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Could Attorney-General Barr be next in line to be sacked by Trump? – politicalbetting.com

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  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,279

    My guess is that speed limiters will quickly become the norm - because you won't get insurance without one. And that limit will come down over time.
    I`d support an increase to the maximum speed limit to 85 mph if, and only if, 100% of vehicles were limited to 85 mph.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    My guess is that speed limiters will quickly become the norm - because you won't get insurance without one. And that limit will come down over time.
    It's all gone very quiet, but the plan was the EU and us will have new cars interactively limited to whatever the prevailing local speed limit is by 2022 (next year,nearly). Track days only, guys.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,601
    Foxy said:

    Yes, electric cars are simply much nicer to drive!
    But, but, no vroom vroom!

    Actually as I age I find loud cars and motorbikes incessantly annoying.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,601

    Agree with all four.
    On the roads thing, I do get annoyed when people trot out the "roads generate traffic; it's called 'induced traffic', you know," thing.

    I researched the phenomenon of induced traffic in considerable depth a couple of years ago (from the 1994 SACTRA report onwards), because I wanted to decide which side to take on some proposed local roads, and concluded that the "roads generate traffic" soundbite is oversimplistic and misleading. Because "lack of roads also generates traffic" is also equally true, and very often overrides the "roads generate traffic" element.

    In essence, there are four sources of induced traffic:
    - People changing the time of their journey. When a bypass or improved roads are made available to reduce congestion, people who avoided the peak times to avoid the congestion can now drive at peak times, causing a temporal shift. Okay, this happens, but overall, it usually ends up with less congestion than originally (as if the congestion were to reach the same point, they'd switch back to going absurdly early or late)

    - People changing the route of their journey. For example, instead of going through villages, they go via a new bypass. That's literally the point of it, though.

    - People changing the mode of their journey. Such as people who did go via train or plane driving instead. The solution to this is to improve the alternate mode, as if they still prefer the congested roads, the alternate mode must be even worse.

    - People making journeys that otherwise they would not have done. This is also arguably the entire point of having roads in the first place, and they'll only have incentive to do this if the overall level of congestion is still reduced.

    Other than that, there is still increased demand for traffic - such as from new homes and new businesses. That's going to be there regardless of whether new roads are provided. If they're not, it means that existing roads will get further overloaded, people will have to travel at absurd times of the day, carry out rat runs, or simply not make needed journeys at all (as we see when the roads go down and seize up).

    Ahem. Sorry. Touchy subject.
    Thank you. I get the worry over emissions but the way some treat ant new road as a stab at the heart of the planet is just histrionics.

    See also that it means building on green space. Yes that's what building things will entail, it cant all be brownsite. Arguments over location and necessity are one thing (and usually just a cover for outright opposition), but are we supposed to never build anything again?
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,279
    Nigelb said:

    'Cos everyone will be buying electric, and it will become increasingly hard to run ICE vehicles.
    In five years?
  • I'm fine with the policy (and was fine with the other apparent policy too which clearly was communicated to NHS staff like Foxy) - let's follow a plan and stick to it. But you will surely admit that Government media operation is currently leaden-footed? The story of "NHS first" has been out there for weeks - all of us here know it, so Downing Street press office must know it too. It would have been simple at any time to say "There have been reports of X, but actually Y, please plan on that basis". This isn't even a political point, just a matter of staying on top of the issue.
    But the lead feet thing isn't for the usual reason (the comms system being overwhelmed by the realities of a fast-moving situation). It's part of the baleful influence of Cummings to DEFEND EVERY STATEMENT no matter how absurd that becomes. See the peevish rebuttal blogs that came out when a Sunday paper had a juicy story.

    The supposed theory is that it shows strength not to bend in the wind. The trouble is that things that don't bend eventually break in a much more dangerous way.
  • Nigelb said:

    'Cos everyone will be buying electric, and it will become increasingly hard to run ICE vehicles.
    I'd debating at what point I need to chop in my 2018 Volvo S90. Beautiful car, but residual values are already lower than modelled and as the push to electrification continues a big diesel will end up being worth buttons.

    Ironically I seem to spending time browsing for pick-up trucks. My impending move to the country has got me thinking 4wd ground clearance and carrying capability would be useful to have...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,572
    Stocky said:

    I`d support an increase to the maximum speed limit to 85 mph if, and only if, 100% of vehicles were limited to 85 mph.
    100% of new vehicles maybe, but you won't ever limit the pool of exisiting cars. So you'd have new shiny cars trundling along at 85, while a pool of ever more rickety ICE cars exercised their Magna Carta-enshrined right to drive ye oxen cart at 150 mph.....
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    I'd debating at what point I need to chop in my 2018 Volvo S90. Beautiful car, but residual values are already lower than modelled and as the push to electrification continues a big diesel will end up being worth buttons.

    Ironically I seem to spending time browsing for pick-up trucks. My impending move to the country has got me thinking 4wd ground clearance and carrying capability would be useful to have...
    Good plan, you want to look at Toyotas (I have an Isuzu but the engine size in the current version is now down to 1.9 ffs). But they are all diesel, no electrics in production even in the US yet.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,279

    100% of new vehicles maybe, but you won't ever limit the pool of exisiting cars. So you'd have new shiny cars trundling along at 85, while a pool of ever more rickety ICE cars exercised their Magna Carta-enshrined right to drive ye oxen cart at 150 mph.....
    No - I know - my suggestion was of the if-I-could-wave-a -magic-wand variety
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,333
    Stocky said:



    Why is the market is going to collapse over the next five years?

    Because the technical, commercial and cultural vector is a headlong rush to EVs.

    All of the major OEMs making vast investments in the technology and aiming for a full range dominated by EVs in the next 10 years. A relatively smaller proportion of new car buyers are going to go IC and there will be a glut of IC cars in the used market.

    It's telling that BMW and Audi have both pulled out of Formula E. They don't need to be there any longer as EVs are rapidly going mainstream.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,601

    Keir's problem. The growing rebellion against sanity:

    https://twitter.com/326Pols/status/1334560531622064128

    Looks like the ones in my area might have, silly things. I know I know, it's because of the threat to the movement whatever, but all this over one guy, who lost 2 elections, one by a lot, and who whose key gripe seems to be he was finally punished for a lifetime of ignoring the whip?

    I'm glad some MPs are willing to defy the whip, but undermine the leader then make an obviously false apology (obviously insincere as he claims he meant the opposite to what he said, and not even he is that stupid) and you cannot be offended at consequences even if many might disagree with those consequences.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 51,133

    I'd debating at what point I need to chop in my 2018 Volvo S90. Beautiful car, but residual values are already lower than modelled and as the push to electrification continues a big diesel will end up being worth buttons.

    Ironically I seem to spending time browsing for pick-up trucks. My impending move to the country has got me thinking 4wd ground clearance and carrying capability would be useful to have...
    If you're happy with it, forget about its residual and run it for as long as it is practicable and economic. Given the large numbers of people who rely on older second hand cars, and won't be able to afford a new electric one any time soon, it's going to be a long time before getting petrol or diesel becomes a problem.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Roger said:

    If you are talking abbot a government run by a pathological liar its quite reasonable to doubt what they say.
    Isn’t it simpler than all this argument that the government were surprised by how they were packed with 900 being the smallest unit without approval to break them up. This led to a change of approach to larger distribution outlets.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,284
    IanB2 said:

    On the island, we've been told the virus will be dispensed from Portsmouth. Quite how all the elderly inpatients and care home residents are to get there and back isn't clear, for the first dose let alone for a second time.
    My mother in law hasn't been off the Island for 5 years. Indeed I don't think she has even been outside her Nursing Home in Bembridge this year.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,572
    IshmaelZ said:

    It's all gone very quiet, but the plan was the EU and us will have new cars interactively limited to whatever the prevailing local speed limit is by 2022 (next year,nearly). Track days only, guys.
    I look forward to the EU and us interactively limiting Dura Ace to 70 mph.

    I'm not sure that technology will ever exist. Be a huge black market in de-limiters. And police, ambulance, fire, doctors - they wouldn't be limited. So you are always going to face much faster traffic carving through a speed-limited body of vehicles.
  • kle4 said:

    But, but, no vroom vroom!

    Actually as I age I find loud cars and motorbikes incessantly annoying.
    I don't understand why the amount of noise a motorbike makes is even legal. On a residential street at night you are basically waking up the entire street. And don't get me started on sub-woofers on cars that make your house shake as they drive past. Bah humbug!
  • IanB2 said:

    The entire government plan, including a detailed timetable, was leaked in November, and widely reported.
    Oh, its a leaked plan is it?

    Not an official government announcement?

    FFS, NHS staff are ahead of 95% of the UK population......

    Separately, how come the IoW cannot manage on-island distribution, when Guernsey with a little over 1/3 the population can?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 51,133

    But the lead feet thing isn't for the usual reason (the comms system being overwhelmed by the realities of a fast-moving situation). It's part of the baleful influence of Cummings to DEFEND EVERY STATEMENT no matter how absurd that becomes. See the peevish rebuttal blogs that came out when a Sunday paper had a juicy story.

    The supposed theory is that it shows strength not to bend in the wind. The trouble is that things that don't bend eventually break in a much more dangerous way.
    They are not even doing that, though (except for a few issues which presumably they think are key, where they hold and then break}. For everything else it is shifting sands, whether it be travel restrictions and quarantine, or the tiers, or the economic support, and now the vaccine plan. At least one of Rishi's announced comprehensive packages never even got to implementation, and the shifting pattern of local restrictions has reached the point where most people I know have given up following the twists and turns, and are just deciding themselves how best to be careful.

    A further and probably widescale shuffling of the tier arrangements is likely only days away now...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,572

    I don't understand why the amount of noise a motorbike makes is even legal. On a residential street at night you are basically waking up the entire street. And don't get me started on sub-woofers on cars that make your house shake as they drive past. Bah humbug!
    Your Old Gits membership pack is in the post......
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 9,266
    Stocky said:

    I`m hearing that too. Not anti-vaxxers, but vaccine-cautious.
    Also among some of my colleagues (in a university health sciences department) although mostly among the support staff. The scientists do at least have some confidence in science! It makes me worry about take-up though if there's scepticism among people I consider intelligent, rational and relatively well informed. On the other hand, we initially only need take-up in the more at risk groups where the obvious and proven risks of not having the vaccine will hopefully outweigh any fears over vaccine safety. Once a larger number have been vaccinated over many months hopefully the population as a whole will have more confidence - I don't think many will pick up on the fact that the mass-use vaccine will likely be a different one to the one used early on in the most at-risk groups.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,235

    I'd debating at what point I need to chop in my 2018 Volvo S90. Beautiful car, but residual values are already lower than modelled and as the push to electrification continues a big diesel will end up being worth buttons.

    Ironically I seem to spending time browsing for pick-up trucks. My impending move to the country has got me thinking 4wd ground clearance and carrying capability would be useful to have...
    My car has amazing residuals right now. Like Scottish Labour's westminster seat count.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,284

    I'd debating at what point I need to chop in my 2018 Volvo S90. Beautiful car, but residual values are already lower than modelled and as the push to electrification continues a big diesel will end up being worth buttons.

    Ironically I seem to spending time browsing for pick-up trucks. My impending move to the country has got me thinking 4wd ground clearance and carrying capability would be useful to have...
    Yes, I think IC engines will survive longer in rural areas, as no congestion charges on them, genuine need for off road abilities, and also poorer or retired folk who lack the resources to purchase an EV.
  • Dura_Ace said:

    Because the technical, commercial and cultural vector is a headlong rush to EVs.

    All of the major OEMs making vast investments in the technology and aiming for a full range dominated by EVs in the next 10 years. A relatively smaller proportion of new car buyers are going to go IC and there will be a glut of IC cars in the used market.

    It's telling that BMW and Audi have both pulled out of Formula E. They don't need to be there any longer as EVs are rapidly going mainstream.
    The all important q, when will the revolution hit bikes?
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,279
    Stock market: I, Like @IanB2 , have been very bullish about stock markets - which seem to me to be defying gravity.

    Having said that, the traditional "Santa Rally" in share prices could bring significant movement on the upside this year, as the timing will chime with vaccines going into arms.

    Any views on this?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,333



    Ironically I seem to spending time browsing for pick-up trucks. My impending move to the country has got me thinking 4wd ground clearance and carrying capability would be useful to have...

    Get a grinder and truck the fuck out of the S90.



    I've toyed with getting an Amarok V6 pick up for a tow rig but E46/E90 330d/335ds are compellingly cheap so it never stacks up (for me) financially.
  • GadflyGadfly Posts: 1,200

    I don't understand why the amount of noise a motorbike makes is even legal.
    My understanding that it usually isn't, and that the original exhaust is briefly fitted on an annual basis to pass the MOT test.

  • Both excellent points; however those two result in an increase in travel rather than in traffic density.
    The counterfactual of no road building also incurs externalities - reducing the viability of the road network by allowing the traffic level to increase (as more housing and businesses are built) without creating alternatives simply increases misery and emissions as more cars still take to the road (albeit arguably fewer than if the newer roads were built) and they sit there for longer, emitting longer.

    Improving alternate modes needs to be done whether or not more roads are built; that shouldn't be either/or (or, as happens so often, neither/nor).

    We can also reduce the impact of externalities by encouraging non-emitting vehicles and by making alternatives such as remote working more attractive by other means.
    I certainly don't think we should stop all road building, but I would very much like to see a much more balanced approach to transport policy. I can only contrast my life here in the UK with the 10 years that I lived in Germany in this regard.

    Germany: Lots of provision for cycling and a well-thought out, well-maintained and subsidised public transport system. This means that kids can cycle and walk to school, that low rise housing is possible because car ownership isn't essential, thus reducing urban sprawl, that people who can't drive can still participate in public life, that towns centres can be virtually car-free.

    Here (my local area): Life without a car is virtually impossible. Cycling is very much an afterthought, characterised by half-baked schemes that make no actual sense for cyclists to use, and so are abandoned shortly afterwards. Public transport is impractical for many people and very expensive. The town centre is a wasteland of car park.

    I'd also note that cycling and driving are regarded as very much complementary in Germany, with many people owning and using both on a regular basis. Here, it all seems to descend into a culture war between Motorists and Cyclists, as though they were different species. It's absurd.
  • nichomar said:

    Isn’t it simpler than all this argument that the government were surprised by how they were packed with 900 being the smallest unit without approval to break them up. This led to a change of approach to larger distribution outlets.
    Exactly, although the corollary is that the government has only just moved to the detailed logistical planning that ought to have been put in train months ago.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    I look forward to the EU and us interactively limiting Dura Ace to 70 mph.

    I'm not sure that technology will ever exist. Be a huge black market in de-limiters. And police, ambulance, fire, doctors - they wouldn't be limited. So you are always going to face much faster traffic carving through a speed-limited body of vehicles.
    In theory I agree. In practice

    https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/103530/uk-set-to-adopt-eu-mandated-speed-limiters

    "New cars sold in the UK will be fitted with mandatory speed limiters from 2022, after the Department for Transport confirmed it will follow a ruling from the European Commission on safety technology, regardless of whether the UK is in the European Union.

    The limiters, dubbed Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), use traffic-sign-recognition cameras and/or GPS data to determine the speed limit in a particular area, automatically limiting engine power and a vehicle’s speed to the prevailing limit if the driver does not slow down to the limit themselves.

    The ETSC only recommends a “full on/off switch” for the limiters should be included “to aid public acceptance at introduction”, indicating it intends to push for even stricter rules in the future. While it would be possible to override the ISA by pushing hard on the accelerator, the system would be activated every time the car is started.

    The ETSC’s recommendations also stipulate that “If the driver continues to drive above the speed limit for several seconds, the system should sound a warning for a few seconds and display a visual warning until the vehicle is operating at or below the speed limit again.” Once the car returns to or below the speed limit, the limiter would automatically reactivate."
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,284

    I don't understand why the amount of noise a motorbike makes is even legal. On a residential street at night you are basically waking up the entire street. And don't get me started on sub-woofers on cars that make your house shake as they drive past. Bah humbug!
    Often those very noisy vehicles are illegally modified.

    I remember running a Honda CB175 with straight through exhaust* when I was courting Mrs Foxy. No mobile phones in those days, but she was always ready when I arrived at the Nurses home.

    *lovely bike, handled beautifully and great around town. I think it preceeded the exhaust noise regulations.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 9,266

    Agree with all four.
    On the roads thing, I do get annoyed when people trot out the "roads generate traffic; it's called 'induced traffic', you know," thing.

    I researched the phenomenon of induced traffic in considerable depth a couple of years ago (from the 1994 SACTRA report onwards), because I wanted to decide which side to take on some proposed local roads, and concluded that the "roads generate traffic" soundbite is oversimplistic and misleading. Because "lack of roads also generates traffic" is also equally true, and very often overrides the "roads generate traffic" element.

    In essence, there are four sources of induced traffic:
    - People changing the time of their journey. When a bypass or improved roads are made available to reduce congestion, people who avoided the peak times to avoid the congestion can now drive at peak times, causing a temporal shift. Okay, this happens, but overall, it usually ends up with less congestion than originally (as if the congestion were to reach the same point, they'd switch back to going absurdly early or late)

    - People changing the route of their journey. For example, instead of going through villages, they go via a new bypass. That's literally the point of it, though.

    - People changing the mode of their journey. Such as people who did go via train or plane driving instead. The solution to this is to improve the alternate mode, as if they still prefer the congested roads, the alternate mode must be even worse.

    - People making journeys that otherwise they would not have done. This is also arguably the entire point of having roads in the first place, and they'll only have incentive to do this if the overall level of congestion is still reduced.

    Other than that, there is still increased demand for traffic - such as from new homes and new businesses. That's going to be there regardless of whether new roads are provided. If they're not, it means that existing roads will get further overloaded, people will have to travel at absurd times of the day, carry out rat runs, or simply not make needed journeys at all (as we see when the roads go down and seize up).

    Ahem. Sorry. Touchy subject.
    Dammit Andy, you're so out of touch with the way things are done nowadays. Don't you know that you're supposed to just give knee-jerk reactions based on initial impression and rumour, maybe with brief reference to Twitter if you're feeling rigorous? Gathering evidence and coming to a considered view is so 20th century. :tongue:
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,333
    Gadfly said:


    My understanding that it usually isn't, and that the original exhaust is briefly fitted on an annual basis to pass the MOT test.

    Every town in the UK has a bent MoT place that will pass anything for a cash emolument. Just find out where your local minicab driver goes.

    When I had my R35 GTR that had a straight through 4" full race system on that passed all emissions and noise regulations with flying colours.👍
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,601

    Your Old Gits membership pack is in the post......
    I'm a member the Youth Old Gits, thank you.
  • New thread
  • IanB2 said:

    They are not even doing that, though (except for a few issues which presumably they think are key, where they hold and then break}. For everything else it is shifting sands, whether it be travel restrictions and quarantine, or the tiers, or the economic support, and now the vaccine plan. At least one of Rishi's announced comprehensive packages never even got to implementation, and the shifting pattern of local restrictions has reached the point where most people I know have given up following the twists and turns, and are just deciding themselves how best to be careful.

    A further and probably widescale shuffling of the tier arrangements is likely only days away now...
    The government changes what passes for its mind all the time. But, as a matter of principle, it never ever admits doing so. And gets really angry if someone external points it out.

    Can't be healthy for them.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 51,133

    Oh, its a leaked plan is it?

    Not an official government announcement?

    FFS, NHS staff are ahead of 95% of the UK population......

    Separately, how come the IoW cannot manage on-island distribution, when Guernsey with a little over 1/3 the population can?
    Every government announcement is leaked ahead nowadays. The key fact, in this case, is that the whole of the NHS was advised and has been planning on one basis, which has now changed. That is very clear from the sequence of HSJ articles and you have it also from a horse's mouth here on PB.

    Bringing the Pfizer to the island doesn't seem to be on offer (although there must be some hope that the current fuss puts pressure on the MP to get things changed). It may also be that, as one of the lowest incidence areas in the country, we're not seen as a priority concern. Maybe we'll have to wait for the AZ.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,601
    edited December 2020
    Dura_Ace said:

    Every town in the UK has a bent MoT place that will pass anything for a cash emolument. Just find out where your local minicab driver goes.

    When I had my R35 GTR that had a straight through 4" full race system on that passed all emissions and noise regulations with flying colours.👍
    My local place, which i think is honest, literally operates out of a burnt out building.
  • IanB2 said:

    You are getting worse than HY. The entire government plan, including a detailed timetable, was leaked in November, and widely reported. This followed on from confirmation that the NHS and care workers would be first. The leaked plan has NHS staff down for early December and older inpatients down for later in the month. The now reduced number of doses expected pre-Xmas has clearly driven a shuffling of the order.
    No you're worse than HY.

    I've literally quoted news conferences, websites, official publications - one of which was a couple of days ago and another September . . .

    . . . and you think a "leaked" plan and "Guardian" statement trumps that? You're having a laugh.

    The Government website has continuously for months had the JCVI list up. It hasn't changed in months. You are taking the piss. If you think there's a u-turn then quote any OFFICIAL document with a different plan, considering I've linked to official documents that have consistently shown the same things. 🙄
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 9,266
    kle4 said:

    I'm a member the Youth Old Gits, thank you.
    My three-year-old will join you. Every night as I'm saying goodnight he tells me that if I hear a motorbike I have to shout up to him to warn him because he doesn't want to hear it. All stemming from an incident several months back where a very noisy motorbike woke him up just as he was going to sleep :frowning:
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 51,133

    New thread

    Where??
  • Meanwhile in the office of the Leader of the Opposition:

    https://twitter.com/krishgm/status/1334779590460510213

    For me they aren't yet in a position to make a decision - it depends on the deal. If the deal sticks Nissan-killing tariffs and delays on then I can't see why Labour MPs vote for it - voters won't thank them for it when the ceiling starts falling in on them. If on the other hand its continuity EEA/CU then vote for it.

    Time has moved on since both the referendum and the last election. With the deal we will finally be able to face down the consequences and I'd expect them to vote accordingly.

    Whatever Starmer decides I expect a hardcore of Corbynite loons to disobey the whip.

    "It depends" is a perfectly reasonable stand to take at this point for political reasons, given that the content of the agreement is still undecided. Almost by definition though, a trade agreement is not going to contain your "Nissan killing" tariffs and delays.

    Should there be a trade agreement worthy of the name, I suspect the relief will be more palpable from the Remain camp and the question marks will be generated by the hard core ERG faction. Whatever some in the Parliamentary Labour Party may claim at the moment. In those circumstances, I suspect that the majority of both Remain and Leave supporters will be in favour of signing up to it. It'll be quite an easy decision for Starmer to whip the PLP to vote in favour, whilst obviously still holding out for some renegotiation down the line.

    Regarding the hardcore Corbynite loons, they are increasingly following their Leader in his defiance of Starmer in parliamentary votes. I do wonder why there is such a fuss about Corbyn being handed back the whip, since he seemed to set so little store by it when he had it, other than for an unusual period between 2015 and 2019.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,045
    Selebian said:

    Also among some of my colleagues (in a university health sciences department) although mostly among the support staff. The scientists do at least have some confidence in science! It makes me worry about take-up though if there's scepticism among people I consider intelligent, rational and relatively well informed. On the other hand, we initially only need take-up in the more at risk groups where the obvious and proven risks of not having the vaccine will hopefully outweigh any fears over vaccine safety. Once a larger number have been vaccinated over many months hopefully the population as a whole will have more confidence - I don't think many will pick up on the fact that the mass-use vaccine will likely be a different one to the one used early on in the most at-risk groups.
    I'm hopeful that the very fact that the initial tranches are rationed will cause increased take-up due to the natural human desire not to miss out.

    Going straight to: "Would you like the vaccine? It's readily available for anyone," could get umms and ahs and "you know what, I'll wait for someone else to go first."

    "I'm sorry, you can't get the vaccine yet, other people get to go before you, you'll have to wait," makes people react with, "But I want it." Following that with "Okay, but you can't get it before February, and all these people still go first," gets, "All right, all right, I guess that makes sense, hurry up and get to me, please."

    While the alternative that some will get of, "You get to jump to the front of the queue. Would you like to receive it immediately with your special privilege, or go to the back of the queue and wait with the masses for us to get around to you?" often gets a reaction of "Yes, now, please!" regardless of what it is.

    Then, a month or so down the line, there'll be an undercurrent of "are you more of a wimp than the eighty-year-olds who took this without batting an eyelid?" and "Come on, millions have now had it without any problem, and loads of them are old or with medical conditions!"
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,045

    I certainly don't think we should stop all road building, but I would very much like to see a much more balanced approach to transport policy. I can only contrast my life here in the UK with the 10 years that I lived in Germany in this regard.

    Germany: Lots of provision for cycling and a well-thought out, well-maintained and subsidised public transport system. This means that kids can cycle and walk to school, that low rise housing is possible because car ownership isn't essential, thus reducing urban sprawl, that people who can't drive can still participate in public life, that towns centres can be virtually car-free.

    Here (my local area): Life without a car is virtually impossible. Cycling is very much an afterthought, characterised by half-baked schemes that make no actual sense for cyclists to use, and so are abandoned shortly afterwards. Public transport is impractical for many people and very expensive. The town centre is a wasteland of car park.

    I'd also note that cycling and driving are regarded as very much complementary in Germany, with many people owning and using both on a regular basis. Here, it all seems to descend into a culture war between Motorists and Cyclists, as though they were different species. It's absurd.
    I fully agree with that. We're scrutinising developments around my patch with some larger ones coming in and we're being very hot on public transport integration and cycle routes. Choice is crucial, as is the ability to live without a car.
This discussion has been closed.