Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
The link explicitly states HS2 is included.
It also explicitly states they have no clue what is allocated where. Large projects are often excluded to ensure Scotland does not get extra cash , fact. If through Barnett it is still only a portion of what we are paying in so she is still talking bollox as usual.
They are saying the exact amount isn’t publicly available, but to suggest this means Scotland is paying their proportional share on a project solely in England is absurd.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
They are liable for pensions due at this moment, and not to citizens of a foreign country.
And any rUK government that tried to pay them would be voted out at the next election....
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
12 serving police officers under investigation re Sarah Everard case. Not good at all.
It’s quite astonishing that Commissioner Dick hasn’t gone, and a terrible example of a lack of responsibility in public service.
As was her not going in 2005 to be fair, but to then get promoted after that incident?
I can't help thinking there must be something not in the public domain.
On the current case, the guy has apparently said nothing to investigators, but has pleaded guilty to the court, which thankfully spares the family a trial. Three charges: kidnap, rape and murder, for which he will receive a life sentence.
Maybe we’ll find out more details at the inquest, but on the face of it a serving policeman, possibly in uniform, pulled a woman off the street into a car, and a few days later she was found dead. Now we have a dozen police officers under investigation, presumably for some sort of coverup or failure to report something related to the case. There doesn’t appear to be any suggestion that the murderer acted other than alone.
As for Dick, it seems to be the standard culture in public bodies, that no-one ever takes responsibility for anything, and once at a level they generally manage to fail upwards.
The case IMO raises huge questions about how someone so clearly disturbed can remain in work as a serving police officer, I suspect there will be some sort of investigation into his record by HM Inspector of Constabulary.
I think it relates to him being reported for indecent exposure a few days before the murder. The question is: might the murder not have happened if the reaction to that had been different?
Ah, that’s useful information. So here was a complaint against him for a sexual offence a few days before he committed a murder, and it wasn’t seen fit to suspend him? Even more reason for Dick to fall on her sword.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Pizza and Birra Moretti for you on Sunday night?
Well Birra Moretti is made in Scotland....these days a fake Italian beer, owned by Heineken in many markets. Like so many major beer brands, it is just branding.
I had a friend who used to do PR for Highland Spring. About the only unbreakable rule was that no one mentioned anywhere, least of all on the bottle, that it had an Arab owner.
Are they allowed to mention that Highland Spring is not in the Highlands?
I'm guessing that that would be one of the last things again that they would be allowed to mention.
Where is it?
Ochil Hills, I believe, which (on this map) is between the western ends of the Tay and Forth estuaries - well south of the Highland Boundary Fault, the bold line demarcating the tract of Devonian Old Red Sandstone which is coloured dull orange. Though I presume the spring is in the Devonian lavas?
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
They are liable for pensions due at this moment, and not to citizens of a foreign country.
No point in trying to talk intelligently on the topic, just drop it as you are either blinkered or stupid.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
They are liable for pensions due at this moment, and not to citizens of a foreign country.
No point in trying to talk intelligently on the topic, just drop it as you are either blinkered or stupid.
'A poll in French paper L'Equipe - in English, The Team - revealed that of 80,000 respondents, 69 per cent said they would support Italy while 11 per cent said they would support neither side.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen threwhas also thrown her support behind the Italian team on Friday.
Her spokesperson told reporters: 'Her heart is with the Squadra Azzurra so she will be supporting Italy on Sunday.'
No-one tell Southgate. He'll probably throw the match on purpose to burnish his extreme left wing credentials.
He was a Remainer I believe.
I doubt any of the other European nations will be supporting us in the Euros final, with the possible exception of Malta. I would expect the Irish to back Italy too post Brexit.
Italy is a relatively popular country anyway
There is also the widespread perception (well the truth), Italy have been the better team and played the more attractive football throughout.
Neutrals generally don't root for the boring functional but effective team. We aren't all fans of Brazilian football, because they aim to minimize chaotic situations in games and win every game 1-0.
Southgate's approach has been determined by a combination of his own preferences and the fact England central midfielders are quite limited and the central defenders slow. They can't play an expansion game without potentially exposing areas of weakness and so Southgate has designed an approach that revolves around slowing the game down....which is not what neutrals enjoy...
England fans are obviously biased, but it is very frustrating to see them consistently pass it backwards (they are the team who does it most in the tournament). Often they can be at the edge of the opposition box and 5s later Pickford is passing to Maguire, to Pickford, to Maguire, to Rice all at walking pace...
I sense a person who will be rooting against England in the final because they have been proving the person wrong thus far.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
PB pedant mode. What counts as a 'Forth' bridge when you actually start counting them? Asking on behalf of Kincardineshire and above.
I mean Dartford - that's unambiguous, Humber, well, there really is only one. Tyne, iffy, but nobody is trying to count.
Good question. I remember being surprised crossing the Forth when we drove round Stirling last year, I'm so conditioned to thinking of it as an East Coast river, and indeed I've just found out that its origins are on the flanks of Ben Lomond. If only I'd known, I would have bored my kids with that fact when I dragged them up their first Munro last summer.
Osborne as chancellor presided over the lunatic triple-lock and the wildly unfair higher rate stamp duty levels - just piracy in my view, and simply the worst policy I've ever seen any government enact. However his instincts to try to balance the books were good.
Osborne was arguably (it's a crowded field!) the worst Chancellor of our lifetimes. Not only was he an austerity hawk which meant he flatlined the recovery inherited from Labour, but he was also a prime mover in gerrymandering the electoral register. These measures combined to deliver Brexit (the leave vote concentrated where cuts were deepest, and remain voters had been disenfranchised) and thus end his own career and David Cameron's. Oh, and whatever you said about the housing market.
Oxygen shortages. Difficulties getting dead bodies out of hospitals. "The boat is sinking," says health ministry spokesperson.
It's looking awful in Tunisia:
R: 1.4; CFR: > 3% throughout 2021 so far; new cases: ~0.3% of population per week, and rising; vaccinated (1x, 2x): 12%, 5%.
Any country that has missed the brief respite window to do mass vaccination before being hit with the Indian variant is going to be in big trouble.
So the bodies will soon be piling up in the republican US states then?
55% of Americans have received at least one vaccination now and 48% have been double vaccinated, that is well above the global average vaccination rate of 44 per 100 people
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
They are liable for pensions due at this moment, and not to citizens of a foreign country.
No point in trying to talk intelligently on the topic, just drop it as you are either blinkered or stupid.
Got a mirror, dear?
Perhaps you could quote a link from a reputable source supporting your claims - so far those you've tried to rubbish include:
The Scottish Government FullFact The Institute of Actuaries.....
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government.
The Institute of Actuaries - what do they know?
UK State pensions currently in payment to Scottish residents would be paid by the Scottish Government. For Scottish residents of working age, the liability for all State Pensions earned to date would fall to the Scottish Government.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
150,000 dead does sound a lot, but that is over 18 months.
Two bad flu winters in a row would mean 100,000 excess deaths and it would not even make the news.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think on this one thing it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally. Hancock idea, Boris personally swayed Bingham to lead it, and the team they put together was extremely well qualified.
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government.
The Institute of Actuaries - what do they know?
UK State pensions currently in payment to Scottish residents would be paid by the Scottish Government. For Scottish residents of working age, the liability for all State Pensions earned to date would fall to the Scottish Government.
Reminds me of another bit of the ITV commentary that missed the mark, when they started talking about the Danish fans returning to Copenhagen, Aarhus, etc, but they were actually all resident in Britain, probably mostly Londoners, because of the quarantine requirements preventing travel for the match from Denmark.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally.
Either way, they got that right, now about everything else...
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
150,000 dead does sound a lot, but that is over 18 months.
Two bad flu winters in a row would mean 100,000 excess deaths and it would not even make the news.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
PB pedant mode. What counts as a 'Forth' bridge when you actually start counting them? Asking on behalf of Kincardineshire and above.
I mean Dartford - that's unambiguous, Humber, well, there really is only one. Tyne, iffy, but nobody is trying to count.
Good question. I remember being surprised crossing the Forth when we drove round Stirling last year, I'm so conditioned to thinking of it as an East Coast river, and indeed I've just found out that its origins are on the flanks of Ben Lomond. If only I'd known, I would have bored my kids with that fact when I dragged them up their first Munro last summer.
But that was precisely why the Forth (and Tay) were such a pain to the east coast railway companies - their estuaries were so indented that Stirling is actually in the middle of Scotland (hence the importance of the castle, and the bridge's strategic importance to the English army in 1314, and 1297 too).
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Well fully taking back control from unelected rulers was popular in India.
Who would want dominion status? It’s like being in the EU.
If the British Empire had continued, I think it's safe to assume that Britain would have voted to leave it by now, over free movement.
Not necessarily, I would expect most Britons would now live in Australia if we still had an Empire with free movement
Then the Aussies would have left!
Unlikely given Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world unlike us and a higher average income and better weather
We have a higher average income than Poland. That didn't stop people moaning when they showed up over here. We've just negotiated a trade deal with Australia, I am sure if they had any appetite to open their borders to us it would have been on the table. I'm not totally sure about this, but I believe they have a points based immigration system, and I am sure any Brits who meet the criteria are welcome in.
Yes but few Britons moved to Poland did they as it had a lower average income than we do and is even colder than we are in winter.
Britons would be far more likely to take advantage of free movement to Australia if they could, Australians however would largely stay put.
Of course Australia now will not introduce free movement with us but base it on skills, the possibility was only if we still had the Empire
The point I was making was exactly that - the movement would be UK -> Oz primarily and that's why they would opt out of it. If Britons had wanted to move to Poland we'd still be in the EU.
Would they? Brits still want to move to the continent
To Spain not Poland.
If free movement had only applied to western Europe still not Eastern Europe too we would likely narrowly have voted Remain
We are back to the age old argument - if Labour or the Tories had implemented a contributory based benefits system and implemented the EU's actual rules for freedom of movement, we woudn't have left the EU..
They didn't so we ended up doing so...
Blair's failure to introduce transition controls for the new accession nations like Germany was a big failure on his part
Nope that really wouldn't have made much difference - although it might have delayed things slightly. The issue does come down to our inability to actual enforce the EUs own rules and our willingness to pay benefits to anyone...
Maybe its good, maybe its bad; A million Poles are in the UK - that's 2.5% of the Polish state and more than one percent of ours. Was there a war I missed?
A million Poles are NOT in the UK. In June 2020 there were aproximately 800K and that number has fallen significantly over the past year,
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Oxygen shortages. Difficulties getting dead bodies out of hospitals. "The boat is sinking," says health ministry spokesperson.
It's looking awful in Tunisia:
R: 1.4; CFR: > 3% throughout 2021 so far; new cases: ~0.3% of population per week, and rising; vaccinated (1x, 2x): 12%, 5%.
Any country that has missed the brief respite window to do mass vaccination before being hit with the Indian variant is going to be in big trouble.
So the bodies will soon be piling up in the republican US states then?
55% of Americans have received at least one vaccination now and 48% have been double vaccinated, that is well above the global average vaccination rate of 44 per 100 people
There is always an excuse, isn't there? there is always an excuse or a reason for why our government and its SAGE fanatics are right and others are wrong.
And I can see why. The alternative, that people who consider themselves intelligent have swallowed an entire ocean of spin and lies, is too horrible to contemplate.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Pizza and Birra Moretti for you on Sunday night?
Well Birra Moretti is made in Scotland....these days a fake Italian beer, owned by Heineken in many markets. Like so many major beer brands, it is just branding.
I had a friend who used to do PR for Highland Spring. About the only unbreakable rule was that no one mentioned anywhere, least of all on the bottle, that it had an Arab owner.
Are they allowed to mention that Highland Spring is not in the Highlands?
I'm guessing that that would be one of the last things again that they would be allowed to mention.
Where is it?
Ochil Hills, I believe, which (on this map) is between the western ends of the Tay and Forth estuaries - well south of the Highland Boundary Fault, the bold line demarcating the tract of Devonian Old Red Sandstone which is coloured dull orange. Though I presume the spring is in the Devonian lavas?
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government.
The Institute of Actuaries - what do they know?
UK State pensions currently in payment to Scottish residents would be paid by the Scottish Government. For Scottish residents of working age, the liability for all State Pensions earned to date would fall to the Scottish Government.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally.
Either way, they got that right, now about everything else...
We have done these arguments to death.
Things like testing, generally they got it right after ditching PHE idiotic approach. Since Hancock ditched the planks running it, other than one week, testing has generally run very smoothly.
Things like border controls, totally wrong.
Track and Trace, very poor, but also totally oversold.....nobody really manages to make it work, outside state sponsored spying countries. And like the app, what can they do if Google / Apple handicap you, by tying one hand behind your back. The places that make an app work are where data protection isn't really a thing.
12 serving police officers under investigation re Sarah Everard case. Not good at all.
It’s quite astonishing that Commissioner Dick hasn’t gone, and a terrible example of a lack of responsibility in public service.
As was her not going in 2005 to be fair, but to then get promoted after that incident?
I can't help thinking there must be something not in the public domain.
On the current case, the guy has apparently said nothing to investigators, but has pleaded guilty to the court, which thankfully spares the family a trial. Three charges: kidnap, rape and murder, for which he will receive a life sentence.
Maybe we’ll find out more details at the inquest, but on the face of it a serving policeman, possibly in uniform, pulled a woman off the street into a car, and a few days later she was found dead. Now we have a dozen police officers under investigation, presumably for some sort of coverup or failure to report something related to the case. There doesn’t appear to be any suggestion that the murderer acted other than alone.
As for Dick, it seems to be the standard culture in public bodies, that no-one ever takes responsibility for anything, and once at a level they generally manage to fail upwards.
The case IMO raises huge questions about how someone so clearly disturbed can remain in work as a serving police officer, I suspect there will be some sort of investigation into his record by HM Inspector of Constabulary.
I think it relates to him being reported for indecent exposure a few days before the murder. The question is: might the murder not have happened if the reaction to that had been different?
Ah, that’s useful information. So here was a complaint against him for a sexual offence a few days before he committed a murder, and it wasn’t seen fit to suspend him? Even more reason for Dick to fall on her sword.
There was a similar complaint in 2015. Remarkable, when you consider the range of occupations which you would be effectively disbarred from, with such on your Enhanced DBS. You wouldn't be working anywhere in a school. But you can in the Police. Hmm.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
150,000 dead does sound a lot, but that is over 18 months.
Two bad flu winters in a row would mean 100,000 excess deaths and it would not even make the news.
The Dr Shipman defence? Yes, he murdered a lot of old crumblies but they'd probably have died soon enough anyway? I'm no Allegra Stratton but I'd not recommend it.
(Actually, Allegra got moved on, didn't she? I'm not sure who it is now but...)
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
It was your classic swiss cheese disaster
- The bridge was engineered on the light side. - Some of the calculations seem have been wrong - Others were based on faulty environmental data - wind loadings etc - The contractor did a poor quality job making the components - The construction was badly done
Which all added up to a bridge that was just waiting to fall down.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Pizza and Birra Moretti for you on Sunday night?
Well Birra Moretti is made in Scotland....these days a fake Italian beer, owned by Heineken in many markets. Like so many major beer brands, it is just branding.
I had a friend who used to do PR for Highland Spring. About the only unbreakable rule was that no one mentioned anywhere, least of all on the bottle, that it had an Arab owner.
Are they allowed to mention that Highland Spring is not in the Highlands?
I'm guessing that that would be one of the last things again that they would be allowed to mention.
Where is it?
Blackford - next to the A9 between Stirling and Perth.
The springs are from the Ochil Hills (part of the scattered lowland volcanic remnants).
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
You might be thinking of this one south of Edinburgh (a mile or so north of Rosslyn Chapel of Da Vinci fame). It replaces the original Bouch design, though inthis case I believe it was colliery subsidence that was the problem.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think on this one thing it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally. Hancock idea, Boris personally swayed Bingham to lead it, and the team they put together was extremely well qualified.
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
In a way you feel sorry for Matt Hancock who did get the big call right.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Well fully taking back control from unelected rulers was popular in India.
Who would want dominion status? It’s like being in the EU.
If the British Empire had continued, I think it's safe to assume that Britain would have voted to leave it by now, over free movement.
Not necessarily, I would expect most Britons would now live in Australia if we still had an Empire with free movement
Then the Aussies would have left!
Unlikely given Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world unlike us and a higher average income and better weather
We have a higher average income than Poland. That didn't stop people moaning when they showed up over here. We've just negotiated a trade deal with Australia, I am sure if they had any appetite to open their borders to us it would have been on the table. I'm not totally sure about this, but I believe they have a points based immigration system, and I am sure any Brits who meet the criteria are welcome in.
Yes but few Britons moved to Poland did they as it had a lower average income than we do and is even colder than we are in winter.
Britons would be far more likely to take advantage of free movement to Australia if they could, Australians however would largely stay put.
Of course Australia now will not introduce free movement with us but base it on skills, the possibility was only if we still had the Empire
The point I was making was exactly that - the movement would be UK -> Oz primarily and that's why they would opt out of it. If Britons had wanted to move to Poland we'd still be in the EU.
Would they? Brits still want to move to the continent
To Spain not Poland.
If free movement had only applied to western Europe still not Eastern Europe too we would likely narrowly have voted Remain
We are back to the age old argument - if Labour or the Tories had implemented a contributory based benefits system and implemented the EU's actual rules for freedom of movement, we woudn't have left the EU..
They didn't so we ended up doing so...
Blair's failure to introduce transition controls for the new accession nations like Germany was a big failure on his part
Nope that really wouldn't have made much difference - although it might have delayed things slightly. The issue does come down to our inability to actual enforce the EUs own rules and our willingness to pay benefits to anyone...
Maybe its good, maybe its bad; A million Poles are in the UK - that's 2.5% of the Polish state and more than one percent of ours. Was there a war I missed?
A million Poles are NOT in the UK. In June 2020 there were aproximately 800K and that number has fallen significantly over the past year,
I thought (vaguely recall reading) that there were roughly a million applications for settled status from Polish citizens. Huge numbers anyway.
Reminds me of another bit of the ITV commentary that missed the mark, when they started talking about the Danish fans returning to Copenhagen, Aarhus, etc, but they were actually all resident in Britain, probably mostly Londoners, because of the quarantine requirements preventing travel for the match from Denmark.
There was a story on the day, that the Danish FA managed to smuggle 40 competition-winning fans onto the DFA chartered plane, which was exempted from the quarantine rules. They were escorted from the plane straight to their hospitality unit at Wembley, and back on the plane straight after the match.
The Danish Embassy in London, on the other hand, arranged for something like 6k UK residents to attend the match, and had boxes of shirts and scarves to hand out to them. They were clearly a group behind one of the goals.
Oxygen shortages. Difficulties getting dead bodies out of hospitals. "The boat is sinking," says health ministry spokesperson.
It's looking awful in Tunisia:
R: 1.4; CFR: > 3% throughout 2021 so far; new cases: ~0.3% of population per week, and rising; vaccinated (1x, 2x): 12%, 5%.
Any country that has missed the brief respite window to do mass vaccination before being hit with the Indian variant is going to be in big trouble.
Obviously for many countries due to economics that missed window wasn't necessarily their fault.
I think given when we got the Indian variant, if we hadn't been already as far a long with vaccinations, we would be seeing another blood bath.
Where is the bloodbath in the republican US....?
No crystal ball here, but at the moment Russia is faring badly (and should be red-listed) but Ukraine which has still lower vaccination rates seems to be more or less in the clear.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
You might be thinking of this one south of Edinburgh (a mile or so north of Rosslyn Chapel of Da Vinci fame). It replaces the original Bouch design, though inthis case I believe it was colliery subsidence that was the problem.
One of my family legends is that my great-grandfather missed the doomed train over the Tay, although it may have been after my grandfather was born. He certainly used that route.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Pizza and Birra Moretti for you on Sunday night?
Well Birra Moretti is made in Scotland....these days a fake Italian beer, owned by Heineken in many markets. Like so many major beer brands, it is just branding.
I had a friend who used to do PR for Highland Spring. About the only unbreakable rule was that no one mentioned anywhere, least of all on the bottle, that it had an Arab owner.
Are they allowed to mention that Highland Spring is not in the Highlands?
I'm guessing that that would be one of the last things again that they would be allowed to mention.
Where is it?
Ochil Hills, I believe, which (on this map) is between the western ends of the Tay and Forth estuaries - well south of the Highland Boundary Fault, the bold line demarcating the tract of Devonian Old Red Sandstone which is coloured dull orange. Though I presume the spring is in the Devonian lavas?
Interesting thanks. So presumably there is no AOC type regulation?
Dunno what that is - Appellation d'Origine Controlee? I think they have a certificate from one of the food approval organizations - Soil Association or similar.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government.
The Institute of Actuaries - what do they know?
UK State pensions currently in payment to Scottish residents would be paid by the Scottish Government. For Scottish residents of working age, the liability for all State Pensions earned to date would fall to the Scottish Government.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think on this one thing it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally. Hancock idea, Boris personally swayed Bingham to lead it, and the team they put together was extremely well qualified.
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
In a way you feel sorry for Matt Hancock who did get the big call right.
If we take his response as a whole, he made a number of good calls, vaccines, the push on ramping up testing against PHE blob, the push on REACT trials, the expansion of genomic sequencing....but then we have Harding running Track and Trace, his mate running NHS App development, some less than above board PPE contracts and obviously having it away with his advisor (while on the job).
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I don't think anyone can really say that. Perhaps the free market, opportunist, wheeler-dealing comes more naturally to the Cons but as an avowed Lab non-fan I don't think it's fair to state the counter-factual in such conclusive terms.
(cf. Dave's deal and the EU's instant violation of it...)
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think on this one thing it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally. Hancock idea, Boris personally swayed Bingham to lead it, and the team they put together was extremely well qualified.
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
In a way you feel sorry for Matt Hancock who did get the big call right.
I believe he was the one Cabinet Minister convinced vaccines would arrive around the Winter. He deserves credit for that, even if he was the one who really ought to be up to speed.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
You might be thinking of this one south of Edinburgh (a mile or so north of Rosslyn Chapel of Da Vinci fame). It replaces the original Bouch design, though inthis case I believe it was colliery subsidence that was the problem.
Sorry, I meant 'as well as'. But yes. I've not seen that inspection report. The sapper doing the testingf didn't mess around. But to have a permanent deflection of two inches develop right under his eyes ...
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
It was your classic swiss cheese disaster
- The bridge was engineered on the light side. - Some of the calculations seem have been wrong - Others were based on faulty environmental data - wind loadings etc - The contractor did a poor quality job making the components - The construction was badly done
Which all added up to a bridge that was just waiting to fall down.
Talking of 'waiting to fall down': my favourite warning story is of the Hotel New World in Singapore. Loadings on structures are often placed into two categories: 'dead load': the loading of the structure itself; and the 'live load'; the loading of wind, snow, people, machinery etc.
In the Hotel New World, an engineer omitted the dead load from his calculations on some critical parts, meaning they were only designed for the live loads. The building could not even support its own weight, but stayed up for 15 years before collapsing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_Hotel_New_World
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think on this one thing it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally. Hancock idea, Boris personally swayed Bingham to lead it, and the team they put together was extremely well qualified.
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
In a way you feel sorry for Matt Hancock who did get the big call right.
Indeed, and let's face it, grossly unfair that Matt self-defenestrated for violations of social distancing codes when Gina's legs were always socially distanced and two metres apart.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
So Starmer was complaining too many people will be asked to isolate, but tweaking the app is also wrong....but offers no real solutions above wear a mask on a train and open a few windows.
I literally have no idea what Labour's position is. Everything is too risky and rushed, but also too restrictive. At least with non-independent SAGE we know they are absolutely against opening up, until everybody offered vaccination , and even then probably not...as discriminatory against those who are against vaccination (racism yadda yadda yadda) and danger of long covid.
I think Labour would have done a worse job than the Tories tackling covid. Their instincts are simply wrong for such a crisis. They would get the state to do everything, join the EU vaccine scheme, take no risks no matter how costly, and spend way to much time worrying about how "fair" everything they do is.
Maybe, but 150,000 dead people might disagree.
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
I honestly don't think on this one thing it was luck or desperation. It was the one thing that was done really professionally. Hancock idea, Boris personally swayed Bingham to lead it, and the team they put together was extremely well qualified.
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
In a way you feel sorry for Matt Hancock who did get the big call right.
If we take his response as a whole, he made a number of good calls, vaccines, the push on ramping up testing against PHE blob, the push on REACT trials, the expansion of genomic sequencing....but then we have Harding running Track and Trace, his mate running NHS App development, some less than above board PPE contracts and obviously having it away with his advisor (while on the job).
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
From an Australian perspective he would be Charles I, Henry I or George V.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
You might be thinking of this one south of Edinburgh (a mile or so north of Rosslyn Chapel of Da Vinci fame). It replaces the original Bouch design, though inthis case I believe it was colliery subsidence that was the problem.
Sorry, I meant 'as well as'. But yes. I've not seen that inspection report. The sapper doing the testingf didn't mess around. But to have a permanent deflection of two inches develop right under his eyes ...
Ah, sorry, yes. No, he can't be blamed for colliery subsidence, so that's fair enough. There's plenty of subsidence round here, but the one thing that they didn't dare undermine with mine workings was the East Coast main line.
The course describing other people's screw ups was the most well set of lectures during my Engineering degree. All too easy to think it won't happen to you, of course.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
If a disease is mild 99% of the time, but 1,000,000 people get it.....
This is why personal knowledge of a situation can be fallible in the larger context
Did you bunker-up at any point?
No. Though I was wearing N95 masks a fair bit - since I had a pile of them for hobby/DIY work.
Why?
Why - because you've clearly looked at the data and what it says for the future.
No, I didn't say that.
What I said was that it is a classic example of personal observation issues to say "I have seen nearly no examples of X as a result of state Y".
But in the wider world, if state Y occurs alot.....
This is why both the paediatricians who see very few serious COVID cases among children and someone warning against that a significant number of children will be effected *might* both be right.
This is why things like vaccine trials use large groups, statistical analysis etc.
If a disease is mild 99% of the time, but 1,000,000 people get it.....
This is why personal knowledge of a situation can be fallible in the larger context
Did you bunker-up at any point?
No. Though I was wearing N95 masks a fair bit - since I had a pile of them for hobby/DIY work.
Why?
Why - because you've clearly looked at the data and what it says for the future.
No, I didn't say that.
What I said was that it is a classic example of personal observation issues to say "I have seen nearly no examples of X as a result of state Y".
But in the wider world, if state Y occurs alot.....
This is why both the paediatricians who see very few serious COVID cases among children and someone warning against that a significant number of children will be effected *might* both be right.
This is why things like vaccine trials use large groups, statistical analysis etc.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
You clearly haven't been here long enough to know that the size of the chip on malcomg's shoulder is roughly the same size and weight of the stone of scone.
If a disease is mild 99% of the time, but 1,000,000 people get it.....
Then the rest must forfeit their liberty and prosperity?
I thought it was worse than that worse than that? The risk of the hospitals being overwhelmed was real, but I don’t think anything will convince you of that.
If a disease is mild 99% of the time, but 1,000,000 people get it.....
This is why personal knowledge of a situation can be fallible in the larger context
Did you bunker-up at any point?
No. Though I was wearing N95 masks a fair bit - since I had a pile of them for hobby/DIY work.
Why?
Why - because you've clearly looked at the data and what it says for the future.
No, I didn't say that.
What I said was that it is a classic example of personal observation issues to say "I have seen nearly no examples of X as a result of state Y".
But in the wider world, if state Y occurs alot.....
This is why both the paediatricians who see very few serious COVID cases among children and someone warning against that a significant number of children will be effected *might* both be right.
This is why things like vaccine trials use large groups, statistical analysis etc.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
You clearly haven't been here long enough to know that the size of the chip on malcomg's shoulder is roughly the same size and weight of the stone of scone.
That's rubbish.
Unless the Stone is a bonsai mountain that has grown to about the size of Olympus Mons, while we weren't looking.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
Charles II gets an unfairly bad press. England made huge strides towards becoming a world power in his reign, helped by methods of government funding developed during the Civil War and Commonwealth. His main fault was not to provide a legitimate male heir.
If a disease is mild 99% of the time, but 1,000,000 people get it.....
This is why personal knowledge of a situation can be fallible in the larger context
Did you bunker-up at any point?
No. Though I was wearing N95 masks a fair bit - since I had a pile of them for hobby/DIY work.
Why?
Why - because you've clearly looked at the data and what it says for the future.
No, I didn't say that.
What I said was that it is a classic example of personal observation issues to say "I have seen nearly no examples of X as a result of state Y".
But in the wider world, if state Y occurs alot.....
This is why both the paediatricians who see very few serious COVID cases among children and someone warning against that a significant number of children will be effected *might* both be right.
This is why things like vaccine trials use large groups, statistical analysis etc.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
You might be thinking of this one south of Edinburgh (a mile or so north of Rosslyn Chapel of Da Vinci fame). It replaces the original Bouch design, though inthis case I believe it was colliery subsidence that was the problem.
Sorry, I meant 'as well as'. But yes. I've not seen that inspection report. The sapper doing the testingf didn't mess around. But to have a permanent deflection of two inches develop right under his eyes ...
Ah, sorry, yes. No, he can't be blamed for colliery subsidence, so that's fair enough. There's plenty of subsidence round here, but the one thing that they didn't dare undermine with mine workings was the East Coast main line.
The course describing other people's screw ups was the most well set of lectures during my Engineering degree. All too easy to think it won't happen to you, of course.
The ECML did get subsided by mineworkings as it happens, which had to be sorted out about 20 years back! I recall that there was a long period of engineering go-slows during massive engineering works around Tranent (east of Edinburgh) which BTW is a very old mining area, complete with a railway to the coast used in the Battle of Prestonpans 1745 as a defensive feature. So the mines in question could predate the Edinburgh & Berwick Railway for all I know!
PHE study, which included more than 1 million people in at-risk groups, found:
1. Overall #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease in risk groups is approximately 60% after one dose of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech, with little variation by age.
2. After two doses, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness is 81% with AstraZeneca in people in risk groups aged 16 to 64. No data is available for Pfizer-BioNTech
3. In people in risk groups aged 65 and over, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness with Pfizer-BioNTech is 89% and 80% with AstraZeneca.
4. For those who are immunosuppressed, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness after a second dose is 74%, with similar protection to those who are not in a risk group. This rises from 4% after a first dose
Texas is still under 50% first vaccination and has been open since March.
7-death moving average? under 25.
So 175 deaths a week, which on a per-capita basis is roughly equivalent to 375 deaths per week in the UK (more than double our total). That's despite the Delta variant not being nearly as widespread in the US yet. So, thank you for demonstrating how effective vaccination is.
NEW: Netherlands reports 6,986 new coronavirus cases, up 626% from last week
England's victorious Euros campaign will be underscored by the management of the entire tournament being the hallmark of how best to organise super-spreader events.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
It sounded like an accident waiting to happen for a long time before, one stormy night, all the holes lined up.
It is indeed excellent and leads to them having an even higher rate of net immigration than we have. But it's controlled, expected, meets demands and is approved of.
PHE study, which included more than 1 million people in at-risk groups, found:
1. Overall #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease in risk groups is approximately 60% after one dose of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech, with little variation by age.
2. After two doses, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness is 81% with AstraZeneca in people in risk groups aged 16 to 64. No data is available for Pfizer-BioNTech
3. In people in risk groups aged 65 and over, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness with Pfizer-BioNTech is 89% and 80% with AstraZeneca.
4. For those who are immunosuppressed, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness after a second dose is 74%, with similar protection to those who are not in a risk group. This rises from 4% after a first dose
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
Yes, I remember a friend of my parents who lived on the Fife side of the river and was a bit of a polymath explaining how the problem was with the poor construction standards at the Wormit foundry much more than with the design itself. He said that the rails bent and the train derailed as it entered the high girders, contributing to the collapse of the bridge. He reckoned Bouch was actually a gifted engineer whose life and reputation were unfairly destroyed by the disaster. But when I compare the Bouch design for the Forth bridge to what was erected in its place - probably my favourite piece of engineering in the world - I am certainly glad to have the 1890 version.
I thought at least two other bridges built by Bouch were subsequently condemned, such as that over the South Esk near Montrose.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
You might be thinking of this one south of Edinburgh (a mile or so north of Rosslyn Chapel of Da Vinci fame). It replaces the original Bouch design, though inthis case I believe it was colliery subsidence that was the problem.
Sorry, I meant 'as well as'. But yes. I've not seen that inspection report. The sapper doing the testingf didn't mess around. But to have a permanent deflection of two inches develop right under his eyes ...
Ah, sorry, yes. No, he can't be blamed for colliery subsidence, so that's fair enough. There's plenty of subsidence round here, but the one thing that they didn't dare undermine with mine workings was the East Coast main line.
The course describing other people's screw ups was the most well set of lectures during my Engineering degree. All too easy to think it won't happen to you, of course.
The ECML did get subsided by mineworkings as it happens, which had to be sorted out about 20 years back! I recall that there was a long period of engineering go-slows during massive engineering works around Tranent (east of Edinburgh) which BTW is a very old mining area, complete with a railway to the coast used in the Battle of Prestonpans 1745 as a defensive feature. So the mines in question could predate the Edinburgh & Berwick Railway for all I know!
Ah, I didn't know about that, it has been a long time since I took the train to Edinburgh, although I must have passed those works on the A1. Quite a diversion there...
My local collieries are the South Yorkshire ones - they may not have undermined the ECML, but it seems they may have undermined the river (Fishlake!).
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
It sounded like an accident waiting to happen for a long time before, one stormy night, all the holes lined up.
It is indeed excellent and leads to them having an even higher rate of net immigration than we have. But it's controlled, expected, meets demands and is approved of.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
NEW: Netherlands reports 6,986 new coronavirus cases, up 626% from last week
England's victorious Euros campaign will be underscored by the management of the entire tournament being the hallmark of how best to organise super-spreader events.
Its coming home....its coming home....covid coming home...
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
Scotland gets full Barnett consequentials for HS2 spending, so in theory contributes almost nothing in net terms.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
Frankly it's remarkable how many places even more advanced in their republicanism haven't done so. Jamaica seems to have been electing governments promising to do it since around 2007. According to wiki at the last election the party promising a referendum on it in 18 months was defeated in 2020, albeit by a party which had promised one in 2016 but not carried it out, and states it is a goal but doesn't have a timeline. So the 'drop off the twig' theory is probably correct.
I believe Barbados had said they would do it this year, but given the Jamaica example who knows (presumably easier in places without referendums required, though given widespread support not sure why the hold up)
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
You might have cost people money which perhaps not all of them could afford. Exotic holidays may have been cancelled as a consequence. New cashmere cardigans not bought. School fees defaulted on.
But it's best not to think this way otherwise you'd never give any tips.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
Scotland gets full Barnett consequentials for HS2 spending, so in theory contributes almost nothing in net terms.
Yes, thank you; we were discussing that earlier also - bizarrely as BlackRook pointed out the Welsh have to pay a sdhare whereas the Scots don't even though it is sort of going in the right direction only to Wrecsam.
Comments
https://www.scottishgeology.com/geology-of-scotland-map/
I think out of luck or desperation this government got vaccines procured substantially more efficiently than Labour would have done, but as to everything else I am not so sure, but I guess we shall never know.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
Perhaps you could quote a link from a reputable source supporting your claims - so far those you've tried to rubbish include:
The Scottish Government
FullFact
The Institute of Actuaries.....
Two bad flu winters in a row would mean 100,000 excess deaths and it would not even make the news.
A. They're all incompetent?
B. They're all monsters?
C. It's a massive political cover-up?
D. It's likely true?
Difficult ...
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1413492808120365061?s=20
When this was all formed was mile before we even knew what the progression of the pandemic was going to be like e.g. They were buying freezers and needles this time a year ago.
Reminds me of another bit of the ITV commentary that missed the mark, when they started talking about the Danish fans returning to Copenhagen, Aarhus, etc, but they were actually all resident in Britain, probably mostly Londoners, because of the quarantine requirements preventing travel for the match from Denmark.
Might have been the same foundry, of course...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
And I can see why. The alternative, that people who consider themselves intelligent have swallowed an entire ocean of spin and lies, is too horrible to contemplate.
Things like testing, generally they got it right after ditching PHE idiotic approach. Since Hancock ditched the planks running it, other than one week, testing has generally run very smoothly.
Things like border controls, totally wrong.
Track and Trace, very poor, but also totally oversold.....nobody really manages to make it work, outside state sponsored spying countries. And like the app, what can they do if Google / Apple handicap you, by tying one hand behind your back. The places that make an app work are where data protection isn't really a thing.
Remarkable, when you consider the range of occupations which you would be effectively disbarred from, with such on your Enhanced DBS.
You wouldn't be working anywhere in a school. But you can in the Police. Hmm.
(Actually, Allegra got moved on, didn't she? I'm not sure who it is now but...)
- The bridge was engineered on the light side.
- Some of the calculations seem have been wrong
- Others were based on faulty environmental data - wind loadings etc
- The contractor did a poor quality job making the components
- The construction was badly done
Which all added up to a bridge that was just waiting to fall down.
The springs are from the Ochil Hills (part of the scattered lowland volcanic remnants).
https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/B/Bilston_Glen_Viaduct/
The Danish Embassy in London, on the other hand, arranged for something like 6k UK residents to attend the match, and had boxes of shirts and scarves to hand out to them. They were clearly a group behind one of the goals.
https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/S/South_Esk_Viaduct/
One of my family legends is that my great-grandfather missed the doomed train over the Tay, although it may have been after my grandfather was born. He certainly used that route.
There were two deaths in Louisiana yesterday.
(cf. Dave's deal and the EU's instant violation of it...)
7-death moving average? under 25.
In the Hotel New World, an engineer omitted the dead load from his calculations on some critical parts, meaning they were only designed for the live loads. The building could not even support its own weight, but stayed up for 15 years before collapsing...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_Hotel_New_World
In my view Charles III
This is why personal knowledge of a situation can be fallible in the larger context
Then the rest must forfeit their liberty and prosperity?
Why?
The course describing other people's screw ups was the most well set of lectures during my Engineering degree. All too easy to think it won't happen to you, of course.
2012 - London Olympics (National project - devolved governments received £30m payment)
Anything since then?
What I said was that it is a classic example of personal observation issues to say "I have seen nearly no examples of X as a result of state Y".
But in the wider world, if state Y occurs alot.....
This is why both the paediatricians who see very few serious COVID cases among children and someone warning against that a significant number of children will be effected *might* both be right.
This is why things like vaccine trials use large groups, statistical analysis etc.
Unless the Stone is a bonsai mountain that has grown to about the size of Olympus Mons, while we weren't looking.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/15097772@N08/5350587484
1. Overall #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease in risk groups is approximately 60% after one dose of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech, with little variation by age.
2. After two doses, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness is 81% with AstraZeneca in people in risk groups aged 16 to 64. No data is available for Pfizer-BioNTech
3. In people in risk groups aged 65 and over, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness with Pfizer-BioNTech is 89% and 80% with AstraZeneca.
4. For those who are immunosuppressed, #COVID19 #vaccine effectiveness after a second dose is 74%, with similar protection to those who are not in a risk group. This rises from 4% after a first dose
https://twitter.com/PHE_uk/status/1413506996502937600?s=20
----
This should put the Israel small scale data scare story to bed. 1 million person study....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/tennis/50976624
People 'exempt' from wearing face coverings, Chavvy women with snotty brats in tow:
O
My local collieries are the South Yorkshire ones - they may not have undermined the ECML, but it seems they may have undermined the river (Fishlake!).
https://fullfact.org/online/hs2-scotland/
I believe Barbados had said they would do it this year, but given the Jamaica example who knows (presumably easier in places without referendums required, though given widespread support not sure why the hold up)
But it's best not to think this way otherwise you'd never give any tips.