I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
BigG You also regularly advocate toppling our great PM and party leader Boris, Boris is staying and Boris will not grant indyref2
And thus Johnson will destroy the union.
No that would be granting an indyref2 if the SNP won a majority and Yes led most of the polls, if there is no legal indyref there is no risk of the Union ending
Do you have the ability to see beyond this incredibly narrow short term view?
Is Sturgeon being serioua here or is she just playing up to her crowd?
As independent Ireland takes up her seat on the @UN Security Council today, not (yet) independent Scotland is taken out of the EU against our will. Time to put ourselves in the driving seat of our own future, Scotland #indyref2
She'll be playing to those 2014 No voters in that focus group that you were so entranced with.
You seem to have a good memory..
I just recalled a focus group which I posted as a link, predominately around some of those No voters being unaware of the implications of currency. I linked it once in fact - so what's the problem?
Aren't you meant to be winning over No voters?
You posted it as an example of 'Nats' being unaware of the implications of currency, so jog on with the rewriting guff.
Afaik you're not a once and future voter in Scotland, No or otherwise, so I don't need to win you over to anything.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Just go faster. Wind resistance will be your friend......
One thing that amuses me is when I see someone rock ups on 4 figure priced bike - light as a feather. Then proceed to lock it up with 10 Kg of case hardened steel they have in their backpack.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on health, mental illness, family breakdown, and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other European countries in the second half of the 1960s.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
Taking the bus is easier still.
Running a bus system is more expensive overall. Hence why emerging economies often go through a phase where there are hordes of bikes. Then they get rich enough to invest in serious levels of public transport.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
I'll be honest, whenever Mike announces his/goes on holiday I get a deep sense of foreboding of the time and effort editing PB involves, but the next time Mike goes on holiday I'll be so happy as it means the world has started to get back to normal.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Biking in the sandpit...that doesn't sound pleasant. Why not get an indoor trainer?
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
I think the strategy is to make it happen on Labour’s watch.
Which is also not a “unionist” position. It’s simply a “refuse to take any responsibility” position, which in fairness is a hallmark of the modern Conservative Party.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Exactly, just as Thatcher primed the 21st century SNP hegemony, BJ is in danger of making independence the settled will of the Scottish people. Can you imagine 4 more years of poll after poll favouring independence?
But BJ's self interest and cowardice are what's in the driving seat, so that's what counts.
Is Sturgeon being serioua here or is she just playing up to her crowd?
As independent Ireland takes up her seat on the @UN Security Council today, not (yet) independent Scotland is taken out of the EU against our will. Time to put ourselves in the driving seat of our own future, Scotland #indyref2
She'll be playing to those 2014 No voters in that focus group that you were so entranced with.
You seem to have a good memory..
I just recalled a focus group which I posted as a link, predominately around some of those No voters being unaware of the implications of currency. I linked it once in fact - so what's the problem?
Aren't you meant to be winning over No voters?
You posted it as an example of 'Nats' being unaware of the implications of currency, so jog on with the rewriting guff.
Afaik you're not a once and future voter in Scotland, No or otherwise, so I don't need to win you over to anything.
You may not need to win me over - but not sure how that level of debate will win over my family, who do happen to live in Scotland.
Besides - you could have engaged with the Sturgeon point. The fact you didn't says a lot about you, your tactics, and the nasty underside of the Scottish indy movement.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
The banlieues certainly have big problems, but some deprivation indicators are lower, even for them, than parts of the UK. The spatial distancing of the banlieues is alienating for minority youth and bad for national cohesion, but many of these places still have better educational and health outcomes than equivalent places in Britain like Tower Hamlets, for instance. France has something to learn from Britain on urban integration and cultural pluralism - the things Brexiters tend not to like as much - and Britain has a lot to learn from France in how much it's lost of its public realm and goods.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
Is Sturgeon being serioua here or is she just playing up to her crowd?
As independent Ireland takes up her seat on the @UN Security Council today, not (yet) independent Scotland is taken out of the EU against our will. Time to put ourselves in the driving seat of our own future, Scotland #indyref2
She'll be playing to those 2014 No voters in that focus group that you were so entranced with.
You seem to have a good memory..
I just recalled a focus group which I posted as a link, predominately around some of those No voters being unaware of the implications of currency. I linked it once in fact - so what's the problem?
Aren't you meant to be winning over No voters?
You posted it as an example of 'Nats' being unaware of the implications of currency, so jog on with the rewriting guff.
Afaik you're not a once and future voter in Scotland, No or otherwise, so I don't need to win you over to anything.
You may not need to win me over - but not sure how that level of debate will win over my family, who do happen to live in Scotland.
Besides - you could have engaged with the Sturgeon point. The fact you didn't says a lot about you, your tactics, and the nasty underside of the Scottish indy movement.
Amazing the amount of whiny randos on the internet who start bleating about the nasty underside of the Scottish indy just because they're shown up as dishonest and ill informed and who also have family in Scotland.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
The banlieues certainly have big problems, but certain deprivation indicators are lower even for them than the UK. The spatial distancing of the banlieues is alienating for minority youth and bad for national cohesion, but many of these places still have better educational and health outcomes than equivalent places like Tower Hamlets in the UK, for instance. France has something to learn from Britain on urban integration and cultural pluralism - the things Brexiters tend not to like as much - and Britain has a lot to learn from France in how much it's lost of its public realm and goods.
Having worked around the world, I think that in general UK society works better than French. But less so than Denmark, say. Mind you, Denmark is quite aggressive with it's integration policies.
The public realm and goods in France are not for everyone. And it is made quite clear. Hence the riots.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on health, mental illness, family breakdown, and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other European countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Apart from the fact that median income is higher in the UK than it is in France . . .
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
The banlieues certainly have big problems, but certain deprivation indicators are lower even for them than the UK. The spatial distancing of the banlieues is alienating for minority youth and bad for national cohesion, but many of these places still have better educational and health outcomes than equivalent places like Tower Hamlets in the UK, for instance. France has something to learn from Britain on urban integration and cultural pluralism - the things Brexiters tend not to like as much - and Britain has a lot to learn from France in how much it's lost of its public realm and goods.
Having worked around the world, I think that in general UK society works better than French. But less so than Denmark, say. Mind you, Denmark is quite aggressive with it's integration policies.
The public realm and goods in France are not for everyone. And it is made quite clear. Hence the riots.
I can't agree on the final point. France now has lower child poverty across all classes, for instance, because it's retained a stronger public realm.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on health, mental illness, family breakdown, and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other European countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Apart from the fact that median income is higher in the UK than it is in France . . .
That tells you very little without a great deal of qualifying surrounding information. In reality, it's not the case.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
I'll be honest, whenever Mike announces his/goes on holiday I get a deep sense of foreboding of the time and effort editing PB involves, but the next time Mike goes on holiday I'll be so happy as it means the world has started to get back to normal.
Excellent point. Roll on the next holiday political upset!
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
Scotland's problem (apart from the football team) is that secessionist movements tend to be fissile over the long term. The steam has gone out of many seperatist movements (Vlaams, Quebec, Catalonia, Basque) due to splits and internal conflict. You can see signs of this in the SNP already.
So it has to be now. A general strike, or even the threat of it, will be enough to make Le Bossu fold on #indyref2.
No it wouldn't, Boris has a majority of 80 but only 6 Scottish Tory MPs, he can afford to ignore Sturgeon and Blackford even if the SNP win a majority next year.
Starmer however if he comes to power in 2024 after a hung parliament and reliant on support from SNP MPs is another matter
You are like a Trumpist trying to reverse the Presidential election.
Conservatives may be unionists primarily, but they are also first and foremost largely democrats.
I don't know what will happen next if the Scots do give a majority to the SNP but I'm hopeful democracy will prevail as it did last time.
Knowing what you stand for is important. Accepting that you have lost an election is even more important.
We are the 'Conservative and Unionist Party' the clue is in the title, Sturgeon will not be getting any indyref2 from us no matter how hard she bleats, we respect the once in a generation 2014 vote.
Yes we are the Conservative and Unionist Party which is why if we win the Scottish election then there will be no further referendum. A vote for Scottish Tories is a vote against a referendum.
If we lose the election though then democracy means the election winners decide what happens next. That is democracy.
The SNP running on a cause (another referendum) which is beyond their gift is like council candidates suggesting that if they were elected, they'd scrap trident. Farcical.
Comparing the national government of the most powerful devolved legislature in the world to council candidates? How every dare you.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
Or take the Trigger's Broom approach - buy an okish bike, upgrade it piece by piece as you learn. By the time you have replaced the wheels, the bottom bracket, the pedals, the seat, the handlebars, the front gears, the back gears, the frame...
I had tremendous fun as a kid learning mechanical engineering from slowly turning shop bought bikes into what I wanted. Spent hours carefully adjust bearings to "just so"....
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
That’s nuts, Jebel Hafeet is 4,000’ up and takes an hour to drive to the top!
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Biking in the sandpit...that doesn't sound pleasant. Why not get an indoor trainer?
It’s okay for nine months of the year, if you avoid the middle of the day. 22°C at the moment, 6:30pm. Will be heading out shortly for a walk, to make a start on January’s 5kg weight loss target now that the stinking hangover of this morning has finally gone away!
There’s a gym in my apartment block, but I get bored witless staring around the room, even with Netflix on the iPad. Will keep the indoor biking for the summer months.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
That’s nuts, Jebel Hafeet is 4,000’ up and takes an hour to drive to the top!
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
The thing with the pro cyclists is not only how many watts they can put down, but for how long they can do it for, after already having ridden for several hours and return several days in a row on a grand tour to repeat that feat.
Back from a nice walk with Wifey and pooch around the Iron Age hill fort of Blackdown Rings. Bright sunlight if a little crisp, with views out to a far shimmering sea. Lots of dogs going bonkers, lots of people wishing folks they've never met a happy New Year.
This is not too shabby a start to 2021. Not too shabby at all.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
I just checked my Strava from my ride where the stupid cow ploughed into me in her fucking leavermobile. I had done 28km averaging 200W and Strava calculates that at 33 cal/km.
So 15 might be right depending on your fitness and your willingness to suffer. Power readings are the important numbers. Drop the watts bomb on a regular basis!
It doesn't have a power meter! Distance, speed, time, calories, pulse - that's about it. I can get my heart rate up to 140, though I once managed 130 playing chess!
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
I just checked my Strava from my ride where the stupid cow ploughed into me in her fucking leavermobile. I had done 28km averaging 200W and Strava calculates that at 33 cal/km.
So 15 might be right depending on your fitness and your willingness to suffer. Power readings are the important numbers. Drop the watts bomb on a regular basis!
It doesn't have a power meter! Distance, speed, time, calories, pulse - that's about it. I can get my heart rate up to 140, though I once managed 130 playing chess!
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
That’s nuts, Jebel Hafeet is 4,000’ up and takes an hour to drive to the top!
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
The thing with the pro cyclists is not only how many watts they can put down, but for how long they can do it for, after already having ridden for several hours and return several days in a row on a grand tour to repeat that feat.
It’s almost as if they’re all superhumans on serious amounts of drugs!
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
That’s nuts, Jebel Hafeet is 4,000’ up and takes an hour to drive to the top!
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
The thing with the pro cyclists is not only how many watts they can put down, but for how long they can do it for, after already having ridden for several hours and return several days in a row on a grand tour to repeat that feat.
It’s almost as if they’re all superhumans on serious amounts of drugs!
Surely not...clean as a whistle those cyclists...Pantini going up alpe d'huez in 36 mins was definitely au naturel...
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
That’s nuts, Jebel Hafeet is 4,000’ up and takes an hour to drive to the top!
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
The thing with the pro cyclists is not only how many watts they can put down, but for how long they can do it for, after already having ridden for several hours and return several days in a row on a grand tour to repeat that feat.
It’s almost as if they’re all superhumans on serious amounts of drugs!
Pro cyclists have the strictest anti-doping regime of any sport. I often wonder how the world of pro tennis would like if the same regime applied there.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
It's not just that - the whole top of the French system went there. Civil Service, politics, media, third sector etc etc...
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
It's not just that - the whole top of the French system went there. Civil Service, politics, media, third sector etc etc...
Indeed and almost all of them live and work in Paris, France is even more centralised and elitist than we are
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
It's not just that - the whole top of the French system went there. Civil Service, politics, media, third sector etc etc...
Indeed and almost all of them live in Paris, France is even more centralised and elitist than we are
The savage hatred of "Paris" - meaning the elite - in France, is something to behold.
In rural France, British people are regarded as almost human, in comparison to "Parisians".
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
It's not just that - the whole top of the French system went there. Civil Service, politics, media, third sector etc etc...
Indeed and almost all of them live in Paris, France is even more centralised and elitist than we are
The savage hatred of "Paris" - meaning the elite - in France, is something to behold.
In rural France, British people are regarded as almost human, in comparison to "Parisians".
Absolutely - I asked a French friend once whether us buying a business in france would cause resentment locally.
He laughed and said as the current owner was both an Arab and a Parisian the locals would actually be pleased......
Here, straight out of the blocks, is what looks suspiciously like a genuine T-BOB, a Tangible Benefit Of Brexit. Nothing to do with fish or "buccaneering" either.
I predict that 10 years from now it still tops the list.
I am pleased, but the 'no tangible benefits evah!!1!' crowd makes a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the European Union project, which is to make the EU fairer - not richer, or more competitive, but fairer. It came up in our discussions yesterday about free ports/enterprise zones. The EU basically killed them because they are, in essence, unfair - they are an attempt to advantage certain businesses.
As a wealthier part of the EU, our job was not to grow our own economy, but to facilitate capital outflow to other, poorer parts of the EU. That was working well. The struggle we had in deriving value from the EU was not a bug, it was a feature. We will have to be trying *really* hard for there not to be a tangible benefit.
The Director of the Port of Calais insisting that so long as people do their paperwork properly not only is today going well on the border but there is no reason for problems when traffic volumes are back to normal either.
Almost as if there's no reason to be afraid because although there might be some disruption as people get used to the new paperwork, it is in everyone's interests to make this work correctly.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Shitty cheap bikes are artfully designed by the bike industry in the usually correct assumption that they won't be ridden. If you do ride one regularly you'll break or wear out the bottom bracket or freehub body quite quickly.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
That’s nuts, Jebel Hafeet is 4,000’ up and takes an hour to drive to the top!
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
The thing with the pro cyclists is not only how many watts they can put down, but for how long they can do it for, after already having ridden for several hours and return several days in a row on a grand tour to repeat that feat.
It’s almost as if they’re all superhumans on serious amounts of drugs!
Pro cyclists have the strictest anti-doping regime of any sport. I often wonder how the world of pro tennis would like if the same regime applied there.
Cycling teams can afford the best doctors and pharmacists, to make sure the tests come back negative - or did I get the wrong end of the story of the guy who won the Tour de France seven times, but admitted later that he’d been doped up the whole time?
Yes, many sports have similar problems, and you’re right that there’s a fair amount of variability in how these things get enforced. Someone will almost certainly be sent home in disgrace and stripped of a medal at the Olympics in the summer, claiming they just took something for a bad cold.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
I just checked my Strava from my ride where the stupid cow ploughed into me in her fucking leavermobile. I had done 28km averaging 200W and Strava calculates that at 33 cal/km.
So 15 might be right depending on your fitness and your willingness to suffer. Power readings are the important numbers. Drop the watts bomb on a regular basis!
It doesn't have a power meter! Distance, speed, time, calories, pulse - that's about it. I can get my heart rate up to 140, though I once managed 130 playing chess!
5 moves to the time control and 30 seconds left? I fall in to that trap all too often.
I bought a rear wheel roller thingy before the first lockdown and mounted an old bike on it. The watts seem reasonably accurate to me although I don't ride a road bike with a power meter. It is surprising how far you can go using the calories from a single chocolate bar.
If buying a real bike, it is worth getting one that you actually like riding. A heavy thing with crap gears that come out of adjustment every 50 miles doesn't inspire. It doesn't have to cost £5000 though.
The PB Tory response to SINDY seems to be one of apathy and arrogance, interspersed with threats of military invasion.
Repeating, from November, my recommendations for Unionists:
1: Define, and promote a "third way": devolution of 50% of taxes (i.e. pretty much everything apart from income tax and national insurance). Ability to borrow.
2. Set up the process and governance necessary for a grown-up constitutional choice. Learn the lessons of Brexit: simple majoritarianism is not enough, any vote should be multi-choice/multi-round, with a threshold for change.
3. Fund pro-Union civil groups. There are many sections of Scottish society who (consciously or not) profit from the Union. Find them and sponsor them.
4. Relocate, or create new, Union-wide institutions. Shift UK govt departments to Glasgow and other leading cities. Set up an Arctic Co-operation Council in Inverness. Ensure a Scottish sea on the Bank of *Britain*, with an outpost in Edinburgh.
5. Ensure that Indy complexities of economic and political separation are exposed. Force the SNP to take a concrete position on key issues like currency, pensions, borders, and trade. The costs and traumas of SINDY would be 10x that of Brexit - this needs to be understood.
6. Ensure proper focus in the national press on SNP’s underperformance in key areas.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
A Unionist respects the 2014 vote, does not appease Nationalists who would demand indyref2, then indyref3 then indyref4 at any point of their choice.
If Labour wish to allow indyref2 before a generation has elapsed since 2014 that would be their choice, hopefully Scots would again say No, if they said Yes however history would record it was under a Labour PM that the UK broke up.
What Philip Thompson thinks is irrelevant, if Scotland did go of course there would be near zero chance of a non Blairite Labour Party ever winning a rUK election again, certainly for any sustained period in power
Here, straight out of the blocks, is what looks suspiciously like a genuine T-BOB, a Tangible Benefit Of Brexit. Nothing to do with fish or "buccaneering" either.
I predict that 10 years from now it still tops the list.
I am pleased, but the 'no tangible benefits evah!!1!' crowd makes a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the European Union project, which is to make the EU fairer - not richer, or more competitive, but fairer. It came up in our discussions yesterday about free ports/enterprise zones. The EU basically killed them because they are, in essence, unfair - they are an attempt to advantage certain businesses.
As a wealthier part of the EU, our job was not to grow our own economy, but to facilitate capital outflow to other, poorer parts of the EU. That was working well. The struggle we had in deriving value from the EU was not a bug, it was a feature. We will have to be trying *really* hard for there not to be a tangible benefit.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
Boris Johnson is extremely unpopular in Scotland, a fact he understands well. If he refuses a referendum, he will be storing up resentment toward nobody but Boris Johnson. Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak will have considerably more chance of winning, and the delay to the referendum will not influence as many people to vote to leave as Boris Johnson in charge would. You must see that. Why do you think the nats are slavering to have it now, not in 5 years or so?
This is a useful header because of the final para on Scotland. Philip frames the decision for Johnson (assuming the SNP get that Holyrood victory) as one between what is good for the country and what is good for him - for Johnson, I mean, not Philip, although it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes - the options being respectively granting and denying Sindy2. If we accept that framing, and I think I probably do, it becomes possible to predict in advance to around a 99.95% level of confidence what the outcome will be.
Yep. No Ref. Which makes the following 2 bets good value at current odds -
(i) Back no Sindy2 before 2025 at 2.1 (ii) Lay Sindy2 in 2022 at 4.8
I prefer (ii).
Yes we Tories will block indyref2 whatever happens at Holyrood next year though I think now No Deal is avoided the chances of an SNP majority next year are significantly reduced
Sturgeon and Blackford badly misjudged Scottish opinion by insisting that SNP MPs vote to block the deal.
YouGov polling on 30th December: "Do you think MPs should vote to accept the deal or reject the trade deal?" Response from Scots only: 47% accept, 17% block, 36% don't know.
With her "leave the light on" for Scotland comment, she's making a similar misjudgment. Support for rejoining the EU is not going to be anything like as strong as she thinks it will be, even though that's now the pretext behind the case for a second vote on separation from the UK.
Another expert gives us their opinion from afar, PMSL. Perhaps you should stick to something you actually have a clue about.
Do put a sock in it Malcolm. By the way, congratulations on gaining independence last night.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
A Unionist respects the 2014 vote, does not appease Nationalists who would demand indyref2, then indyref3 then indyref4 at any point of their choice.
If Labour wish to allow indyref2 before a generation has elapsed since 2014 that would be their choice, hopefully Scots would again say No, if they said Yes however history would record it was under a Labour PM that the UK broke up.
What Philip Thompson thinks is irrelevant, if Scotland did go of course there would be near zero chance of a non Blairite Labour Party ever winning a rUK election again, certainly for any sustained period in power
If the SNP win an election then acknowledging that is not "appeasement".
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
HYUFD strikes me as someone about to be put on the Tory PPC list. I am sure he is closer to Tory thinking (if I may use the two words together) than anyone else on this blog. So, I am certain Boris will say no.
First, Boris is very likely to lose any referendum called soon -- so, for sure, he will leave it & hope either that something turns up or that it eventually becomes someone else's problem (Rishi 's or SKS's).
Second, it gives him a huge stick with which to clobber SKS in the next General Election. He can raise the spectre of a weak Labour party forced to deal with the SNP to defenestrate the Tories & enter Government.
So, for Boris, there are zero advantages in saying yes, and plenty of advantages in saying no.
The Director of the Port of Calais insisting that so long as people do their paperwork properly not only is today going well on the border but there is no reason for problems when traffic volumes are back to normal either.
Almost as if there's no reason to be afraid because although there might be some disruption as people get used to the new paperwork, it is in everyone's interests to make this work correctly.
Well from my experience of travelling to France from the very dim and distant past and presenting professionally produced carnets for demo and exhibition stuff I got stopped every single time and had to answer questions on it. Presumably this is because they naturally don't believe you when you say you are bringing it all back and want to check that really is your intention. In my case it was a car load. Just think what you can get in a MccLaren lorry full of car parts or a Rolling Stones lorry full of stage equipment and electronics.
Having the right paperwork is not all that is required.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
Boris Johnson is extremely unpopular in Scotland, a fact he understands well. If he refuses a referendum, he will be storing up resentment toward nobody but Boris Johnson. Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak will have considerably more chance of winning, and the delay to the referendum will not influence as many people to vote to leave as Boris Johnson in charge would. You must see that. Why do you think the nats are slavering to have it now, not in 5 years or so?
Nonsense.
If the SNP are the democratically elected choice of the Scots who are then denied self-determination and democracy then that would put the a stake through the heart of unionism.
The Scots would have been treated with contempt and would know that voting No means they could be denied a say again in the future.
It is every bit as "too clever by half" as denying the British public a say in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
Here, straight out of the blocks, is what looks suspiciously like a genuine T-BOB, a Tangible Benefit Of Brexit. Nothing to do with fish or "buccaneering" either.
I predict that 10 years from now it still tops the list.
I am pleased, but the 'no tangible benefits evah!!1!' crowd makes a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the European Union project, which is to make the EU fairer - not richer, or more competitive, but fairer. It came up in our discussions yesterday about free ports/enterprise zones. The EU basically killed them because they are, in essence, unfair - they are an attempt to advantage certain businesses.
As a wealthier part of the EU, our job was not to grow our own economy, but to facilitate capital outflow to other, poorer parts of the EU. That was working well. The struggle we had in deriving value from the EU was not a bug, it was a feature. We will have to be trying *really* hard for there not to be a tangible benefit.
Novel argument, but still hilariously false.
It is neither false, nor especially novel - as a matter of fact, most EU people will tell you the same thing.
The Director of the Port of Calais insisting that so long as people do their paperwork properly not only is today going well on the border but there is no reason for problems when traffic volumes are back to normal either.
Almost as if there's no reason to be afraid because although there might be some disruption as people get used to the new paperwork, it is in everyone's interests to make this work correctly.
Well from my experience of travelling to France from the very dim and distant past and presenting professionally produced carnets for demo and exhibition stuff I got stopped every single time and had to answer questions on it. Presumably this is because they naturally don't believe you when you say you are bringing it all back and want to check that really is your intention. In my case it was a car load. Just think what you can get in a MccLaren lorry full of car parts or a Rolling Stones lorry full of stage equipment and electronics.
Having the right paperwork is not all that is required.
Though I suspect that is part of the point - that nonsense already happens so it happening again in the future won't be new.
The example gave earlier today on Sky was a ferry full of 36 HGVs, 33 got a green light saying to drive off and enter the roads as normal, no halt whatsoever. 3 HGVs of 36 got an amber light saying to pull over for a check of some sort.
So that's over 90% of HGVs cleared up front without being halted. But then of those 3 that were halted would some of those 3 have been halted already previously like you are typically?
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
HYUFD strikes me as someone about to be put on the Tory PPC list. I am sure he is closer to Tory thinking (if I may use the two words together) than anyone else on this blog. So, I am certain Boris will say no.
First, Boris is very likely to lose any referendum called soon -- so, for sure, he will leave it & hope either that something turns up or that it eventually becomes someone else's problem (Rishi 's or SKS's).
Second, it gives him a huge stick with which to clobber SKS in the next General Election. He can raise the spectre of a weak Labour party forced to deal with the SNP to defenestrate the Tories & enter Government.
So, for Boris, there are zero advantages in saying yes, and plenty of advantages in saying no.
And Boris is mainly concerned about Boris ....
I suspect you're right. You shouldn't be, but I suspect you are.
If that helps the Tories politically and dooms the union simultaneously then win/win as far as I'm concerned; but it is unethical for it to happen that way so I won't compromise my principles by supporting that even if it is a win/win.
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
Biking in the sandpit...that doesn't sound pleasant. Why not get an indoor trainer?
It’s okay for nine months of the year, if you avoid the middle of the day. 22°C at the moment, 6:30pm. Will be heading out shortly for a walk, to make a start on January’s 5kg weight loss target now that the stinking hangover of this morning has finally gone away!
There’s a gym in my apartment block, but I get bored witless staring around the room, even with Netflix on the iPad. Will keep the indoor biking for the summer months.
I'd say you are better off buying a more decent, normal bike and using it normally for normal things, rather than buying a ship-anchor for £150 rather than say £400 and flagellating yourself round a self-hate-loop once a day.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
We need to move away from the old lingo of hard and soft brexits. It's about the deal now and the new binary is thin - like this starter for ten from Johnson - or thick, which Labour would shoot for. Not thick as in stupid - to head off the cheap cracks - but thick as in substantial in scope and rich in detail.
before the markets open for the year what is everyone's share tips? General or specific. I like to dabble in direct shares so have had a quite a 2020 with its various shaped recoveries. I normally use the excellent Economist's "The world in (year) " to get trends in business predictions (had some success in 2019 and 2020 when they said copper would shoot up) but their 2021 edition is rather pessimistic on most fronts with regards to commerce!
I've been out for my first run of the year. Best described as short, slow and sore
Well done! My NYR is to use the Peloton every day - even if just for weights/stretching.
It was by far my best investment of last year. Kept me sane and healthy
They’re pricey, what do you get over a normal bike?
A wildly inaccurate power meter. It had my FTP off by 50% when I tried one!
I bought a reasonably priced exercise bike in the Autumn. It says I only burn 15 calories per km - is that right?
Depends on your weight, how much power your are laying down, etc.
Probably not far off.
When running a rule of thumb is you burn 1calorie for every 1kg of weight every 1km.
So weighing 75kg, I burn approx. 750calories running 10km.
The reason bikes became popular was that they were a cheap and simple means of improving the efficiency of human locomotion.
The effort to go x kilometres on a bike is many, many times less than the effort to run that distance.
I’m looking at getting a bike in the January sales, and have realised that if your goal is to burn calories rather than enter competitions, a ‘heavy’ steel bike is both significantly cheaper and more useful than a carbon-framed triathlon special.
My most recent bicycle was a heavy Pashley, purchased for the purpose of slowing myself down so that I wouldn't stress myself out trying to race everywhere.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
We need to move away from the old lingo of hard and soft brexits. It's about the deal now and the new binary is thin - like this starter for ten from Johnson - or thick, which Labour would shoot for. Not thick as in stupid - to head off the cheap cracks - but thick as in substantial in scope and rich in detail.
How much thicker do you need than zero tariffs, zero quotas and 1200 pages of text?
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
Boris Johnson is extremely unpopular in Scotland, a fact he understands well. If he refuses a referendum, he will be storing up resentment toward nobody but Boris Johnson. Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak will have considerably more chance of winning, and the delay to the referendum will not influence as many people to vote to leave as Boris Johnson in charge would. You must see that. Why do you think the nats are slavering to have it now, not in 5 years or so?
Nonsense.
If the SNP are the democratically elected choice of the Scots who are then denied self-determination and democracy then that would put the a stake through the heart of unionism.
The Scots would have been treated with contempt and would know that voting No means they could be denied a say again in the future.
It is every bit as "too clever by half" as denying the British public a say in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
Yep this in spades. In fact I would say the only chance the Unionists have of winning an Independence referendum is if Johnson immediately agrees when it is asked for. Even then I think the Scots will vote yes but it may well be as close as the EU referendum was. As soon as he starts refusing that gap will widen dramatically.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
HYUFD strikes me as someone about to be put on the Tory PPC list. I am sure he is closer to Tory thinking (if I may use the two words together) than anyone else on this blog. So, I am certain Boris will say no.
First, Boris is very likely to lose any referendum called soon -- so, for sure, he will leave it & hope either that something turns up or that it eventually becomes someone else's problem (Rishi 's or SKS's).
Second, it gives him a huge stick with which to clobber SKS in the next General Election. He can raise the spectre of a weak Labour party forced to deal with the SNP to defenestrate the Tories & enter Government.
So, for Boris, there are zero advantages in saying yes, and plenty of advantages in saying no.
And Boris is mainly concerned about Boris ....
I suspect you're right. You shouldn't be, but I suspect you are.
If that helps the Tories politically and dooms the union simultaneously then win/win as far as I'm concerned; but it is unethical for it to happen that way so I won't compromise my principles by supporting that even if it is a win/win.
Maybe the Scots can engineer a fake Tory Surge in the elections.
Like a good pool shark, they need to disguise their strength. They need to lure Boris in to a game in which he is sure to lose.
The SNP get a majority of one, so they can legitimately get a referendum.
But, the Scottish Tory party surges ... enough to tempt Chancer Boris.
The Director of the Port of Calais insisting that so long as people do their paperwork properly not only is today going well on the border but there is no reason for problems when traffic volumes are back to normal either.
Almost as if there's no reason to be afraid because although there might be some disruption as people get used to the new paperwork, it is in everyone's interests to make this work correctly.
Well from my experience of travelling to France from the very dim and distant past and presenting professionally produced carnets for demo and exhibition stuff I got stopped every single time and had to answer questions on it. Presumably this is because they naturally don't believe you when you say you are bringing it all back and want to check that really is your intention. In my case it was a car load. Just think what you can get in a MccLaren lorry full of car parts or a Rolling Stones lorry full of stage equipment and electronics.
Having the right paperwork is not all that is required.
Though I suspect that is part of the point - that nonsense already happens so it happening again in the future won't be new.
The example gave earlier today on Sky was a ferry full of 36 HGVs, 33 got a green light saying to drive off and enter the roads as normal, no halt whatsoever. 3 HGVs of 36 got an amber light saying to pull over for a check of some sort.
So that's over 90% of HGVs cleared up front without being halted. But then of those 3 that were halted would some of those 3 have been halted already previously like you are typically?
No it doesn't already happen. It used to, then because of the EU it stopped and I just waltzed through, but it will now start all over again. I am not talking about exports but carnets. I suspect all will get stopped.
I mentioned sometime ago about a massive deal I was subcontracted to work on in Cyprus, pre Cyprus being in the EU. It was a £10m deal, with £1m annual maintenance plus all sorts of subsequent addons. I was contracted to manage the pre-sales project which was 3 months, with a 3 week demo at the end. We desperately needed a piece of specialist equipment flown out. Our competitors were in the same boat. The lack of the equipment pretty much broke our preparation because it was held up in customs. Fortunately our competition had the same issue (I know because I was mistaken for the competition when chasing customs). In future their equipment will sail through, but stuff from the UK won't (Carnet please? What is it? Why do you want this here? Can't you get it locally? etc, etc). Deal lost. Only way around that is to move out of the UK.
The Director of the Port of Calais insisting that so long as people do their paperwork properly not only is today going well on the border but there is no reason for problems when traffic volumes are back to normal either.
Almost as if there's no reason to be afraid because although there might be some disruption as people get used to the new paperwork, it is in everyone's interests to make this work correctly.
You cannot say that.
Sky and the BBC are having a collective breakdown already as their desperate hopes for chaos fail to materialise
Also hauliers have told Calais that if they cause undue delays they will relocate to other channel ports
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
HYUFD strikes me as someone about to be put on the Tory PPC list. I am sure he is closer to Tory thinking (if I may use the two words together) than anyone else on this blog. So, I am certain Boris will say no.
First, Boris is very likely to lose any referendum called soon -- so, for sure, he will leave it & hope either that something turns up or that it eventually becomes someone else's problem (Rishi 's or SKS's).
Second, it gives him a huge stick with which to clobber SKS in the next General Election. He can raise the spectre of a weak Labour party forced to deal with the SNP to defenestrate the Tories & enter Government.
So, for Boris, there are zero advantages in saying yes, and plenty of advantages in saying no.
And Boris is mainly concerned about Boris ....
I would agree, but in addition we know Johnson is a procrastinator. He will delay as long as possible.
The specimen date case graphs look awful, but I don't know whether there's a Christmas effect due to people delaying tests they might otherwise had taken on Christmas Day.
30% a week not bad enough for you? Also note the drop in testing, which hides further cases.
We desperately need numbers to start falling by next weekend to show that tier 5 (i.e. tier 4 with schools closed) works. Otherwise, what's tier 6 going to be?
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
It's not just that - the whole top of the French system went there. Civil Service, politics, media, third sector etc etc...
Indeed and almost all of them live in Paris, France is even more centralised and elitist than we are
The savage hatred of "Paris" - meaning the elite - in France, is something to behold.
In rural France, British people are regarded as almost human, in comparison to "Parisians".
I have many friends in France having worked for a French company for 18 years prior to starting consulting. If anyone ever asked you whether you visited France much and you said yes I spend a lot of time in Paris the immediate response was 'Paris is not France'. The was the same response whether it was in Nantes, Reims or Marseille. They really, deeply loathed Parisians.
before the markets open for the year what is everyone's share tips? General or specific. I like to dabble in direct shares so have had a quite a 2020 with its various shaped recoveries. I normally use the excellent Economist's "The world in (year) " to get trends in business predictions (had some success in 2019 and 2020 when they said copper would shoot up) but their 2021 edition is rather pessimistic on most fronts with regards to commerce!
I'm backing relatively robust players in markets that have suffered badly in 2020, as they are well placed to take advantage of the weakness of others to consolidate their position. People like Whitbread (Premier Inns), Associated British Foods (Primark), and Carnival Cruises. Not without risk, but these could lose important competitors and pick up assets cheaply, allowing them to emerge from the carnage stronger.
Does someone please have a copy of the Pfizer chart that shows the almost flat-line stop in cases in the vaccine group as compared to the control group from day 10 onwards please?
I would like to show it to a friend who is skeptical about the vaccine if there's only one dose.
That graph shows that new cases of Covid reach an almost flat line stop after 14 days. All of the effect from 14-21 days can be attributed to the 1st vaccine. But then a 2nd dose was given at day 21. What would the graph look like after day 21 if the 2nd dose hadn't been given at day 21? According to Pfizer we just don't know. "There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days."
LOL, someone spends years campaigning for a specific tax change that was banned under EU law, then gets upset because the day we leave the EU the government make the change she’s always wanted. No pleasing some people.
The specimen date case graphs look awful, but I don't know whether there's a Christmas effect due to people delaying tests they might otherwise had taken on Christmas Day.
We wait to see.
cases look like this
We won't be out of the Christmas Effect until maybe Wednesday next week.
Sky News reporting sounds very disappointed no queues at the ports.
The problem isn't queues today it's when the French lorry drivers decide they have a problem with their English counterparts. The French have no reason to temper their free-wheeling methods of getting their own way. They aren't our friends anymore!
You say that like the French have never played silly buggers before...its an annual event that they strike over something, from the air traffic controllers to the lorry drivers, there is always weeks where they down tools.
Well , from their point of view , it's got the average Frenchman better pay and conditions than the average Briton.
And with higher productivity and lower weekly hours than the UK. Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?
Averages aren't all.
The way it work is this
- A substantial chunk of french people do much better than average. They are basically un-fireable at work, etc etc. A good friend got a vast 4 bed apartment in a very fashionable part of Paris for next to no rent. As "social housing". His family knew all the right people. He was an oil company executive. - A bigger chunk, who aren't a part of the "thing" are much worse off than in the UK. This is why London is full of middle class French people. They like those job thingies. - At the bottom you have the people of The Districts. Who are in the shit up to their noses.
Absolutely. For a country that like to pretend to itself that it believes in egalite they have some way to go.
Roger only likes to hang around with the well to do and turns his nose up at anyone else, which is why he loves it.
Modern France doesn't just perform better in average salary and workplace condition metrics, but on healthcare, mental illness, family breakdown and many other indicators. Some of these things aren't impossible for Britain to regain, or alien to it, as Eurosceptics imagine ; it shared many of these positive trends and indicators with France and other countries in the second half of the 1960s.
Again - those things are better for the *some*. France simply has a different, and often more extreme divides.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
For a happy and prosperous nation, they seem very unhappy with their lot if the weekly widespread violent yellow vest protests are anything to go by, the constant striking etc...before considering the 100,000s of French who choose to live in London rather than France, and of course the far less reported regular disturbances in the surburbs of major cities.
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
The problem is the very substantial class of those who "have made it" under the existing system. But are very aware of the measures by which they are protected.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Yes even more French Presidents have been to ENA than UK PMs to Oxbridge or US Presidents to Harvard or Yale.
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
It's not just that - the whole top of the French system went there. Civil Service, politics, media, third sector etc etc...
Indeed and almost all of them live in Paris, France is even more centralised and elitist than we are
The savage hatred of "Paris" - meaning the elite - in France, is something to behold.
In rural France, British people are regarded as almost human, in comparison to "Parisians".
I have many friends in France having worked for a French company for 18 years prior to starting consulting. If anyone ever asked you whether you visited France much and you said yes I spend a lot of time in Paris the immediate response was 'Paris is not France'. The was the same response whether it was in Nantes, Reims or Marseille. They really, deeply loathed Parisians.
Yes - the strength of the reaction makes MalcomG sound like a Londonophile.
To our SNP friends can I say as a conservative and very pro the union through my marriage to a Scot that I utterly reject the havering of HYUFD and hope you recognise we are not all stupid enough to not accept that indyref2 is likely in the next few years and I am happy to debate the pros and cons at the time as we will be in a very different place than on the first day we have left the EU
All the talk of an indyref in the neat future seems to be ignoring the critical factor; referendums are binary, you win or lose. A 50.01% result is just as good as 99%.
There's nothing to be gained by Boris granting a referenum that, going by the polling numbers, he would narrowly lose. Refusing to grant section 30 powers again may increase support for independece, but if it does he's no worse off than now. But is also gives time for events to rescue the union - widending splits in the indy movement, the Salmond case bringing down Sturgeon, etc.
You don't have to HYUFD to see logic in just saying no.
Yes but there is a risk of turning an entirely winnable referendum into an impossible to win one in the future.
Under No Deal indyref2 would likely have been unwinnable for Unionists, under Boris' Deal it is probably 50/50 so not worth the risk, if Labour want to allow one if they win in 2024 maybe with devomax and a softer Brexit Deal that is up to them
You’ve just proved my point.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
No it is a realist's position, referendums are notoriously unpredictable as 2016 proved.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
You really need to step back and listen to yourself.
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
Boris Johnson is extremely unpopular in Scotland, a fact he understands well. If he refuses a referendum, he will be storing up resentment toward nobody but Boris Johnson. Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak will have considerably more chance of winning, and the delay to the referendum will not influence as many people to vote to leave as Boris Johnson in charge would. You must see that. Why do you think the nats are slavering to have it now, not in 5 years or so?
Nonsense.
If the SNP are the democratically elected choice of the Scots who are then denied self-determination and democracy then that would put the a stake through the heart of unionism.
The Scots would have been treated with contempt and would know that voting No means they could be denied a say again in the future.
It is every bit as "too clever by half" as denying the British public a say in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
Yep this in spades. In fact I would say the only chance the Unionists have of winning an Independence referendum is if Johnson immediately agrees when it is asked for. Even then I think the Scots will vote yes but it may well be as close as the EU referendum was. As soon as he starts refusing that gap will widen dramatically.
I find this extremely naive. Who are these Scots who you think will vote to stay in the UK because 'Gor Blimey Guvnor, that Boris ain't so bad after all - gave us our vote he did!' - I mean really? Having an Indyref now would be the height of economical and constitutional irresponsibility, and their is absolutely no reason for it beyond the SNP's hectoring.
Comments
Afaik you're not a once and future voter in Scotland, No or otherwise, so I don't need to win you over to anything.
One thing that amuses me is when I see someone rock ups on 4 figure priced bike - light as a feather. Then proceed to lock it up with 10 Kg of case hardened steel they have in their backpack.
That’s the gamble @HYUFD seems to want to take.
It’s not exactly a “unionist” position.
I'll be honest, whenever Mike announces his/goes on holiday I get a deep sense of foreboding of the time and effort editing PB involves, but the next time Mike goes on holiday I'll be so happy as it means the world has started to get back to normal.
It is interesting, for example, to see how the wine country economy in areas such as Chablis work. Very attractive on the surface. But when you work out where they have put the poor people.....
I strongly suspect that mental health in The Districts around Paris is problematic. Certainly physical health outcomes are.
But BJ's self interest and cowardice are what's in the driving seat, so that's what counts.
Besides - you could have engaged with the Sturgeon point. The fact you didn't says a lot about you, your tactics, and the nasty underside of the Scottish indy movement.
Maybe I'm not the only one to use their other half's PayPal account to donate!
You don't see that widespread level of public disquiet in Germany or here.
Things Will Get Better. Seriously.
Reasons to be hopeful about the Biden economy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/opinion/2021-economy-recovery.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
The public realm and goods in France are not for everyone. And it is made quite clear. Hence the riots.
Then there is a large chunk off the working and middle class outside that - and their dream is to join the "thing", not tear it down. Hence the violence in the face of attempts to remove the protections.
The more time I spend in France, the more I think that it is the UK with some of the problems turned up to 11 - the extreme stratification of society..... the ENA makes the Oxbridge thing look all encompassing.
Tadej Pogacar has done the 160 km from Al Ain to the top of Jebel Hafeet in just under 4 hours so there's your target.
Happy New Year!
I’ve been visiting PB.com daily since about 2004 and have always found it as one of the best places for news and views.
I had tremendous fun as a kid learning mechanical engineering from slowly turning shop bought bikes into what I wanted. Spent hours carefully adjust bearings to "just so"....
De Gaulle and Sarkozy the only exceptions in recent decades and De Gaulle went to a top military school
In my mind a £200 bike that lasts a couple of years is still better than a £5,000 bike that lasts a lifetime, I’m planning to ride round my community to keep fit, not break any records in it!
There’s a gym in my apartment block, but I get bored witless staring around the room, even with Netflix on the iPad. Will keep the indoor biking for the summer months.
https://twitter.com/murdo_fraser/status/1344717117434822656?s=19
This is not too shabby a start to 2021. Not too shabby at all.
Your position isn’t a unionist position. It’s a coward’s position.
A unionist would be doing what they can to put forward a positive vision of the union, not meaningless drivel like a cabinet office in Edinburgh. You’ve got nothing at the moment other than project fear. We know what happened with that in the EU referendum.
Scots made their choice in 2014 in that once in a generation referendum to stay in the UK and they will not be getting another one from this Tory government.
If Labour form a government after 2024 and want to put forward what you call 'a positive vision of the union' and then allow indyref2 that is up to them, there will be no legal indyref2 allowed under the Tories
I’m a unionist. If the Government really supported the union they would be actively making steps preserve it. Not simply treating the Scottish Parliament like children.
Otherwise they will be the reason the Scots eventually vote for independence, not a future Labour government for letting it happen.
In any case, you have to hope that England is not full of people like @Philip_Thompson who aren’t bothered if Scotland goes independent and therefore will not “punish Labour’ for facilitating it.
In rural France, British people are regarded as almost human, in comparison to "Parisians".
He laughed and said as the current owner was both an Arab and a Parisian the locals would actually be pleased......
As a wealthier part of the EU, our job was not to grow our own economy, but to facilitate capital outflow to other, poorer parts of the EU. That was working well. The struggle we had in deriving value from the EU was not a bug, it was a feature. We will have to be trying *really* hard for there not to be a tangible benefit.
Almost as if there's no reason to be afraid because although there might be some disruption as people get used to the new paperwork, it is in everyone's interests to make this work correctly.
Yes, many sports have similar problems, and you’re right that there’s a fair amount of variability in how these things get enforced. Someone will almost certainly be sent home in disgrace and stripped of a medal at the Olympics in the summer, claiming they just took something for a bad cold.
I bought a rear wheel roller thingy before the first lockdown and mounted an old bike on it. The watts seem reasonably accurate to me although I don't ride a road bike with a power meter. It is surprising how far you can go using the calories from a single chocolate bar.
If buying a real bike, it is worth getting one that you actually like riding. A heavy thing with crap gears that come out of adjustment every 50 miles doesn't inspire. It doesn't have to cost £5000 though.
Repeating, from November, my recommendations for Unionists:
1: Define, and promote a "third way": devolution of 50% of taxes (i.e. pretty much everything apart from income tax and national insurance). Ability to borrow.
2. Set up the process and governance necessary for a grown-up constitutional choice. Learn the lessons of Brexit: simple majoritarianism is not enough, any vote should be multi-choice/multi-round, with a threshold for change.
3. Fund pro-Union civil groups. There are many sections of Scottish society who (consciously or not) profit from the Union. Find them and sponsor them.
4. Relocate, or create new, Union-wide institutions. Shift UK govt departments to Glasgow and other leading cities. Set up an Arctic Co-operation Council in Inverness. Ensure a Scottish sea on the Bank of *Britain*, with an outpost in Edinburgh.
5. Ensure that Indy complexities of economic and political separation are exposed. Force the SNP to take a concrete position on key issues like currency, pensions, borders, and trade. The costs and traumas of SINDY would be 10x that of Brexit - this needs to be understood.
6. Ensure proper focus in the national press on SNP’s underperformance in key areas.
If Labour wish to allow indyref2 before a generation has elapsed since 2014 that would be their choice, hopefully Scots would again say No, if they said Yes however history would record it was under a Labour PM that the UK broke up.
What Philip Thompson thinks is irrelevant, if Scotland did go of course there would be near zero chance of a non Blairite Labour Party ever winning a rUK election again, certainly for any sustained period in power
First, Boris is very likely to lose any referendum called soon -- so, for sure, he will leave it & hope either that something turns up or that it eventually becomes someone else's problem (Rishi 's or SKS's).
Second, it gives him a huge stick with which to clobber SKS in the next General Election. He can raise the spectre of a weak Labour party forced to deal with the SNP to defenestrate the Tories & enter Government.
So, for Boris, there are zero advantages in saying yes, and plenty of advantages in saying no.
And Boris is mainly concerned about Boris ....
Number of Scots who voted to:
Remain in the UK: 2,001,926
Remain in the EU: 1,661,191
Having the right paperwork is not all that is required.
If the SNP are the democratically elected choice of the Scots who are then denied self-determination and democracy then that would put the a stake through the heart of unionism.
The Scots would have been treated with contempt and would know that voting No means they could be denied a say again in the future.
It is every bit as "too clever by half" as denying the British public a say in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
The example gave earlier today on Sky was a ferry full of 36 HGVs, 33 got a green light saying to drive off and enter the roads as normal, no halt whatsoever. 3 HGVs of 36 got an amber light saying to pull over for a check of some sort.
So that's over 90% of HGVs cleared up front without being halted. But then of those 3 that were halted would some of those 3 have been halted already previously like you are typically?
If that helps the Tories politically and dooms the union simultaneously then win/win as far as I'm concerned; but it is unethical for it to happen that way so I won't compromise my principles by supporting that even if it is a win/win.
It is modelled on every cat in the world who's dinner is more than 4 seconds late.
https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1344997629416140805
Like a good pool shark, they need to disguise their strength. They need to lure Boris in to a game in which he is sure to lose.
The SNP get a majority of one, so they can legitimately get a referendum.
But, the Scottish Tory party surges ... enough to tempt Chancer Boris.
I would enjoy Boris losing to a great hustling
I mentioned sometime ago about a massive deal I was subcontracted to work on in Cyprus, pre Cyprus being in the EU. It was a £10m deal, with £1m annual maintenance plus all sorts of subsequent addons. I was contracted to manage the pre-sales project which was 3 months, with a 3 week demo at the end. We desperately needed a piece of specialist equipment flown out. Our competitors were in the same boat. The lack of the equipment pretty much broke our preparation because it was held up in customs. Fortunately our competition had the same issue (I know because I was mistaken for the competition when chasing customs). In future their equipment will sail through, but stuff from the UK won't (Carnet please? What is it? Why do you want this here? Can't you get it locally? etc, etc). Deal lost. Only way around that is to move out of the UK.
https://twitter.com/rorymeakin/status/1344995241439408128?s=20
Sky and the BBC are having a collective breakdown already as their desperate hopes for chaos fail to materialise
Also hauliers have told Calais that if they cause undue delays they will relocate to other channel ports
We wait to see.
We desperately need numbers to start falling by next weekend to show that tier 5 (i.e. tier 4 with schools closed) works. Otherwise, what's tier 6 going to be?
A 15% decrease in tests conducted and a 30% increase in positives looks absolutely awful.
Feel really sorry for the autistic kid and his parents.
We won't be out of the Christmas Effect until maybe Wednesday next week.
I don't mean the argument. I mean the signs. As a driver they make it much harder to read