politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Biden’s answer to those raising questions about his age – get
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Perhaps. The challenge for all of these operators remains scaling up operations so that they actually make money. Amazon lose stacks of cash on delivery and are doubling down by opening up into grocery delivery as part of Prime membership. Which will make the supermarket delivery charges unsustainable to maintain even though they already lose money on delivery.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The army with its flotilla of vans are all delivering goods from local hubs. That is how parcel firms work, even in the days when the Royal Mail had a monopoly. Recreating that monopoly so you only get one van a day makes no real difference if the aggregate capacity needed is three vans a day for your area.RochdalePioneers said:I think you have missed my point - what I described does not already happen. There are a literal army of people in a flotilla of vans. I've had three separate drops in a single day all from different retailers using different couriers. The answer can't be "use Amazon" (who are horrendously expensive to route product through and unresponsive to work with).
An army of competing vans. All losing an ocean of money. Whilst destroying bricks and mortar retail...
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Well I'm not as well educated or versed as many on here. I genuinely didn't know the majority of Commonwealth nations didn't have the monarchy and now I am sure I look very foolish. But I'd rather accept I'm wrong than dig myself further into a hole.Fysics_Teacher said:
There are a few people I know who wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop them!CorrectHorseBattery said:
Yeah I'm clearly ignorant on such matters, I won't argue any further.Sunil_Prasannan said:
The Commonwealth has more than 50 members - only 16 of them (including the UK) are "Commonwealth Realms" with Lizzie as Head of State.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
I wish everyone on this forum would demonstrate the same ability to learn: I expect I am guilty of holding on to positions long after they have been shown to be wrong.
I've tried my best to learn since the 2019 election defeat in all manner of areas, which is why I get very bored when people constantly bring it up.
But thanks for your support.1 -
Well I haven't seen you or spoken to you so from me hello.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Thank you but I have not been away, posting every dayCorrectHorseBattery said:Welcome back @Big_G_NorthWales haven't seen you in a few days
On New Zealand my eldest emigrated there in 2003 and has a Kiwi passport
He now is married and since 2015 has lived with his wife in Vancouver
Canada and Nova Scotia feature quite a lot in our Scottish family, many of their forebears having created a new life there in the early 1900s1 -
I'm genuinely surprised the PM of NZ has talked about leaving it though. The organisation is the definition of benign.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Well I'm not as well educated or versed as many on here. I genuinely didn't know the majority of Commonwealth nations didn't have the monarchy and now I am sure I look very foolish. But I'd rather accept I'm wrong than dig myself further into a hole.Fysics_Teacher said:
There are a few people I know who wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop them!CorrectHorseBattery said:
Yeah I'm clearly ignorant on such matters, I won't argue any further.Sunil_Prasannan said:
The Commonwealth has more than 50 members - only 16 of them (including the UK) are "Commonwealth Realms" with Lizzie as Head of State.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
I wish everyone on this forum would demonstrate the same ability to learn: I expect I am guilty of holding on to positions long after they have been shown to be wrong.
I've tried my best to learn since the 2019 election defeat in all manner of areas, which is why I get very bored when people constantly bring it up.
But thanks for your support.1 -
That's par for the course for Labor/Labour PMs in Australia and New Zealand, but they won't leave the Commonwealth.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
I'm not so sure about a republic in NZ either - the Maori tend to be surprisingly pro-monarchy as they view it as a bulwark against the whims of the settlers - e.g the Treaty of Waitangi. And I doubt now is the time when they want to loosen ties either.
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Republican compassion....
With reservations, we recommend Katherine Fernández Rundle for Miami-Dade state attorney
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article244830077.html
These are both fragile and explosive times. They call for leaders who are battle-tested, compassionate and possessing the will to find the best path forward for all in our community.
We think Katherine Fernández Rundle is such a leader….
https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/12925496423544012810 -
Leaving the Commonwealth by choice is very rare.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
Some nations do get kicked out when they reach pariah status, so it has a negative stigma associated with it.
It's probably seen to be more progressive to be in it than out of it.2 -
Thanks for your insight, I clearly have a lot to learn so thanks for educating me with good graceCasino_Royale said:
Leaving the Commonwealth by choice is very rare.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
Some nations do get kicked out when they reach pariah status, so it has a negative stigma associated with it.
It's probably seen to be more progressive to be in it than out of it.
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Amazon seems to have shut down the fresh food side of that. They still have a grocery side but it is now stuff with long sell by dates, and I can’t even see any tins of stuff on it.RochdalePioneers said:
Perhaps. The challenge for all of these operators remains scaling up operations so that they actually make money. Amazon lose stacks of cash on delivery and are doubling down by opening up into grocery delivery as part of Prime membership. Which will make the supermarket delivery charges unsustainable to maintain even though they already lose money on delivery.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The army with its flotilla of vans are all delivering goods from local hubs. That is how parcel firms work, even in the days when the Royal Mail had a monopoly. Recreating that monopoly so you only get one van a day makes no real difference if the aggregate capacity needed is three vans a day for your area.RochdalePioneers said:I think you have missed my point - what I described does not already happen. There are a literal army of people in a flotilla of vans. I've had three separate drops in a single day all from different retailers using different couriers. The answer can't be "use Amazon" (who are horrendously expensive to route product through and unresponsive to work with).
An army of competing vans. All losing an ocean of money. Whilst destroying bricks and mortar retail...0 -
Not really, but giving life changing proceeds of the fines to the employee would encourage corruption.Malmesbury said:
You are aware of the fines for employing illegal immigrants at the moment?noneoftheabove said:
In your world I am sure no criminal gang would ever dream of paying a middle manager at a large firm to hire people illegally and split the proceeds between the gang, the hirer and the employee whilst the shareholders (i.e. pension funds i.e everyone else) pay out the crazy fines.Malmesbury said:
That is exactly wrong, I think.Luckyguy1983 said:
I had not thought about your solution on boats. It is a sound idea.Malmesbury said:
A major issue is the mythology spread by people smugglers in the home countries. Plus the grass is greener effect.Andy_Cooke said:
The Daily Mail doesn't help.Luckyguy1983 said:
The solution really lies in eliminating the pull factor, and making it clear that whether or not you get here, sadly you won't get in.CarlottaVance said:RAF flying up & down at 450’ over the Straits of Dover:
Though since it’s our side, not sure what good it can do. The solution lies in catching and prosecuting the people smugglers in France.
As I mentioned previously, our asylum processing centres should be overseas. I would suggest one in India, one in Africa, and one in Asia. These are easier for genuine asylum seekers to get to, and present no draw for non-genuine ones.
I mean, if you're in the shoes of someone migrating across the continent and you pick up a paper saying "Anyone getting to the UK gets to stay and gets given free money," as per loads of their headlines, where would you head for?
So you've *heard* that the UK is the promised land. Free health care - in clean hospitals*, the state gives you money for existing** etc etc
Then you're in France. It's actually a bit shit. Going back is impossible.....
The trick is to ask why some solutions are unacceptable - for example, one was to charge the last registered *boat owner* with multiple counts of reckless endangerment of life etc. An extraditable offence. For context - there is a whole game being played about selling boats to the traffickers. Including having them "stolen" in the LeaveTheKeysInItCoverYourEyesAndCountOneMississippiTwo... style. Then claim the insurance.....
*Yes, but have you been to some of the countries in question.
**Funny how many people don't know that this is actually an uncommon thing around the world.
I am coming around to the idea that the solution to criminality - all criminality, is zero-tolerance at the grass roots level. There's really no point in months undercover to 'bring down Mr. Big' is there? That just creates a vacuum that someone else fills in seconds. Make it impossible at the grassroots level though, prosecute all pushers, users, thieves, vandals, traffickers, pimps etc., and you make Mr. Big's task an impossible one.
For example, I enjoy the apocalyptic anger my proposal to stamp out criminal employment practises gets -
1) 100k starting fine for the employer.
2) The complainant gets half of any fines.
3) If they are an illegal immigrant (illegally employed) , they co-operate with the investigation and get a conviction - 10 years indefinite leave to remain and clean slate for immigration status.
Shitting on your employees would become as rare as rocking horse poop in 2-3 nanoseconds.0 -
In other news Britain prepares to free itself of the cost and red tape of the EU. The Telegraph bemoans the end of the EU health insurance card. The pharma industry is told it needs a 6 week stock buffer to cope with transition. The government launches a consultation to run Operation Brock (to convert the M20 into a truck park in addition to the huge truck parks being hastily built) until at least October 2021 - according to The Grocer "any delays due to the new checks could be exacerbated by low levels of trader and haulier readiness".
Readiness for what? Why the 400m new customs forms they will need to complete and process at a business cost of £12.8bn of course. Using the new Goods Vehicle Movement System which doesn't currently exist. Processed by the new army of customs officials not yet hired never mind trained. But apparently the government will issue on the spot £300 fines to hauliers who transgress the GVMS system and risk being impounded and their goods destroyed.
Get your popcorn in. Nice and early as there won't be available trucks to deliver it from factory to DC to store as they'll all be stuck somewhere in Kent.
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I've read a lot about a D10 (democracy 10) alliance building on Five Eyes for democratic global security.Pulpstar said:
We can't exist as Juche Britain, so closer links with CANZUK, India, the USA are and always were the necessary corollary to moving away from the EU. This is that fact being applied in practise.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
I know you're not a fan of the current form of Brexit, but what were you expecting with *any* Brexit.
If I understand it correctly it's the G7 countries- Japan, Italy, Germany, France, UK, US and Canada, and three others - India, South Korea and Australia.
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I wonder how bad things need to get before we take whatever the EU offers us.
I think rejecting EEA is mad in the circumstances.2 -
On the other hand this suggests that what you say is their aim, though they may face an uphill battle. Certainly I stopped using Amazon to buy food as soon as I was able to get a regular Ocado slot instead.RochdalePioneers said:
Perhaps. The challenge for all of these operators remains scaling up operations so that they actually make money. Amazon lose stacks of cash on delivery and are doubling down by opening up into grocery delivery as part of Prime membership. Which will make the supermarket delivery charges unsustainable to maintain even though they already lose money on delivery.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The army with its flotilla of vans are all delivering goods from local hubs. That is how parcel firms work, even in the days when the Royal Mail had a monopoly. Recreating that monopoly so you only get one van a day makes no real difference if the aggregate capacity needed is three vans a day for your area.RochdalePioneers said:I think you have missed my point - what I described does not already happen. There are a literal army of people in a flotilla of vans. I've had three separate drops in a single day all from different retailers using different couriers. The answer can't be "use Amazon" (who are horrendously expensive to route product through and unresponsive to work with).
An army of competing vans. All losing an ocean of money. Whilst destroying bricks and mortar retail...0 -
To be honest, I might accept a higher number of fair and legal asylum applications (say, 100k a year from the most vulnerable and deserving worldwide) over a lower number of 45k illegal ones.CorrectHorseBattery said:1 -
Australia's most important security relationship is the USA (by a very long way) then a second tier of India, Japan and Singapore. Then France (Shortfin Barracuda). The UK and Aus do have a joint F-35 data management facility but the US made us locate it in Florida to troll us.Casino_Royale said:
There's probably more synergy between those nations and the UK on security and foreign policy than there is between the UK and the EU member states.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Australia's strategic threats are China and Indonesia. The UK's are Russia and (apparently) refugees in kayaks. It's hard to see the opportunities for significant co-operation.
To the extent that they care NZ have a security relationship with Aus and that's it.0 -
EEA involves freedom of movement. Can't see that going down well.CorrectHorseBattery said:I wonder how bad things need to get before we take whatever the EU offers us.
I think rejecting EEA is mad in the circumstances.0 -
It depends on the person and the position. Some will be up for it and some wont.Nigelb said:
On the other hand, out genial host, the esteemed septuagenarian Mr. Smithson, is firmly of the opinion that the presidency is best held by someone under 70.OldKingCole said:
Having joined this conversation late, due to having spent the time from 8-9.30 at the gym and then having THINGS TO DO, I am horrified at the ageism here. Joe Biden Jr is, at 78 several years younger than myself, and, partly as a result of said gym, I feel as mentally fit as ever.Luckyguy1983 said:Biden on his bike draws attention to his age as a negative. As does his dodgy facelift.
Where's the confidence in his age and experience? In his achievements? He's not facing a younger, green opponent, but he's facing someone very inexperienced politically, which his years of experience contrast favourably with. I would be trying to sell him as a slick operator - a professional. No school like the old school. Instead they seem to be dubiously trying to reclaim lost vigour.
(I should add that this is not my opinion.)
I dont think it unreasonable that the oldest people ever to stand for the presidency will face more questions about potential impacts of their anymore than it would have been unreasonable to have more questions for Buttegieg about whether had experience enough for the job. I mean, he eligibility requirements so why ask if he had more experience, implying it should be some 50 year old 2 term senator or something, right?1 -
China isn't a threat to the UK?Dura_Ace said:
Australia's most important security relationship is the USA (by a very long way) then a second tier of India, Japan and Singapore. Then France (Shortfin Barracuda). The UK and Aus do have a joint F-35 data management facility but the US made us locate it in Florida to troll us.Casino_Royale said:
There's probably more synergy between those nations and the UK on security and foreign policy than there is between the UK and the EU member states.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Australia's strategic threats are China and Indonesia. The UK's are Russia and (apparently) refugees in kayaks. It's hard to see the opportunities for significant co-operation.
To the extent that they care NZ have a security relationship with Aus and that's it.0 -
Amazon Fresh is still doing a lot of fresh food - my parents can get it in Amersham, High Wycombe seems to be excluded as my brother can't get it.Fysics_Teacher said:
Amazon seems to have shut down the fresh food side of that. They still have a grocery side but it is now stuff with long sell by dates, and I can’t even see any tins of stuff on it.RochdalePioneers said:
Perhaps. The challenge for all of these operators remains scaling up operations so that they actually make money. Amazon lose stacks of cash on delivery and are doubling down by opening up into grocery delivery as part of Prime membership. Which will make the supermarket delivery charges unsustainable to maintain even though they already lose money on delivery.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The army with its flotilla of vans are all delivering goods from local hubs. That is how parcel firms work, even in the days when the Royal Mail had a monopoly. Recreating that monopoly so you only get one van a day makes no real difference if the aggregate capacity needed is three vans a day for your area.RochdalePioneers said:I think you have missed my point - what I described does not already happen. There are a literal army of people in a flotilla of vans. I've had three separate drops in a single day all from different retailers using different couriers. The answer can't be "use Amazon" (who are horrendously expensive to route product through and unresponsive to work with).
An army of competing vans. All losing an ocean of money. Whilst destroying bricks and mortar retail...
Oh and it's cheap compared to Ocado or even Morrisons deliveries.0 -
Gambia left in 2013, but rejoined 2018.Casino_Royale said:
Leaving the Commonwealth by choice is very rare.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
Some nations do get kicked out when they reach pariah status, so it has a negative stigma associated with it.
It's probably seen to be more progressive to be in it than out of it.
The Maldives left in 2016, but rejoined this February.
Pakistan left in 1972, but rejoined in 1989.
SA left in 1961 but rejoined in 1994.
Zimbabwe left in 2003, and hasn't rejoined.0 -
Its being relaunched with menaces...Fysics_Teacher said:
Amazon seems to have shut down the fresh food side of that. They still have a grocery side but it is now stuff with long sell by dates, and I can’t even see any tins of stuff on it.RochdalePioneers said:
Perhaps. The challenge for all of these operators remains scaling up operations so that they actually make money. Amazon lose stacks of cash on delivery and are doubling down by opening up into grocery delivery as part of Prime membership. Which will make the supermarket delivery charges unsustainable to maintain even though they already lose money on delivery.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The army with its flotilla of vans are all delivering goods from local hubs. That is how parcel firms work, even in the days when the Royal Mail had a monopoly. Recreating that monopoly so you only get one van a day makes no real difference if the aggregate capacity needed is three vans a day for your area.RochdalePioneers said:I think you have missed my point - what I described does not already happen. There are a literal army of people in a flotilla of vans. I've had three separate drops in a single day all from different retailers using different couriers. The answer can't be "use Amazon" (who are horrendously expensive to route product through and unresponsive to work with).
An army of competing vans. All losing an ocean of money. Whilst destroying bricks and mortar retail...0 -
It's never going to stop, is it?
https://twitter.com/CllrJohnDavey/status/1290545986687897602?s=20
'Come back to us 'cos we're much nicer people now and you can be more like NI' would be brave arguments to use.1 -
They really are the most clueless people imaginable...Theuniondivvie said:It's never going to stop, is it?
https://twitter.com/CllrJohnDavey/status/1290545986687897602?s=20
'Come back to us 'cos we're much nicer people and you can be more like NI' would be brave arguments to use.0 -
Without getting in to the commonwealth bit which many have commented on, I wonder if that referendum would go better than the waste of time their last PM spent trying to get the flag changed by referendum.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
But I think it highly likely there will be a glut of republic referendums in the next 5-10 years. Not that all will succeed, but theres a lot of people and parties who want one and there seems no reason on some of them for a delay other than waiting for Her Majesty to die. In some places there not being makes sense, but in places with PMs in support of such a change (and it being party policy) what else is holding them up?0 -
Another good Applebaum article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/how-beat-populists-when-facts-dont-matter/615082/0 -
Because supply routes aren't a monopoly as neither are a couple of the others you mention. There are alternatives to royal mail for example. Parcel delivery from a local hub has a low cost of entry for new services. A single man with a van could enter the market.RochdalePioneers said:
I can see the potential for drift into mediocrity - but how is that any different to any of the other monopoly providers we have? My mum wants to send me a cheque through the post the monopoly supplier is Royal Mail. I want fibre broadband? The monopoly supplier is Virgin. I want utilities? Can chose who I buy off but the infrastructure company owns the supply route.Pagan2 said:
The problem with that is who awards the contract. If I find as a customer the delivery company contracted routinely gives me crap service I can currently buy from another online place that uses a different firm. Under your model I am stuck with it.RochdalePioneers said:What D2C needs to be sustainable is the equivalent of the postie. Doesn't matter what I order or from where it all gets delivered by the same route. Compete for local contracts if you like but once the contract is awarded ParcelCo delivers literally everything in that area. In an electric van. You only get a bespoke delivery for outsize stuff like a washing machine. Big reduction in the number of vehicles scuttling around, reduction of overlapping waste, make deliver to home actually cover its costs.
Logically there are only 3 classes of entity that can award that contract
A) the mail order firms which means realisticly amazon gets to choose
B ) The council which is a recipe for greased palms
C) The customers in the area and I can't see that happening
I'm starting with the simple premise that competition in its current form is unsustainable. It will coalesce into a primary delivery route whether thats Amazon buying out the competition or ParcelCo being let out on a national framework like any other utility.
Utilities are monopolies purely because it wouldn't be sane for every gas company to run its own pipes everywhere.0 -
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From the Grauniad's live feed Boris says he will extend quarantine:
“I don’t want to advise people about their individual holidays, individual decisions, they should look at the travel advice from the Foreign Office clearly. But what I will say, and I hope people would expect us to do this, in the context of a global pandemic, we’ve got to keep looking at the data in all the countries to which British people want to travel.
Where it is necessary to impose restrictions or to impose a quarantine system, we will not hesitate to do so. It’s been a huge effort for the entire population of this country to get the disease down to the levels that we are currently seeing, but we do not want reinfection and that’s why we’ve got to keep a very, very close eye on the data in destinations around the world.”
What quarantine? Mrs RP and the kids came home from Spain yesterday. No paperwork taken no electronic forms required not a mention by the airline or by UK Border Force. Despite the waffle from Shagger literally anyone can cross the UK border with this pox without even a cursory check. Yet in saying "essential travel only" and "you must self-isolate" he manages to inflict the maximum damage on the travel industry for the minimal public health gain.0 -
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Well, I am a teacher: I see it as my job to help people learn.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Well I'm not as well educated or versed as many on here. I genuinely didn't know the majority of Commonwealth nations didn't have the monarchy and now I am sure I look very foolish. But I'd rather accept I'm wrong than dig myself further into a hole.Fysics_Teacher said:
There are a few people I know who wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop them!CorrectHorseBattery said:
Yeah I'm clearly ignorant on such matters, I won't argue any further.Sunil_Prasannan said:
The Commonwealth has more than 50 members - only 16 of them (including the UK) are "Commonwealth Realms" with Lizzie as Head of State.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
I wish everyone on this forum would demonstrate the same ability to learn: I expect I am guilty of holding on to positions long after they have been shown to be wrong.
I've tried my best to learn since the 2019 election defeat in all manner of areas, which is why I get very bored when people constantly bring it up.
But thanks for your support.
None of us are as well educated as we things we are, including me.
What I do know is that the first step to learning is to want to learn. We are also living in an era when those who want to learn have more opportunities than at any time in history: you have easy access to more information from your computer than I did when I went to the university library while doing my degree.
The hard part (and I am certainly guilty of this) is to realise that what you thought was true turns out not to be. The ability to do that (and even harder, to admit it to others) is crucial.2 -
Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.0 -
it won't go down well. The question is whether the available alternatives look likely to go down even worse. And politicians who don't like choosing the least bad of multiple rubbish options shouldn't have joined the circus.RobD said:
EEA involves freedom of movement. Can't see that going down well.CorrectHorseBattery said:I wonder how bad things need to get before we take whatever the EU offers us.
I think rejecting EEA is mad in the circumstances.0 -
The Board of Directors vote of confidence in the manager - meanwhile the CEO starts the hunt for a new manager.Scott_xP said:
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The electronic return form is required, it is just that they aren’t checking, or at least, you weren’t checked. It should have been filled nevertheless.RochdalePioneers said:From the Grauniad's live feed Boris says he will extend quarantine:
“I don’t want to advise people about their individual holidays, individual decisions, they should look at the travel advice from the Foreign Office clearly. But what I will say, and I hope people would expect us to do this, in the context of a global pandemic, we’ve got to keep looking at the data in all the countries to which British people want to travel.
Where it is necessary to impose restrictions or to impose a quarantine system, we will not hesitate to do so. It’s been a huge effort for the entire population of this country to get the disease down to the levels that we are currently seeing, but we do not want reinfection and that’s why we’ve got to keep a very, very close eye on the data in destinations around the world.”
What quarantine? Mrs RP and the kids came home from Spain yesterday. No paperwork taken no electronic forms required not a mention by the airline or by UK Border Force. Despite the waffle from Shagger literally anyone can cross the UK border with this pox without even a cursory check. Yet in saying "essential travel only" and "you must self-isolate" he manages to inflict the maximum damage on the travel industry for the minimal public health gain.1 -
They won't care - all politicians want to do is deliver what they promised which means No freedom of movement and blow the consequences.Stuartinromford said:
it won't go down well. The question is whether the available alternatives look likely to go down even worse. And politicians who don't like choosing the least bad of multiple rubbish options shouldn't have joined the circus.RobD said:
EEA involves freedom of movement. Can't see that going down well.CorrectHorseBattery said:I wonder how bad things need to get before we take whatever the EU offers us.
I think rejecting EEA is mad in the circumstances.0 -
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?0 -
France, Spain and Italy are all 'front line' countries as far as asylum routes go. And Germany has its idiotic 'all welcome' policy that is responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Britain is not one of the front line states and has not invited the whole third world to come and stay. So if genuine asylum seekers are looking for a safe haven they should be declaring themselves in the front line states rather than travelling through 2 or 3 countries to try and get across the Channel.3 -
The best one was Rwanda, with no links to the Empire, which applied to join just to annoy the French, and was probably allowed to for the same reason. How British can you get?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Gambia left in 2013, but rejoined 2018.Casino_Royale said:
Leaving the Commonwealth by choice is very rare.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
Some nations do get kicked out when they reach pariah status, so it has a negative stigma associated with it.
It's probably seen to be more progressive to be in it than out of it.
The Maldives left in 2016, but rejoined this February.
Pakistan left in 1972, but rejoined in 1989.
SA left in 1961 but rejoined in 1994.
Zimbabwe left in 2003, and hasn't rejoined.3 -
I`m surprised that your family had no electronic forms to complete. We did when we returned recently from Croatia to Luton - and they checked we had done it at Customs. Our airline reminded us a couple of times while we were away.RochdalePioneers said:From the Grauniad's live feed Boris says he will extend quarantine:
“I don’t want to advise people about their individual holidays, individual decisions, they should look at the travel advice from the Foreign Office clearly. But what I will say, and I hope people would expect us to do this, in the context of a global pandemic, we’ve got to keep looking at the data in all the countries to which British people want to travel.
Where it is necessary to impose restrictions or to impose a quarantine system, we will not hesitate to do so. It’s been a huge effort for the entire population of this country to get the disease down to the levels that we are currently seeing, but we do not want reinfection and that’s why we’ve got to keep a very, very close eye on the data in destinations around the world.”
What quarantine? Mrs RP and the kids came home from Spain yesterday. No paperwork taken no electronic forms required not a mention by the airline or by UK Border Force. Despite the waffle from Shagger literally anyone can cross the UK border with this pox without even a cursory check. Yet in saying "essential travel only" and "you must self-isolate" he manages to inflict the maximum damage on the travel industry for the minimal public health gain.
The aim of the form is to declare where one has been on holiday - and where one will be in next few days if the track-and-tracers need to get hold of us. It was quite detailed and a bit of a pain to complete to be honest.
As always with the government`s Covid policies, it is about nudges and disincentives, not authoritarian rule. And, of course, creating the impression that the government is acting appropriately. They are all about appearances. I think Johnson needs to grow a pair (I know).0 -
Is Guido the canary down the coal mine of Tory Unionism?
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1292781804760510467?s=200 -
But this risks even more damage. If all, or a very significant number of these appeals succeeds then the value of the whole marking system will be downgraded. The sad truth is that a lot of students have got better marks than they would have in the exam already. That is about to increase significantly.eek said:
The Board of Directors vote of confidence in the manager - meanwhile the CEO starts the hunt for a new manager.Scott_xP said:0 -
Asylum seekers can declare themselves in the UK, they're not breaking any laws by doing so.Richard_Tyndall said:
France, Spain and Italy are all 'front line' countries as far as asylum routes go. And Germany has its idiotic 'all welcome' policy that is responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Britain is not one of the front line states and has not invited the whole third world to come and stay. So if genuine asylum seekers are looking for a safe haven they should be declaring themselves in the front line states rather than travelling through 2 or 3 countries to try and get across the Channel.0 -
Given that those are both extreme ends of a spectrum, I'm not sure why you think a binary choice between the two is necessary.No_Offence_Alan said:
Yes, the Brexiteers need to make up their minds betweenPulpstar said:
We can't exist as Juche Britain, so closer links with CANZUK, India, the USA are and always were the necessary corollary to moving away from the EU. This is that fact being applied in practise.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
I know you're not a fan of the current form of Brexit, but what were you expecting with *any* Brexit.
"slap on the tariffs to protect British industry and agriculture" and
"zero tariffs so we can buy lots of cheap stuff".
Regarding the wider point about CANZUK, we do have a lot in common with those other countries, and it would be lovely to think we might help each other more in the future, but I don't see that we should jump into a new union having just left one, nor do I see why those countries should alter their geopolitical plans just because we've decoupled from the EU and we're on the market.
I simply want us to operate as a stable, democratic, and prosperous independent nation. I have not seen a shred of evidence that we cannot do that.1 -
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.0 -
Openreach refused to accept that my house (and the other thousand or so on this development) existed despite being happy to come and install a second phone line. As we didn't exist there was no demand to upgrade our local cabinet to fibre and therefore no prospects of fast broadband. Until Virgin came and did the install, but all that did was replace one absolute monopoly supplier with another - if I want fibre broadband I can have Virgin or Virgin.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
Customer service? Spent several years exchanging messages with Openreach about fibre rollout. Eventually someone admitted they surveyed our local cabinet just before the development was built but as the decision had been made it was right and therefore no right of appeal. Same with Virgin whose contractor managed to miss out the mini cul-de-sac across the road - they haven't got it, can't have it, won't get it as they've apparently already fully cabled this area.1 -
Sounds like the bit where the bloke that played Moriarty gets thrown done a lift shaft by Daniel Craig.Casino_Royale said:
I've read a lot about a D10 (democracy 10) alliance building on Five Eyes for democratic global security.Pulpstar said:
We can't exist as Juche Britain, so closer links with CANZUK, India, the USA are and always were the necessary corollary to moving away from the EU. This is that fact being applied in practise.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
I know you're not a fan of the current form of Brexit, but what were you expecting with *any* Brexit.
If I understand it correctly it's the G7 countries- Japan, Italy, Germany, France, UK, US and Canada, and three others - India, South Korea and Australia.
D10 is an excellent idea. Essentially a repurposing of NATO into countries able to work together against the threat from China. 21st Century warfare is unlikely to take note of geographical proximity after all.
Separate topic but a common market between the Anglophone democracies (ex USA) seems logical. Certainly no less logical than a common market between the UK and the Northern European countries. Hopefully if it happens, this time the club don’t do anything silly like try and become one country again while simultaneously watering down the membership too far. Though it should be noted CANZUK share a head of state, very similar legal systems, a language, family and historic ties, similar income/education levels and in three cases even common flag iconography. A far more obvious candidate for a services and labour single market than the one created in Europe.0 -
If it's wrong, does that mean the grades are changing?Scott_xP said:1 -
...and 'use Amazon' doesn't guarantee you a single drop either. My last order was for two things; one reached me (in Cambridge) via Rugby and Newmarket, and the other came via Ipswich, both arriving on the same day...RochdalePioneers said:There are a literal army of people in a flotilla of vans. I've had three separate drops in a single day all from different retailers using different couriers. The answer can't be "use Amazon" (who are horrendously expensive to route product through and unresponsive to work with).
0 -
Its a pretty simple task to organise. A single gatekeeper to ensure the relevant forms have been completed and inspected. Simply have travel documentation a mandatory check for everyone entering the UK where Border Force check passports. Gatwick apparently also not checking according to anecdotage heard on the radio. As for easyJet unless mandated by their regulator why is it in their interest to police forms that puts people off using them?Stocky said:
I`m surprised that your family had no electronic forms to complete. We did when we returned recently from Croatia to Luton - and they checked we had done it at Customs. Our airline reminded us a couple of times while we were away.RochdalePioneers said:From the Grauniad's live feed Boris says he will extend quarantine:
“I don’t want to advise people about their individual holidays, individual decisions, they should look at the travel advice from the Foreign Office clearly. But what I will say, and I hope people would expect us to do this, in the context of a global pandemic, we’ve got to keep looking at the data in all the countries to which British people want to travel.
Where it is necessary to impose restrictions or to impose a quarantine system, we will not hesitate to do so. It’s been a huge effort for the entire population of this country to get the disease down to the levels that we are currently seeing, but we do not want reinfection and that’s why we’ve got to keep a very, very close eye on the data in destinations around the world.”
What quarantine? Mrs RP and the kids came home from Spain yesterday. No paperwork taken no electronic forms required not a mention by the airline or by UK Border Force. Despite the waffle from Shagger literally anyone can cross the UK border with this pox without even a cursory check. Yet in saying "essential travel only" and "you must self-isolate" he manages to inflict the maximum damage on the travel industry for the minimal public health gain.
The aim of the form is to declare where one has been on holiday - and where one will be in next few days if the track-and-tracers need to get hold of us. It was quite detailed and a bit of a pain to complete to be honest.
As always with the government`s Covid policies, it is about nudges and disincentives, not authoritarian rule. And, of course, creating the impression that the government is acting appropriately. They are all about appearances. I think Johnson needs to grow a pair (I know).0 -
Guido is very keen on Brexit, and the Scottish Independence is justifiable on exactly they same grounds.Theuniondivvie said:Is Guido the canary down the coal mine of Tory Unionism?
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1292781804760510467?s=201 -
They are breaking the law by entering the country illegally to do so.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Asylum seekers can declare themselves in the UK, they're not breaking any laws by doing so.Richard_Tyndall said:
France, Spain and Italy are all 'front line' countries as far as asylum routes go. And Germany has its idiotic 'all welcome' policy that is responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Britain is not one of the front line states and has not invited the whole third world to come and stay. So if genuine asylum seekers are looking for a safe haven they should be declaring themselves in the front line states rather than travelling through 2 or 3 countries to try and get across the Channel.
And given that seeking asylum is based on the principle of escaping persecution where they came from, we should simply point out that France is a liberal democracy where they were not being persecuted and therefore asylum should be denied on that basis.
What we should be doing is what Cameron suggested back in 2015/16 which is to go to the camps surrounding countries where there is persecution and actively seek out the vulnerable to bring to the UK.2 -
Openreach for some reason can't be contacted directly which I always found a bit strange.RochdalePioneers said:
Openreach refused to accept that my house (and the other thousand or so on this development) existed despite being happy to come and install a second phone line. As we didn't exist there was no demand to upgrade our local cabinet to fibre and therefore no prospects of fast broadband. Until Virgin came and did the install, but all that did was replace one absolute monopoly supplier with another - if I want fibre broadband I can have Virgin or Virgin.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
Customer service? Spent several years exchanging messages with Openreach about fibre rollout. Eventually someone admitted they surveyed our local cabinet just before the development was built but as the decision had been made it was right and therefore no right of appeal. Same with Virgin whose contractor managed to miss out the mini cul-de-sac across the road - they haven't got it, can't have it, won't get it as they've apparently already fully cabled this area.
I'd split them off from BT, let the Government take a minority stake in return for investment and have the major ISPs own Openreach jointly.0 -
What marking system? Simple statistical analysis showed last week that SQA was biased towards the rich rather than the poor and as I pointed out a feedback loop (of are you sure, you seem to be more generous than other schools) was missed and that is the real problem here. The inter-school moderation step failed which mean bias can be seen.DavidL said:
But this risks even more damage. If all, or a very significant number of these appeals succeeds then the value of the whole marking system will be downgraded. The sad truth is that a lot of students have got better marks than they would have in the exam already. That is about to increase significantly.eek said:
The Board of Directors vote of confidence in the manager - meanwhile the CEO starts the hunt for a new manager.Scott_xP said:
And they even managed to annoy the richer schools as a friend mentioned last week (thankfully their son is younger but the school head was furious with the almost random downgrades).0 -
We can only hope so.Theuniondivvie said:Is Guido the canary down the coal mine of Tory Unionism?
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1292781804760510467?s=200 -
They are not breaking the law by seeking asylum in the UK. They're also likely breaking the law to enter France, are they not?Richard_Tyndall said:
They are breaking the law by entering the country illegally to do so.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Asylum seekers can declare themselves in the UK, they're not breaking any laws by doing so.Richard_Tyndall said:
France, Spain and Italy are all 'front line' countries as far as asylum routes go. And Germany has its idiotic 'all welcome' policy that is responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Britain is not one of the front line states and has not invited the whole third world to come and stay. So if genuine asylum seekers are looking for a safe haven they should be declaring themselves in the front line states rather than travelling through 2 or 3 countries to try and get across the Channel.
And given that seeking asylum is based on the principle of escaping persecution where they came from, we should simply point out that France is a liberal democracy where they were not being persecuted and therefore asylum should be denied on that basis.
What we should be doing is what Cameron suggested back in 2015/16 which is to go to the camps surrounding countries where there is persecution and actively seek out the vulnerable to bring to the UK.
What we should be doing is taking our fair share.0 -
Mozambique also joined in 1995 even though it was formerly ruled by PortugalIanB2 said:
The best one was Rwanda, with no links to the Empire, which applied to join just to annoy the French, and was probably allowed to for the same reason. How British can you get?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Gambia left in 2013, but rejoined 2018.Casino_Royale said:
Leaving the Commonwealth by choice is very rare.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
Some nations do get kicked out when they reach pariah status, so it has a negative stigma associated with it.
It's probably seen to be more progressive to be in it than out of it.
The Maldives left in 2016, but rejoined this February.
Pakistan left in 1972, but rejoined in 1989.
SA left in 1961 but rejoined in 1994.
Zimbabwe left in 2003, and hasn't rejoined.0 -
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.1 -
We should be doing our fair share. Indeed had the rest of the EU followed Cameron's suggestion we would have been. And we already do more than the whole of the rest of the EU put together in aid to the refugee camps. What we need to do is stop encouraging people to make dangerous journeys for economic reasons.CorrectHorseBattery said:
They are not breaking the law by seeking asylum in the UK. They're also likely breaking the law to enter France, are they not?Richard_Tyndall said:
They are breaking the law by entering the country illegally to do so.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Asylum seekers can declare themselves in the UK, they're not breaking any laws by doing so.Richard_Tyndall said:
France, Spain and Italy are all 'front line' countries as far as asylum routes go. And Germany has its idiotic 'all welcome' policy that is responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths.CorrectHorseBattery said:
Britain is not one of the front line states and has not invited the whole third world to come and stay. So if genuine asylum seekers are looking for a safe haven they should be declaring themselves in the front line states rather than travelling through 2 or 3 countries to try and get across the Channel.
And given that seeking asylum is based on the principle of escaping persecution where they came from, we should simply point out that France is a liberal democracy where they were not being persecuted and therefore asylum should be denied on that basis.
What we should be doing is what Cameron suggested back in 2015/16 which is to go to the camps surrounding countries where there is persecution and actively seek out the vulnerable to bring to the UK.
What we should be doing is taking our fair share.2 -
Speaking as somebody still on ADSL2 at ~11Mbps, I would be delighted to have the opportunity to get FTTC, but Openreach aren't providing it for my cabinet. (The cabinet was in the 'planning to roll out' stage for years, then in 'supported but there's a waiting list and if you try to place an order to get on the waiting list it just gets cancelled' for a year and is now simply not listed as offering FTTC at all.) I could in theory get broadband from Virgin but I like my current small boutique-ish ISP and don't want to switch to an enormous unresponsive mass market company; so I live with the slower speed instead.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.
0 -
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.0 -
Mozambique, formerly Portuguese, also joined as an independent country.IanB2 said:
The best one was Rwanda, with no links to the Empire, which applied to join just to annoy the French, and was probably allowed to for the same reason. How British can you get?Sunil_Prasannan said:
Gambia left in 2013, but rejoined 2018.Casino_Royale said:
Leaving the Commonwealth by choice is very rare.CorrectHorseBattery said:
I didn't mean to imply it was. I meant that a leader who is pro removing the Monarchy may well be interested in leaving the Commonwealth as well, it doesn't seem a massive stretch to me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Removing the monarchy is not the same as leaving the commonwealthCorrectHorseBattery said:
Cos we're the UK and the UK is great.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Don't mention that's it's not impossible New Zealand leaves the Commonwealth. Their PM is pro a referendum on removing the Monarchy, as is my understanding.
Which countries in the Commonwealth don't have the Monarchy?
Some nations do get kicked out when they reach pariah status, so it has a negative stigma associated with it.
It's probably seen to be more progressive to be in it than out of it.
The Maldives left in 2016, but rejoined this February.
Pakistan left in 1972, but rejoined in 1989.
SA left in 1961 but rejoined in 1994.
Zimbabwe left in 2003, and hasn't rejoined.
0 -
Independence is not binary either, we are still dependent on some things post Brexit and we were mostly independent pre brexit. We were certainly more stable and prosperous pre Brexit as well, and probably we will have to disagree on the democratic, but people on all sides (for differing reasons) of Brexit debate have viewed our democratic institutions with heightened contempt since we started this journey.Luckyguy1983 said:
Given that those are both extreme ends of a spectrum, I'm not sure why you think a binary choice between the two is necessary.No_Offence_Alan said:
Yes, the Brexiteers need to make up their minds betweenPulpstar said:
We can't exist as Juche Britain, so closer links with CANZUK, India, the USA are and always were the necessary corollary to moving away from the EU. This is that fact being applied in practise.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
I know you're not a fan of the current form of Brexit, but what were you expecting with *any* Brexit.
"slap on the tariffs to protect British industry and agriculture" and
"zero tariffs so we can buy lots of cheap stuff".
Regarding the wider point about CANZUK, we do have a lot in common with those other countries, and it would be lovely to think we might help each other more in the future, but I don't see that we should jump into a new union having just left one, nor do I see why those countries should alter their geopolitical plans just because we've decoupled from the EU and we're on the market.
I simply want us to operate as a stable, democratic, and prosperous independent nation. I have not seen a shred of evidence that we cannot do that.0 -
The choice should surely be as such.pm215 said:
Speaking as somebody still on ADSL2 at ~11Mbps, I would be delighted to have the opportunity to get FTTC, but Openreach aren't providing it for my cabinet. (The cabinet was in the 'planning to roll out' stage for years, then in 'supported but there's a waiting list and if you try to place an order to get on the waiting list it just gets cancelled' for a year and is now simply not listed as offering FTTC at all.) I could in theory get broadband from Virgin but I like my current small boutique-ish ISP and don't want to switch to an enormous unresponsive mass market company; so I live with the slower speed instead.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.
Anyone can get FTTP, if you want less speed you pay less, if you want more speed you pay more.
But you don't get that in most places. You're quite rare in that you have Virgin, most people don't.
For me it's a BT line or a BT line. The ISP is basically irrelevant, the infrastructure is the same.
If that is to be the case, it should be future-proof infrastructure that doesn't become useless after a decade as FTTC has and will.
By the 2030s, FTTC will be too slow.0 -
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.2 -
-
On this we completely agree.Pagan2 said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
I don't know what the cost to rollout 100% FTTP coverage is - but it will be a worthwhile investment.
Anyone in the country can get a copper line, doesn't matter where you are. FTTP should be the same.
Make the investment now and it's done. FTTP scales to 1Gbit and beyond.0 -
What they have done is ask the schools to list their pupils in order and then applied the average marks for each school to that order. So, in a typical year if the school gets 5 As and 5Bs then pupil 6 gets a B even if he or she was forecast to get an A. Pupil 6 now appeals on the back of their prelim which showed them getting an A so they get an A as well. Had there been an exam one of pupils 3, 4 and 5 would have screwed up and got a B but they all have As and they keep them.eek said:
What marking system? Simple statistical analysis showed last week that SQA was biased towards the rich rather than the poor and as I pointed out a feedback loop (of are you sure, you seem to be more generous than other schools) was missed and that is the real problem here. The inter-school moderation step failed which mean bias can be seen.DavidL said:
But this risks even more damage. If all, or a very significant number of these appeals succeeds then the value of the whole marking system will be downgraded. The sad truth is that a lot of students have got better marks than they would have in the exam already. That is about to increase significantly.eek said:
The Board of Directors vote of confidence in the manager - meanwhile the CEO starts the hunt for a new manager.Scott_xP said:
And they even managed to annoy the richer schools as a friend mentioned last week (thankfully their son is younger but the school head was furious with the almost random downgrades).
My son has been caught by this because one of his subjects was computing in which the school had traditionally not done that well. So the dux got an A band 1 and my son got an A band 2 despite having got 89% in his prelim, 100% in his course work and the third highest mark in Scotland in his National 5 last year. As this is a band and not a grade there is no appeal but it is not the case that private schools are unaffected by this.0 -
To point out the obvious, if Scotland went in this Parliament doesn't the Tory majority more than double overnight0
-
Ofcome reckon 55% of homes have access to 300Mbps if they want it, which is good enough for this generation.Pagan2 said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.0 -
Everything in the UK south of 52° north will have access to the SpaceX Starlink system by next year-ish (a line roughly Ipswich to Gloucester) and the whole country perhaps a year later. Should substantially lower the bar that has to be hit for FTTP. Though remains to be seen what the upload speeds will be like from the Starlink user terminals.CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.0 -
Probably less than the cost of HS2. Infrastructure like this, the roads, pipes etc are one place where I think there is a good argument for national ownership.CorrectHorseBattery said:
On this we completely agree.Pagan2 said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
I don't know what the cost to rollout 100% FTTP coverage is - but it will be a worthwhile investment.
Anyone in the country can get a copper line, doesn't matter where you are. FTTP should be the same.
Make the investment now and it's done. FTTP scales to 1Gbit and beyond.1 -
With all due respect I think ofcom is talking out its behind. 300mbps inplies fibre and there is no way 55% of homes have access to fibre. I suspect this is as dodgy a stat as the reknowned fcc coverage maps and that ofcom have come up with that figure by taking companies word for their coverage.Grandiose said:
Ofcome reckon 55% of homes have access to 300Mbps if they want it, which is good enough for this generation.Pagan2 said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.0 -
And what do the other 45% have access to?Grandiose said:
Ofcome reckon 55% of homes have access to 300Mbps if they want it, which is good enough for this generation.Pagan2 said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
300Mbps would be fine but we don't have it on a countrywide basis.
The only way to achieve 300Mbps is either massive Virgin expansion or FTTP. FTTP is more future-proof than DOCSIS0 -
Magic? Cant we focus on people, skills, resources, education, systems etc rather than magic?Scott_xP said:
Are there any good Scottish magicians anyway?0 -
BJ and his minions are also very keen on Brexit I believe, however they've not made the intellectual leap to be consistent on Scotland (or are at least extremely unwilling to).Fysics_Teacher said:
Guido is very keen on Brexit, and the Scottish Independence is justifiable on exactly they same grounds.Theuniondivvie said:Is Guido the canary down the coal mine of Tory Unionism?
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1292781804760510467?s=200 -
What's the latency like? It will be useless for teleconferencing if it's highmoonshine said:
Everything in the UK south of 52° north will have access to the SpaceX Starlink system by next year-ish (a line roughly Ipswich to Gloucester) and the whole country perhaps a year later. Should substantially lower the bar that has to be hit for FTTP. Though remains to be seen what the upload speeds will be like from the Starlink user terminals.CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.0 -
Pagan2 said:
I think the asnwer to you and CHB is equally that these are areas which Virgin et al. cover. Plenty of people don't make use of the services available to them.Grandiose said:
With all due respect I think ofcom is talking out its behind. 300mbps inplies fibre and there is no way 55% of homes have access to fibre. I suspect this is as dodgy a stat as the reknowned fcc coverage maps and that ofcom have come up with that figure by taking companies word for their coverage.Pagan2 said:
Ofcome reckon 55% of homes have access to 300Mbps if they want it, which is good enough for this generation.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2Fysics_Teacher said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.CorrectHorseBattery said:
And now you are teaching me.Fysics_Teacher said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
That number has risen 5% in four months which I can believe for coverage, not use.
Read more: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/195256/connected-nations-spring-update-2020.pdf
p.s. accidentally logged into my old account, let's run with it0 -
15 - 25ms - That's the point of the ultra-low earth orbits.CorrectHorseBattery said:
What's the latency like? It will be useless for teleconferencing if it's highmoonshine said:
Everything in the UK south of 52° north will have access to the SpaceX Starlink system by next year-ish (a line roughly Ipswich to Gloucester) and the whole country perhaps a year later. Should substantially lower the bar that has to be hit for FTTP. Though remains to be seen what the upload speeds will be like from the Starlink user terminals.CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
An early test was SpaceX employees playing first person shooter games over Starlink.1 -
The world beating manufacturer of childish magical fantasy is a resident. Maybe that's what he means.noneoftheabove said:
Magic? Cant we focus on people, skills, resources, education, systems etc rather than magic?Scott_xP said:
Are there any good Scottish magicians anyway?0 -
Don't confuse similar opinions with similar interests.Casino_Royale said:
There's probably more synergy between those nations and the UK on security and foreign policy than there is between the UK and the EU member states.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
It's the other way round on economics.0 -
The debate over Black Lives Matter is, understandably, very different in the US to that over here.
And the Republicans appear to be losing it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/10/elections-republicans-black-lives-matterbacklash-389906
...In a sign that the Marxism tag might already be falling flat, Giuliani took his attacks a step further Thursday, falsely accusing BLM activists of being terrorists. "These are people who hate white people," Giuliani said on Fox News. "These are killers."
Some Republican strategists believe that the combination of early summer riots, the controversial stances of some BLMGN members, plus the mainstreaming of “defund the police,” have given them an opening to diminish Democrats' current electoral advantage. Democrats and BLM organizers point to the polls, describing the GOP strategy as a nakedly racist last gasp that won’t gain traction outside the right-wing echo chamber.
“The average voter in that swing suburb is not thinking about BLM as [select] leaders of the movement,” said Jefrey Pollock, president of polling firm Global Strategy Group, who works with Democrats in swing House and Senate races. “They're thinking about the larger conversation that is happening about African Americans and racial injustice.”
At the moment, more than 60 percent of Americans support the movement, according to recent polls. And 62 percent of white people say minorities are not treated equally in the criminal justice system — up 18 points since 2014....1 -
hmmmm someone is not being honest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50865443#:~:text=Three million homes in the,households could get those speeds.
so 3 million homes can get full fibre
even if all the rest can get fttc that has an upper limit well below 300mbps and certainly the fall off in speed with distance is huge.
So if only 3 million households can get full fibre
then either
3 million homes makes up 55% of households
or
Someone is twisting the stats hugely to lie about broadband
I have yet to ever see in any of the houses I have lived in higher than 16mbps mind you I do live in the back of beyond here in central slough0 -
I think an over reliance on magic would explain a lot about this government.Theuniondivvie said:
The world beating manufacturer of childish magical fantasy is a resident. Maybe that's what he means.noneoftheabove said:
Magic? Cant we focus on people, skills, resources, education, systems etc rather than magic?Scott_xP said:
Are there any good Scottish magicians anyway?0 -
I disagree.Dura_Ace said:
Australia's most important security relationship is the USA (by a very long way) then a second tier of India, Japan and Singapore. Then France (Shortfin Barracuda). The UK and Aus do have a joint F-35 data management facility but the US made us locate it in Florida to troll us.Casino_Royale said:
There's probably more synergy between those nations and the UK on security and foreign policy than there is between the UK and the EU member states.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
Australia's strategic threats are China and Indonesia. The UK's are Russia and (apparently) refugees in kayaks. It's hard to see the opportunities for significant co-operation.
To the extent that they care NZ have a security relationship with Aus and that's it.
Australia and the UK maintain very close ties through Five Eyes. We are both part of the five power agreement too, which includes Singapore, Malaysia and NZ. We also collaborate closely on China - which poses a threat to us all - and, indeed, Russia.
You’re not correct on your defence procurement either - the Australian Navy has ordered up to 9 ships based on our Type 26 frigate design. The Royal Canadian Navy has too. To argue the UK is at the bottom of a long list, beneath India, Singapore and France, stretches credibility to its limits.
Australia and the UK share interests in open and free trade and making the world safe for liberal democracies. That, together with the similarities in values, overrides matters of pure geography - even though it’s true to say the US will always be able to offer more in terms of hard military defence to them than we can.1 -
Professor Mcgonagall at Hogwarts, if she has not retired.noneoftheabove said:
Magic? Cant we focus on people, skills, resources, education, systems etc rather than magic?Scott_xP said:
Are there any good Scottish magicians anyway?1 -
If people have FTTP/DOCSIS and they don't use it that's up to them.
But my argument would be that 45% of the country don't have a choice what they use.0 -
My sense is Brexit is starting to settle down as an issue now.noneoftheabove said:
Independence is not binary either, we are still dependent on some things post Brexit and we were mostly independent pre brexit. We were certainly more stable and prosperous pre Brexit as well, and probably we will have to disagree on the democratic, but people on all sides (for differing reasons) of Brexit debate have viewed our democratic institutions with heightened contempt since we started this journey.Luckyguy1983 said:
Given that those are both extreme ends of a spectrum, I'm not sure why you think a binary choice between the two is necessary.No_Offence_Alan said:
Yes, the Brexiteers need to make up their minds betweenPulpstar said:
We can't exist as Juche Britain, so closer links with CANZUK, India, the USA are and always were the necessary corollary to moving away from the EU. This is that fact being applied in practise.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
I know you're not a fan of the current form of Brexit, but what were you expecting with *any* Brexit.
"slap on the tariffs to protect British industry and agriculture" and
"zero tariffs so we can buy lots of cheap stuff".
Regarding the wider point about CANZUK, we do have a lot in common with those other countries, and it would be lovely to think we might help each other more in the future, but I don't see that we should jump into a new union having just left one, nor do I see why those countries should alter their geopolitical plans just because we've decoupled from the EU and we're on the market.
I simply want us to operate as a stable, democratic, and prosperous independent nation. I have not seen a shred of evidence that we cannot do that.
I think it will be rapidly overtaken by culture war conflicts, climate change challenges, and geopolitical security issues in the next year or so.0 -
Grandiose said:
Yes I lived in one of those areas and was yay for me decent broadband rang up virgin only to be told yes we serve your area but not your particular road. Theoretically Virgin cover most of slough and no doubt every house in slough was counted even though probably half would have got the same answerPagan2 said:
I think the asnwer to you and CHB is equally that these are areas which Virgin et al. cover. Plenty of people don't make use of the services available to them.Grandiose said:
With all due respect I think ofcom is talking out its behind. 300mbps inplies fibre and there is no way 55% of homes have access to fibre. I suspect this is as dodgy a stat as the reknowned fcc coverage maps and that ofcom have come up with that figure by taking companies word for their coverage.Pagan2 said:
Ofcome reckon 55% of homes have access to 300Mbps if they want it, which is good enough for this generation.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTP would be a far better investment than hs2Fysics_Teacher said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.CorrectHorseBattery said:
And now you are teaching me.Fysics_Teacher said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
That number has risen 5% in four months which I can believe for coverage, not use.
Read more: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/195256/connected-nations-spring-update-2020.pdf
p.s. accidentally logged into my old account, let's run with it0 -
Sounds as though bandwidth will be the limiting factor.Malmesbury said:
15 - 25ms - That's the point of the ultra-low earth orbits.CorrectHorseBattery said:
What's the latency like? It will be useless for teleconferencing if it's highmoonshine said:
Everything in the UK south of 52° north will have access to the SpaceX Starlink system by next year-ish (a line roughly Ipswich to Gloucester) and the whole country perhaps a year later. Should substantially lower the bar that has to be hit for FTTP. Though remains to be seen what the upload speeds will be like from the Starlink user terminals.CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
An early test was SpaceX employees playing first person shooter games over Starlink.
But for 'edge' locations, it ought to be far superior/cheaper to landline alternatives.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/musk-says-starlink-isnt-for-big-cities-wont-be-huge-threat-to-telcos/
...SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband will have latency low enough to support competitive online gaming and will generally be fast enough that customers won't have to think about Internet speed, Elon Musk said at a conference yesterday. Despite that, the SpaceX CEO argued that Starlink won't be a major threat to telcos because the satellite service won't be good enough for high-population areas and will mostly be used by rural customers without access to fast broadband.
"It will be a pretty good experience because it'll be very low latency," Musk said in a Q&A session at the Satellite 2020 conference (see video). "We're targeting latency below 20 milliseconds, so somebody could play a fast-response video game at a competitive level, like that's the threshold for the latency."
Latency of less than 20ms would make Starlink comparable to wired broadband service. When SpaceX first began talking about its satellite plans in late 2016, it said latency would be 25ms to 35ms. But Musk has been predicting sub-20ms latency since at least May 2019, with the potential for sub-10ms latency sometime in the future.
The amount of bandwidth available will be enough to support typical Internet usage, at least in rural areas, Musk said. "The bandwidth is a very complex question. But let's just say somebody will be able to watch high-def movies, play video games, and do all the things they want to do without noticing speed," he said....0 -
Apoloigies for ballsing up the block quotes.
You can read Ofcom, however the poitns are:
"Ultrafast broadband (>300 Mbps) can be delivered through a variety of technologies such as G.Fast, DOCSIS (Cable) and full fibre"
Superfast broadband (download speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s): superfast broadband continues to be
rolled out across the UK, with an additional 300,000 properties covered since our last report. This
means a total of 27.7 million homes (95%) can now access superfast broadband.
Decent broadband (10Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload speed): the vast majority of UK
properties can now access decent broadband. The number of properties (both residential and
commercial) that cannot receive a ‘decent’ broadband service from a fixed line stands at 608,000
(2%), broadly similar to the 610,000 reported in December. These properties may be eligible for the
broadband universal service, which gives properties unable to get a decent connection the legal
right to request one.
As reported in our report in December, we expect the growing availability of Fixed Wireless Access
(FWA) will further reduce the number of premises unable to get a decent broadband connection
(estimated in December to be around 189,000 premises). We are currently reviewing how we define
and report on coverage of FWA deployments and will address this in our full report at the end of the
year.
0 -
15-25ms isn't bad but I'll believe the coverage and speeds when I see it.Malmesbury said:
15 - 25ms - That's the point of the ultra-low earth orbits.CorrectHorseBattery said:
What's the latency like? It will be useless for teleconferencing if it's highmoonshine said:
Everything in the UK south of 52° north will have access to the SpaceX Starlink system by next year-ish (a line roughly Ipswich to Gloucester) and the whole country perhaps a year later. Should substantially lower the bar that has to be hit for FTTP. Though remains to be seen what the upload speeds will be like from the Starlink user terminals.CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
An early test was SpaceX employees playing first person shooter games over Starlink.0 -
If the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia didn’t have similar interests then they wouldn’t share security and intelligence information amongst themselves nor coordinate statements (and actions) over Hong Kong.williamglenn said:
Don't confuse similar opinions with similar interests.Casino_Royale said:
There's probably more synergy between those nations and the UK on security and foreign policy than there is between the UK and the EU member states.eek said:
Why would Canada, Australia and New Zealand want anything to do with the UK?CorrectHorseBattery said:
That's the bit I can't understand.
It's the other way round on economics.0 -
The capacity for dissent is rapidly being eliminated in Hong Kong.
(And note that any of us who make disparaging comments about the totalitarian shit Xi would also be subject to the national security law should we subsequently travel to China/Hong Kong.)
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/12928004756460011530 -
Your former leader IDS disagrees.Casino_Royale said:My sense is Brexit is starting to settle down as an issue now.
1 -
Slowly but surely the system has been quietly reaching capability for a soft launch in parts of Northern US/Southern Canada any day now. And that’s launching “just” 60 satellites at a time in Falcon 9, to reach the 500-600 odd satellites for that initial purpose.Malmesbury said:
15 - 25ms - That's the point of the ultra-low earth orbits.CorrectHorseBattery said:
What's the latency like? It will be useless for teleconferencing if it's highmoonshine said:
Everything in the UK south of 52° north will have access to the SpaceX Starlink system by next year-ish (a line roughly Ipswich to Gloucester) and the whole country perhaps a year later. Should substantially lower the bar that has to be hit for FTTP. Though remains to be seen what the upload speeds will be like from the Starlink user terminals.CorrectHorseBattery said:
To be honest I still to this day don't know why the Government didn't mandate BDUK was FTTP only but for some reason they took BT's word for it.Fysics_Teacher said:
And now you are teaching me.CorrectHorseBattery said:
FTTC has a limit of about ~79Mbps, if you're within a couple of hundred metres of the cabinet. As you get further away the speed drops.Fysics_Teacher said:
I have FTTC and I normally get a pretty good service. I’m not trying to stream 4k video though.CorrectHorseBattery said:Something that would get great applause from me would be a coherent FTTP strategy from the Government, unfortunately so far I have not seen one.
FTTP should be a USO and a right for all, just as a copper telephone line is. We should jolly well do the investment now and not have to worry about it again.
FTTC and G.Fast have shown themselves to be complete and and utter waste of time and money. And at least Openreach has accepted that.
Frankly I don't care if Openreach is the supplier or not - although I think the Government should own any investment it makes, with some kind of partial ownership - but we really do need to get on and sort this out.
What speed are you getting?
Anything above about 1KM away, it becomes fairly useless.
Even 80Mbps isn't going to be sufficient in under a decade's time, my point is that FTTC is a poor technology because it was an (expensive) stopgap.
G.Fast was just the same, although to their credit Openreach saw fit to stop it after a small-ish rollout.
If we'd done FTTP from 2008 onwards as we should have done, we'd be in a much better position now.
In my parents village in the countryside, FTTC has barely helped at all, most properties are simply too far away to benefit.
BT is a business, their asset is literally copper. It was obvious they were going to try and use it for as long as possible.
Such a missed opportunity.
If Boris Johnson has 80%+ FTTP coverage by 2024 I will be astonished but also he will have a round of applause from me.
This is genuinely the best investment they could make alongside housing.
An early test was SpaceX employees playing first person shooter games over Starlink.
The mind boggles how quickly they’ll be able to ramp up the service as and when the giant Starship programme reaches fruition. Was it 30,000 LEO satellites that the FCC granted then approval for?0 -
0
-
Well its strange then that in slough the only one who gets superfast broadband is someone lucky enough to live on a road wired by virgin. I have fttc so no doubt I get counted in that people who can get superfast broadband whereas in reality the fastest I can get is 16mbps presumably due to distance.Grandiose said:Apoloigies for ballsing up the block quotes.
You can read Ofcom, however the poitns are:
"Ultrafast broadband (>300 Mbps) can be delivered through a variety of technologies such as G.Fast, DOCSIS (Cable) and full fibre"
Superfast broadband (download speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s): superfast broadband continues to be
rolled out across the UK, with an additional 300,000 properties covered since our last report. This
means a total of 27.7 million homes (95%) can now access superfast broadband.
Decent broadband (10Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload speed): the vast majority of UK
properties can now access decent broadband. The number of properties (both residential and
commercial) that cannot receive a ‘decent’ broadband service from a fixed line stands at 608,000
(2%), broadly similar to the 610,000 reported in December. These properties may be eligible for the
broadband universal service, which gives properties unable to get a decent connection the legal
right to request one.
As reported in our report in December, we expect the growing availability of Fixed Wireless Access
(FWA) will further reduce the number of premises unable to get a decent broadband connection
(estimated in December to be around 189,000 premises). We are currently reviewing how we define
and report on coverage of FWA deployments and will address this in our full report at the end of the
year.0
