparing the public for resilience, and limiting the effectiveness and hence attractiveness of terrorism in the first place.
You can only call it an overreaction if you treat all causes of death as equivalent, which is arbitrary and wrong. I am quite prepared to get more exercised over one terrorist killing than 1,000 road deaths.
Can you specify more precisely the areas in which we are over reacting to terrorists? Too much intelligence time, too many checks at airports, too many police on streets?
Of course, Volkwagen has killed more people - due to diesel emissions cheating - than in all the terrorist incidents in Europe this year. Yet not a single person worries about that.
Personally, I think the government should treat all early curtailed life the same. If I die in a road accident that is no less a tragedy for my family than if I am blown up.
Lots of people worry about it, actually. And we derive a lot of utility from VWs.
Your view is legitimate, obviously. I think it might change if you were punched in the face by a terrorist.
I can see the logic in not publishing propagandas videos / photos, but no names seems like a bad idea.
I posted a link to a Department of Justice (in the US) study into lone wolf terrorists - it said that they were primarily motivated by seeing their name in lights, and that you could significantly cut the number of attacks by denying perpetrators the oxygen of publicity.
Not just that but, as I pointed out yesterday, the bulk of the cost to society of terrorism comes from our (over)reaction to it. If we limit the publicity, we also limit that overreaction.
It is a fine line to walk - between informing and preparing the public for resilience, and limiting the effectiveness and hence attractiveness of terrorism in the first place.
You can only call it an overreaction if you treat all causes of death as equivalent, which is arbitrary and wrong. I am quite prepared to get more exercised over one terrorist killing than 1,000 road deaths.
Can you specify more precisely the areas in which we are over reacting to terrorists? Too much intelligence time, too many checks at airports, too many police on streets?
Of course, Volkwagen has killed more people - due to diesel emissions cheating - than in all the terrorist incidents in Europe this year. Yet not a single person worries about that.
Personally, I think the government should treat all early curtailed life the same. If I die in a road accident that is no less a tragedy for my family than if I am blown up.
But VW didnt cause accidents, at most they just caused a few elderly smokers lungs to give out a year or two sooner than they would have anyway.
As an aside, I've found a bit in the Stiglitz interview I profoundly disagree with. I do not believe for a second any European leaders "secretly welcomed mass unemployment". On the contrary, they absolutely hated it because it threatened their jobs and their reputations.
'The reason a lot of people here got these things wrong is that they overestimated the ability of Angela Merkel to dictate to the entire EU, and also mistook her vague impressions of helpfulness and sympathy for a willingness to fight for a foreign country's interests.'
Surprising then that Merkel dictated EU policy on Greece & got what she wanted & then bypassed the entire EU and allowed one million immigrants in.
What you refer to as her vague impressions of helpfulness are of course based on protecting Germany's trading position with it's number one export market in Europe.
Maybe you can enlighten us as to which EU countries are stepping forward to fill in the UK's £11 billion contribution black hole or alternatively which countries have volunteered to slash their EU funded projects ?
How do you explain Trump's record high national poll numbers?
You mean like the ones for President Romney? Looking at polls during conventions is a mug's game (and that one has been highlighted more than once). Anyway, look into that teacking poll and it looks to have a house effect even larger than Rasmussen, it's early days for it though, so it may need time to settle down before we can see just how much. People could just as easily have posted this one.
Trump is not a traditional candidate and he has not yet found his ceiling. All else is noise.
The thing is that with trump things might change and things might get better.
Under Hilary just more of the same
Hilary = REMAIN
Yeah, but Trump isn't Brexit.
Trump has a tougher job to win than Brexit because he's actually a real person standing for a real office so he doesn't have the same capacity to collect protest votes.
Nevertheless, voting Trump is the only chance most Americans will ever get to make a meaningful vote against a fatalistic view of what progress looks like. Many of them will take it.
How do you explain Trump's record high national poll numbers?
You mean like the ones for President Romney? Looking at polls during conventions is a mug's game (and that one has been highlighted more than once). Anyway, look into that teacking poll and it looks to have a house effect even larger than Rasmussen, it's early days for it though, so it may need time to settle down before we can see just how much. People could just as easily have posted this one.
Trump is not a traditional candidate and he has not yet found his ceiling. All else is noise.
The thing is that with trump things might change and things might get better.
Under Hilary just more of the same
Hilary = REMAIN
Yeah, but Trump isn't Brexit.
Trump has a tougher job to win than Brexit because he's actually a real person standing for a real office so he doesn't have the same capacity to collect protest votes.
Nevertheless, voting Trump is the only chance most Americans will ever get to make a meaningful vote against a fatalistic view of what progress looks like. Many of them will take it.
If the US were to start raising trade barriers, that would not be good for the world.
This is world trade in the aftermath of the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act:
It's a good piece, and well worth a read. I shall be buying his book.
Short version: the euro is shit.
The most sensible proposal was Nigel Lawson's Hard ECU. Essentially it would have been a parallel currency for Europe, and over time economies might have naturally migrated towards it. Countries - like Greece - would simply never have been able to fund themselves in Hard ECUs.
Nice to see a paper print that the Greek crisis of 2010 wasn't a crisis for Greece itself but for the German and French banks foolish enough to have loaned Greece money - Greece really should have just left the Euro then....
Greece had plenty of opportunities to leave the Euro, most recently with the full backing of the IMF. Germany even proposed that Germany should leave the Euro (temporarily) in order to sort out its debts,
It was the Greek politicians who bottled it.
'Germany even proposed that Germany should leave the Euro (temporarily) in order to sort out its debts'
Comments
Smothering news with a pillow has gone.
If an airline was running a service with 100 seats, would they be allowed to cram 200 people on board? No. If you sit in a car you have to wear a seatbelt and to carry more passengers than there are proper seats with belts is a criminal offence. Why? Because of safety; if people are not properly seated and strapped in then the risk of injury or death is massively increased even at quite low speeds.
So will someone please explain why this principle does not apply to railways?
In 1988 we had the Clapham Rail Disaster. Three commuter trains, one stationary and two running a low speed all collided just outside Clapham Junction Station. Two of the trains were packed with standing passengers. 38 people died and 415 were injured. The toll of lives lost and ruined would have been far less had the railways been subject to the same rules as aeroplanes, private cars and coaches. In my commuting days I was involved several times in incidents when overcrowded trains suddenly had to brake very hard, people were hurt (fortunately none seriously that I saw).
Yet I read this morning that some commuter trains, and not only in and out of London, are still carrying twice or more the number of passengers that they are designed to carry. (London underground is probably even worse).
Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? How will the money to be spent on HS2, actually help overcrowding on commuter routes (inter-city trains are mostly empty during the day).
A ticketed service in the way you envisage would be the train equivalent of a coach.
Solution: Rebuild the bridges/tunnels on the routes and run double-decker trains.
Easy.
The week started with a lot of angry Bernie or Busters shouting down speakers, but the Weds session was a masterclass in building broad appeal. The big keynote speakers
Biden (old school appeal to blue collar America, big sell on the optimistic vision of America's future)
Bloomberg (billionaire shade throwing at Trump, very bitchy, appeal to aspirational white collar workers)
Tim Paine (folksy charm, god-fearing 'regular' American, Dad jokes, decent track record)
Obama (hope, internationalism, security)
Viewing figures so far for the DNC are bigger than the RNC. US based friends reported people glued to Biden speech in particular. Will be interesting to see if this translates into a post convention opinion poll bounce for Hillary. If not, its going to be a long hard campaign.
I'm pleased you lost.
(coat)
Download Greasemonkey widget using Add Ons, then save his PB script from his website - Edmund Edgar IIRC. Sure he'll provide details - unless he has me on Ignore
It was reminiscent of Kerry's 'Not Bush' 2004 campaign.
You can't win by being not the other.
Disagree. It was a masterclass in how broad appeal has been built in the last 25 years.
The rules have changed. See Brexit and Trump getting the nomination for reference.
Trump is 'Not the Status Quo (and by the way Hillary is a criminal)'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gabby-giffords-hillary-clinton-gun-control_us_57991fb2e4b0d3568f85cdd6
Here is a little thought experiment. If the railways were brought under the same regulation as every other form of longer distance transport (i.e. a ticket means a seat), the City of London would have problems - those worker bees would not be able to get in on time. The City, a very wealthy place, would then have a choice: reform its working arrangements or contribute to a serious modernisation of London's transport network. Either Way the lives of the worker bees would be significantly improved. (The same would go for Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and divers other places that rely on commuter hell to make their money).
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/28/royal-dutch-shell-second-quarter-net-profit-comes-in-at-118-billion.html
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standseilbahn
Personally, I think the government should treat all early curtailed life the same. If I die in a road accident that is no less a tragedy for my family than if I am blown up.
It's brave, minister.
A sensible government policy to promote companies to allow staff to work from home would do all of the following
1) reduce congestion of the transport network . Road and rail
2) Allow staff to be more geographically widespread so allowing staff to live in cheaper areas
3) Bring much needed income into the cheaper areas as wages were spent locally
4) Give people an effective payrise while not costing the company anymore as they no longer have the cost of commuting
5) Provide an employment boost to poorer areas of the country as people are enabled to move out of the south east
6) It would also make infrastructure such as schools and hospitals potentially more effective as a better mix of people were in each area. This last is largely supposition on my part though as it seems fairly accepted that the poor and workless tend to have more health and educational issues so diluting areas with people moved from the south east may help
7) Lower the housing crisis in the south east
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-challenger-owen-smith-would-make-a-better-leader-than-corbyn-say-voters-in-poll-a3306571.html
Under Hilary just more of the same
Of course, I am even more of a fan now that I know he feels the same about the Euro as me!
I wasn't wrong on the renegotiation though, was I? Likewise Juncker's appointment. The reason a lot of people here got these things wrong is that they overestimated the ability of Angela Merkel to dictate to the entire EU, and also mistook her vague impressions of helpfulness and sympathy for a willingness to fight for a foreign country's interests.
It was the Greek politicians who bottled it.
Thankfully, I think Theresa May gets this which is why she's hobnobbing across the continent.
No official news on Corbyn high court case but Corbyn's legal team looking very happy. Think it's a win for the Labour leader.
Of course they might be happy because they are eyeing up the fat fees from an appeal!
According to the interviews on R4 this am, afaicr the total cost atm is estimated at £18b, and the two similar builds being conducted currently by EDF are up to 3 times over original budget and up to 10 years over schedule. Does anyone (outside government) think this is an even half sane idea?
The euro shoehorned the lira, DM, Franc and peseta into the Euro overnight and just made it fit.
We're still living with the consequences of that (one of which being that visiting those countries is now just a little bit more boring as a result)
The public do not have a clue who Smith is and will not be voting in the leadership race.
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/758648236886351872
Train injuries are so rare (modern trains are far stronger than the Mk1s in the Clapham disaster) and capacity would be reduced so much that to enforce seatbelts is considered not to be reasonably practicable.
It is not considered reasonably practicable to have seats with seatbelts and ban standing and they have far more accidents.
If you did, fares would need to triple at peak times due to the capacity reduction.
The new Class 700 trains which are being introduced to Thameslink over the next two years have 660 seats and room for 1200 to stand.
The purpose of health and safety is to keep risks as low as reasonably practicable not as low as possible.
I realise that is pretty narrow self interest, mind
Bad - the rules mean we are fucked
game domino
Hmmm, the more I think about it the better the idea becomes. HMG enacts legislation requiring a company to provide a guaranteed seat per ticket. The City (and the civil service) and their equivalents in Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh etc., are forced to reform their working practices. The worker bees get a better life and a whole level of pen pushers become redundant. Productivity will zoom, and it will shift employment out of London.
Your view is legitimate, obviously. I think it might change if you were punched in the face by a terrorist.
'The reason a lot of people here got these things wrong is that they overestimated the ability of Angela Merkel to dictate to the entire EU, and also mistook her vague impressions of helpfulness and sympathy for a willingness to fight for a foreign country's interests.'
Surprising then that Merkel dictated EU policy on Greece & got what she wanted & then bypassed the entire EU and allowed one million immigrants in.
What you refer to as her vague impressions of helpfulness are of course based on protecting Germany's trading position with it's number one export market in Europe.
Maybe you can enlighten us as to which EU countries are stepping forward to fill in the UK's £11 billion contribution black hole or alternatively which countries have volunteered to slash their EU funded projects ?
Nevertheless, voting Trump is the only chance most Americans will ever get to make a meaningful vote against a fatalistic view of what progress looks like. Many of them will take it.
Would have been astonished if the ruling had been any different.
This is world trade in the aftermath of the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act:
ahem