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Election betting: CON majority drops to a 39% chance – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited November 2021 in General
imageElection betting: CON majority drops to a 39% chance – politicalbetting.com

In the past few days several PBers have commented that they think that the Tories will win another majority at the next election. This is in contrast to the trend on the betting markets where the chances of such an outcome, as rated by punters, has edged down a bit.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    First like LDs in Shropshire, unlikely but a couple of quid... I think SKS could make hay on this one, although a little dull he does come across as incorruptable.
  • SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Third.

    Like yesterday.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
    2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
    3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
    4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
    5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

    — Matthew 7:1–5 KJV
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    An 80 seat majority is an awful lot to lose in one go - and if the polling next summer comes close to suggesting that as an outcome, the chances are high that the Tories will swap leader again.

    I’m thinking we are pretty much exactly two years out from the next election. Govt want the new boundaries in place, but don’t want to run things to the last minute.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    F1: not a classic race. But the bet came off.

    Also, I think that's 75% of recent races in Mexico that have seen the pole-sitter not lead lap 1.
  • SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
    2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
    3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
    4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
    5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

    — Matthew 7:1–5 KJV
    The Sermon on the Whataboutery? Is that the new Tory spin line or are you urging Boris to sack the Home and Justice Secretaries?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726
    Sandpit said:

    An 80 seat majority is an awful lot to lose in one go - and if the polling next summer comes close to suggesting that as an outcome, the chances are high that the Tories will swap leader again.

    I’m thinking we are pretty much exactly two years out from the next election. Govt want the new boundaries in place, but don’t want to run things to the last minute.

    It hasn’t happened since 1970. Then, 1929, 1945 (not a standard example!) and 1964 are the only times it has happened since women got the vote.

    The complicating factor is that the Tories could easily lose several seats in Wales, Scotland and the South while still picking up others as demography and the economy continue their long-term changes in the North and Midlands.

    I think the chances of them losing their majority are 50% at best. In fact, I would say the market has probably got the odds backwards.
  • SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    alex_ said:

    A possible step in the right direction:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/07/mps-could-be-barred-from-consultancy-roles-in-sleaze-clampdown

    I'd go further... No other paid employment allowed for MPs. I'd also double their salaries.

    I'd set MPs salaries at double the median salary and leave it at that.

    If MPs want a higher salary, they can improve the economy nationwide.
    I like the tie-in but double median salary (so circa £62k) is too low - we want to attract good quality people to be MPs. I'd go for 4 or 5 times median salary.
    I think the salary is too high already, we've already got far more demand of people wanting the job than there is supply of vacancies.

    We should have people getting attracted to the job because they want to do so for public service, not because its a well paid sinecure.
    Demand of people, or demand of good quality people? Given some of the duffers (to put it diplomatically) in there at the moment, something is going wrong with the selection process if its the latter.

    (Surplus demand is of course kinda a pre-requisite for a functioning democracy!!!)
    I would freeze or lower the salaries for MPs and increase the salaries for ministers, especially in the cabinet.
    All that does is increase the power of the PM and the party over ministers.
    But it would also increase the personal stakes for MPs to bring down the PM so overall I think it would enhance parliamentary power.
    Would it? If they brought down the PM, they would increase the electorate's view that they were a bunch of eejits, and therefore lower the chance they would have a ministerial position in future.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    Indeed. But if you believe that Labour in government will not be mired in corruption and especially lies, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Blair's government wasn't exactly whiter than white: whether it's Mandelson or Ecclestone. Labour MPs weren't exactly absent in the expenses scandal, were they?

    You've got to convince me how Starmer will prevent lies and corruption within the government, and amongst his MPs.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited November 2021
    Going to be an interesting day for the BBC, I hope. Essentially running a Press Release from Global Witness as if it was fact/news, in the top-left of the website home and at the top of R4 Today. The claim is that the 'fossil fuel' delegation (ie those in all delegations GW think have 'links') is the largest.

    That's 503 (alleged) in toto out of 35,000 registered participants / observers.

    They are dividing registered delegates into angels and demons, and attacking those the wrong side of their particular line. The obvious comparison is with the 'activist' delegation, which is many times larger on exactly the same terms.

    Questions about the definitions used, and some factual stuff that seems to be wrong. I wonder if anyone prominent will factcheck.




    Article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59199484
    Participants: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/PLOP_COP26.pdf
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited November 2021

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    Indeed. But if you believe that Labour in government will not be mired in corruption and especially lies, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Blair's government wasn't exactly whiter than white: whether it's Mandelson or Ecclestone. Labour MPs weren't exactly absent in the expenses scandal, were they?

    You've got to convince me how Starmer will prevent lies and corruption within the government, and amongst his MPs.
    This is the point I've been making. Labour needs to nail Boris for all his lies, otherwise voters like you will go on believing he is just another politician resiling from "political promises". Or that hundreds of millions of pounds in mates' contracts is the same as house-flipping on expenses. Or that ennobling ten £3 million donors is par for the course because Labour gave us Lord Levy. And that last one was not, of course, Boris!

    As Keir Starmer pointed out, when faced with sleaze, John Major set up the Nolan commission. The rules on expenses were tightened after that scandal. It is unprecedented that this government wants to weaken defences and lower standards. This should not be a party political matter.
  • SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
    2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
    3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
    4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
    5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

    — Matthew 7:1–5 KJV
    Hardly relevant. Whataboutery doesn't save or excuse Boris's Tory Party.
  • SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    But then how do you factor in the reality that being an MP for, say, a constituency covering the Shetland Islands is probably going to come with a magnitude of additional costs compared to a constituency covering, say, Westminster.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
  • murali_smurali_s Posts: 3,037
    edited November 2021
    2+ years away from an election so difficult to call. However, I think a drip-drip effect (sleaze, incompetence, lies) has started and this is likely to continue for some time. The polls have been stubborn to shift but maybe the momentum is there now? Hard to tell.

    Like most moderate progressive minded people, I want this wretched Government out, but still far too early to call.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,751
    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    Its so much easier to steal when they just give you the money, no questions asked.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,546
    rcs1000 said:

    alex_ said:

    A possible step in the right direction:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/07/mps-could-be-barred-from-consultancy-roles-in-sleaze-clampdown

    I'd go further... No other paid employment allowed for MPs. I'd also double their salaries.

    I'd set MPs salaries at double the median salary and leave it at that.

    If MPs want a higher salary, they can improve the economy nationwide.
    I like the tie-in but double median salary (so circa £62k) is too low - we want to attract good quality people to be MPs. I'd go for 4 or 5 times median salary.
    I think the salary is too high already, we've already got far more demand of people wanting the job than there is supply of vacancies.

    We should have people getting attracted to the job because they want to do so for public service, not because its a well paid sinecure.
    Demand of people, or demand of good quality people? Given some of the duffers (to put it diplomatically) in there at the moment, something is going wrong with the selection process if its the latter.

    (Surplus demand is of course kinda a pre-requisite for a functioning democracy!!!)
    I would freeze or lower the salaries for MPs and increase the salaries for ministers, especially in the cabinet.
    All that does is increase the power of the PM and the party over ministers.
    But it would also increase the personal stakes for MPs to bring down the PM so overall I think it would enhance parliamentary power.
    Would it? If they brought down the PM, they would increase the electorate's view that they were a bunch of eejits, and therefore lower the chance they would have a ministerial position in future.
    Big G would disagree.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    The answer is to give MPs the salary, benefits and allowances that top journalists - say, Peston - get. That way the eejits in the media cannot complain. Or at least, they'd be even more hypocritical to complain ...
  • I don't think MPs expenses are the issue they once were - parliament learned much from that bruising encounter. No, now the issues are party funding and public contracts.

    If we removed parties from the need to get much of their funding privately we would remove much of the fuel for corruption. No more cash for peerages, planning decisions or PPE contracts.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    MPs get plenty of perks - the salary may not be enormous but the costs are definitely met, esp if you employ wife/kids/family members - its as Arthur Daley would say a "nice little earner" so I dont weep over the basic salary and generous pension. Those in Red Wall seats will judge MPs salaries as bloated...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,546

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    Indeed. But if you believe that Labour in government will not be mired in corruption and especially lies, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Blair's government wasn't exactly whiter than white: whether it's Mandelson or Ecclestone. Labour MPs weren't exactly absent in the expenses scandal, were they?

    You've got to convince me how Starmer will prevent lies and corruption within the government, and amongst his MPs.
    What he is considerably less likely to do is rig the very system to exempt his MPs and cabinet from the rules.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    edited November 2021
    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    I see Big Bird is once again the target of the American right.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited November 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    In a British context that’s a very old fashioned way of doing it, mostly replaced nowadays, even in the public sector, with payment of expenses within rules and against receipts. In part this is to maintain the tax free status, since a cash allowance unsupported by actual expenditure should be taxable.

    Speaking as someone who spent nearly twenty years managing expenses policy for a big company, it is possible to run a reasonably robust expenses system if the rules are spelled out clearly enough and properly monitored and enforced. Yes, there will always be some fiddling around the edges - people rounding up their mileage and suchlike - but serious fraud is relatively rare. And people get caught by getting away with minor fiddling, and becoming greedy; I used to have the claims for the top three highest claimers each month sent to me, and my team went through them in detail. Targeted checking like that uncovered serious cases now and again.

    It would look pretty poor for MPs to go back to an allowance system, and given the different circumstances of each MP, with different constituencies and a whole stack of different transport arrangements, you’d need a complex set of rules for a allowances system, since you obviously couldn’t pay a Scottish MP the same as a London one.
  • Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,751

    I don't think MPs expenses are the issue they once were - parliament learned much from that bruising encounter. No, now the issues are party funding and public contracts.

    If we removed parties from the need to get much of their funding privately we would remove much of the fuel for corruption. No more cash for peerages, planning decisions or PPE contracts.

    Not sure I agree with this. The arrogant "I know best and who are you to question my judgment" mentality that caused the expenses scandal was very evident in the mindset of Owen Paterson at least.

    I do not think it is possible to remove party funding as an issue. Whatever public money the parties got they would want more, it is the nature of the beast. IT and Social media have really increased the capacity of parties to spend even more on elections than they did before.

    I want the HoL abolished but for as long as this anachronistic irrelevance remains selling seats in it is probably one of the least painful ways of parties generating the funding they think they need, certainly better than selling PP or dodgy contracts. On the latter I think that there should be some latitude for what needed to be done immediately in the Covid crisis but boy, did the "never fail to take advantage of a disaster" mentality strike hard.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,751

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    Are these hulls not tied up because they are radioactive? Not exactly a safe working environment.
  • DavidL said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    Are these hulls not tied up because they are radioactive? Not exactly a safe working environment.
    It was intended to be screaming satire. "plug them in..."
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
    The Red Wallers aren't as stupid as Labour thinks they are, either. There are many reasons Labour lost them in the last few years, and there was undeniably a pull factor from the Conservative's warm words - and there are significant doubts about whether those warm words are just hot air.

    But there was also a massive push factor: in the form of Labour MPs who treated the areas they represented terribly, and as a captive vote. "They'll always vote for me, so why should I hold any surgeries?" (c) Stuart Bell.

    The same thing happened less than a decade earlier in Scotland, with solid-red areas going over to the SNP. If you treat the voters with contempt, they'll eventually treat you with such as well.

    The question therefore becomes how long will red-wallers be willing to wait to see change? Some things can be done fairly quickly - or within a year or two - such as moving government departments or trying to attract in new businesses. New infrastructure can take a decade or more. There's a chance that as long as they see progress in areas - where there was none before - they might be patient.

    I also think it's wrong to assume red wallers will flock back to Labour. They've broken their ties with the party; they might well go elsewhere if fed up with the Tories - to the Lib Dems or Greens.

    In addition, Starmer's about as far away from a Red Waller as it's possible to get. So is Boris, but he's Boris. Starmer isn't.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    No 10 was at the centre of further controversy last night after a cabinet minister wrongly claimed that Boris Johnson could not be investigated by parliament’s standards commissioner.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-sleaze-row-over-boris-johnsons-downing-street-redecoration-p9ffgvhjg?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1636347415
  • DavidL said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    Are these hulls not tied up because they are radioactive? Not exactly a safe working environment.
    Missing the point: there two mistakes and one stylistic car-crash in one sentence of a report.

    Obviously it’s only when they report on anything science related that they make such mistakes…
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    The answer is to give MPs the salary, benefits and allowances that top journalists - say, Peston - get. That way the eejits in the media cannot complain. Or at least, they'd be even more hypocritical to complain ...
    I find it quite amazing how, over the course of three or four decades, defence from journalists towards politicians has been replaced by deference by politicians towards journalists.

    For example, I would have had every minister asked to interview with Kay Burley or Beth Rigby in recent months, to start with a snide remark about their thinking that rules shouldn’t apply to them.

    Doesn’t Peston get something silly like half a million? No way that’s a reasonable salary, and MPs should keep pointing that out too.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited November 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    This seems to me to be very confused. Serious Q: do you actually know the post-2011 system in real detail?

    (Ignoring office expenses, staff etc. Assume we agree that those should be provided.)

    1 - Out of London MPs get a budget of £25k-£35k to pay for a rental or hotels in London, depending on circs such as children.
    2 - They also get to/from constituency travel covered.
    3 - So the second homes issue is a red herring. The very best piece of the 2011 reforms was that extra living / travel expenses for the job are separated from normal living expenses. That massively reduces the temptation to fiddle expenses. We owe MPs that to protect them from themselves.
    4 - MPs can claim far fewer expenses than before, not more. No more "the new conservatory / duck house at my constituency is wholly and solely necessary for my work in Parliament" (the approx. declaration signed for every invoice / receipt).
    5 - On your taxi Q. Clearly yes, if required.
    6 - You are arguing for a return to the previous setup, which had "allowances", and resulted in industrial scale dishonesty / fiddling / fraud. Six (?) went to prison, and dozens more were lucky to get away with it.
    7 - Given that generous London living allowances (or I think they can opt for the constituency) are provided, a top 3% salary is absolutely fine.
    8 - I don't want MPs in it for the money. They need a good, comfortable lifestyle to allow them to do their role without challenge. Which is what we currently provide.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726

    DavidL said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    Are these hulls not tied up because they are radioactive? Not exactly a safe working environment.
    Missing the point: there two mistakes and one stylistic car-crash in one sentence of a report.

    Obviously it’s only when they report on anything science related that they make such mistakes…
    'More than six times less' is just bizarre phrasing.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    As the government deals with accusations of sleaze, Sky News speaks to Boris Johnson's constituents in Uxbridge about their thoughts on the PM and whether they would vote him in again.

    Get more on this story: https://trib.al/wIusSsU https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1457611893649063936/video/1
  • But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    This seems to me to be very confused.

    (Ignoring office expenses, staff etc. Assume we agree that those should be provided.)

    1 - Out of London MPs get a budget of £25k-£35k to pay for a rental or hotels in London, depending on circs such as children.
    2 - They also get to/from constituency travel covered.
    3 - So the second homes issue is a red herring. The very best piece of the 2011 reforms was that extra living / travel expenses for the job are separated from normal living expenses. That massively reduces the temptation to fiddle expenses. We owe MPs that to protect them from themselves.
    4 - MPs can claim far fewer expenses than before, not more. No more "the new conservatory / duck house at my constituency is wholly and solely necessary for my work in Parliament" (the approx. declaration signed for every invoice / receipt).
    5 - On your taxi Q. Clearly yes, if required.
    6 - You are arguing for a return to the previous setup, which had "allowances", and resulted in industrial scale dishonesty / fiddling / fraud. Six (?) went to prison, and dozens more were lucky to get away with it.
    7 - Given that generous London living allowances (or I think they can opt for the constituency) are provided, a top 3% salary is absolutely fine.
    8 - I don't want MPs in it for the money. They need a good, comfortable lifestyle to allow them to do their role without challenge. Which is what we currently provide.
    I'd argue that the above is all well and good, but every rule introduces edge and corner cases. Is that taxi ride okay if the MP also attends a non-work related social function at the other end? Did they travel for work or pleasure? An MP might have no idea whether it is or not unless he queries it or puts it on expenses, at which case he opens himself up to accusations of fiddling.

    If I were an MP nowadays, I'd be *very* careful about putting in for even reasonable expenses, leaving me significantly out-of-pocket. And that's unreasonable.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    DavidL said:

    I don't think MPs expenses are the issue they once were - parliament learned much from that bruising encounter. No, now the issues are party funding and public contracts.

    If we removed parties from the need to get much of their funding privately we would remove much of the fuel for corruption. No more cash for peerages, planning decisions or PPE contracts.

    Not sure I agree with this. The arrogant "I know best and who are you to question my judgment" mentality that caused the expenses scandal was very evident in the mindset of Owen Paterson at least.

    I do not think it is possible to remove party funding as an issue. Whatever public money the parties got they would want more, it is the nature of the beast. IT and Social media have really increased the capacity of parties to spend even more on elections than they did before.

    I want the HoL abolished but for as long as this anachronistic irrelevance remains selling seats in it is probably one of the least painful ways of parties generating the funding they think they need, certainly better than selling PP or dodgy contracts. On the latter I think that there should be some latitude for what needed to be done immediately in the Covid crisis but boy, did the "never fail to take advantage of a disaster" mentality strike hard.
    We need a second, revising, reviewing chamber. I think that's a given, but would be prepared to be convinced otherwise. What we don't need is for seats in it to be lifetime and new ones to be in the gift of the PM, whether that person is honest or not.
    But 'cash for honours' was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Liberal Party post WWI; I wonder if history is about to repeat itself.

    A a bright but cold morning here. Very un-November-ish!
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    The MoD hasn't disposed of a nuclear submarine since 1980 and there 17 (soon to be 21) awaiting disposal alongside at Devonport. They also stopped defueling them in 2004 to save money.

    It costs about £100m to dispose of one hence why the MoD isn't exactly getting stuck into them.
  • ydoethur said:

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
    I think the biggest mistake in the sentence (the one nobody else seems to have noticed yet) may actually have been added by a sub editor who didn’t understand what the journalist originally wrote…
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Clearly not proof read by someone with an O-Level in physics!

    Of course, it’s only when you know about the subject that they make such glaring errors. On things when you rely on them to inform you, there’s never any errors at all. :confused:
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726

    DavidL said:

    I don't think MPs expenses are the issue they once were - parliament learned much from that bruising encounter. No, now the issues are party funding and public contracts.

    If we removed parties from the need to get much of their funding privately we would remove much of the fuel for corruption. No more cash for peerages, planning decisions or PPE contracts.

    Not sure I agree with this. The arrogant "I know best and who are you to question my judgment" mentality that caused the expenses scandal was very evident in the mindset of Owen Paterson at least.

    I do not think it is possible to remove party funding as an issue. Whatever public money the parties got they would want more, it is the nature of the beast. IT and Social media have really increased the capacity of parties to spend even more on elections than they did before.

    I want the HoL abolished but for as long as this anachronistic irrelevance remains selling seats in it is probably one of the least painful ways of parties generating the funding they think they need, certainly better than selling PP or dodgy contracts. On the latter I think that there should be some latitude for what needed to be done immediately in the Covid crisis but boy, did the "never fail to take advantage of a disaster" mentality strike hard.
    We need a second, revising, reviewing chamber. I think that's a given, but would be prepared to be convinced otherwise. What we don't need is for seats in it to be lifetime and new ones to be in the gift of the PM, whether that person is honest or not.
    But 'cash for honours' was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Liberal Party post WWI; I wonder if history is about to repeat itself.

    A a bright but cold morning here. Very un-November-ish!
    The Liberal Party wasn't implicated in cash for honours. Lloyd George wasn't a member of it at the time.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited November 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
    Employees booking with their ‘favourite’ airline for the points, has always been a problem for company expenses departments. The solution is to have a travel agent offer three quotes and make a logical choice.

    Also, the rules they impose on everyone else, for example taking travel and accommodation out of IR35, are getting stricter and more onerous. MPs should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited November 2021

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
    The Red Wallers aren't as stupid as Labour thinks they are, either. There are many reasons Labour lost them in the last few years, and there was undeniably a pull factor from the Conservative's warm words - and there are significant doubts about whether those warm words are just hot air.

    But there was also a massive push factor: in the form of Labour MPs who treated the areas they represented terribly, and as a captive vote. "They'll always vote for me, so why should I hold any surgeries?" (c) Stuart Bell.

    The same thing happened less than a decade earlier in Scotland, with solid-red areas going over to the SNP. If you treat the voters with contempt, they'll eventually treat you with such as well.

    The question therefore becomes how long will red-wallers be willing to wait to see change? Some things can be done fairly quickly - or within a year or two - such as moving government departments or trying to attract in new businesses. New infrastructure can take a decade or more. There's a chance that as long as they see progress in areas - where there was none before - they might be patient.

    I also think it's wrong to assume red wallers will flock back to Labour. They've broken their ties with the party; they might well go elsewhere if fed up with the Tories - to the Lib Dems or Greens.

    In addition, Starmer's about as far away from a Red Waller as it's possible to get. So is Boris, but he's Boris. Starmer isn't.
    On the last sentence, I disagree; plenty of older Red Wallers have sons and daughters or nephews and nieces who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, by their own abilities, as he has done.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    “ We do know, however, that that other big indicator of electoral outcomes, the approval ratings for the PM, are looking pretty dire for the incumbent.”

    Maybe its about to change, but a strange thing to say when the LotOs are worse
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726

    ydoethur said:

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
    I think the biggest mistake in the sentence (the one nobody else seems to have noticed yet) may actually have been added by a sub editor who didn’t understand what the journalist originally wrote…
    Truthfully, I don't feel qualified to comment on the physics. So I don't know what the actual mistakes are. I just can't understand why anyone would read that construction and think it was acceptable.
  • Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
    Also, the rules they impose on everyone else, for example taking travel and accommodation out of IR35, are getting stricter and more onerous. MPs should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.
    I’d be slightly wary of that: I wouldn’t want an MP claiming for unfair dismissal if they were voted out…
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    Probably be far too expensive to run per MWh.

    Although interestingly, AIUI some US Navy ships are designed to be able to provide power (and clean water) to land, e.g. docks, and have been used in such a manner after natural disasters. Dura_Ace'd know more...
  • SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
    The Red Wallers aren't as stupid as Labour thinks they are, either. There are many reasons Labour lost them in the last few years, and there was undeniably a pull factor from the Conservative's warm words - and there are significant doubts about whether those warm words are just hot air.

    But there was also a massive push factor: in the form of Labour MPs who treated the areas they represented terribly, and as a captive vote. "They'll always vote for me, so why should I hold any surgeries?" (c) Stuart Bell.

    The same thing happened less than a decade earlier in Scotland, with solid-red areas going over to the SNP. If you treat the voters with contempt, they'll eventually treat you with such as well.

    The question therefore becomes how long will red-wallers be willing to wait to see change? Some things can be done fairly quickly - or within a year or two - such as moving government departments or trying to attract in new businesses. New infrastructure can take a decade or more. There's a chance that as long as they see progress in areas - where there was none before - they might be patient.

    I also think it's wrong to assume red wallers will flock back to Labour. They've broken their ties with the party; they might well go elsewhere if fed up with the Tories - to the Lib Dems or Greens.

    In addition, Starmer's about as far away from a Red Waller as it's possible to get. So is Boris, but he's Boris. Starmer isn't.
    I agree with you about Labour's challenges - I don't expect these seats to automatically flip back. My specific point about hospitals was that it isn't a waiting game. The Tories are telling people they are building new hospitals in seats like Carlisle. As voters aren't stupid enough to consider a new ward to be a new hospital they will have to suffer being told they *are* stupid as the Tories claim they have delivered investment that isn't there. Similar with the towns fund - easy for whips to threaten this because the money isn't being delivered anyway - many towns appear to have been promised the same money.

    What I expect is low turnout. Having abandoned Labour many red wallers will think whats the point. Many people who have voted a couple of times in their lives (Brexit and 2019) won't bother, many Tories dahn sarf won't vote because green trans woke issues and corruption.
  • Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Over how long a period of time would they be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours?
  • On MPs expenses and salaries I think part of the problem for a certain type of person is the company you keep as an MP. For example, a Select Committee Chair's whole day is full of meetings with CEOs of Banks, Presidents of trade bodies, companies etc. In a lot of cases these people are more or less your contemporaries, you are in the position of power yet you earn a salary which is mathematically tiny compared to them (hundred thousand versus many millions). It could be easy in those circumstances to think that a few well paid consultancies was just a harmless way of redressing the balance slightly.

    I don't think the majority of MPs think this and I don't excuse it. Personally I don't think it's ever possible to raise an MPs salary to the point where it would begin to match what a lot of them would be doing in the private sector. I'd be in favour of just restricting as much outside employment as possible.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think MPs expenses are the issue they once were - parliament learned much from that bruising encounter. No, now the issues are party funding and public contracts.

    If we removed parties from the need to get much of their funding privately we would remove much of the fuel for corruption. No more cash for peerages, planning decisions or PPE contracts.

    Not sure I agree with this. The arrogant "I know best and who are you to question my judgment" mentality that caused the expenses scandal was very evident in the mindset of Owen Paterson at least.

    I do not think it is possible to remove party funding as an issue. Whatever public money the parties got they would want more, it is the nature of the beast. IT and Social media have really increased the capacity of parties to spend even more on elections than they did before.

    I want the HoL abolished but for as long as this anachronistic irrelevance remains selling seats in it is probably one of the least painful ways of parties generating the funding they think they need, certainly better than selling PP or dodgy contracts. On the latter I think that there should be some latitude for what needed to be done immediately in the Covid crisis but boy, did the "never fail to take advantage of a disaster" mentality strike hard.
    We need a second, revising, reviewing chamber. I think that's a given, but would be prepared to be convinced otherwise. What we don't need is for seats in it to be lifetime and new ones to be in the gift of the PM, whether that person is honest or not.
    But 'cash for honours' was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Liberal Party post WWI; I wonder if history is about to repeat itself.

    A a bright but cold morning here. Very un-November-ish!
    The Liberal Party wasn't implicated in cash for honours. Lloyd George wasn't a member of it at the time.
    Lloyd George did Honours for Cash. :smile:
  • If I were an MP nowadays, I'd be *very* careful about putting in for even reasonable expenses, leaving me significantly out-of-pocket. And that's unreasonable.

    It is the same for councillors. Screaming abuse every time expenses are published. The more obvious the expense (childcare as one example), the worse the abuse. I know quite a few councillors, most claim very little despite spending quite a lot.
  • But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    Is it? Surely the trouble with that phrase is that it is unclear. Whether it is wrong depends how you parse the sentence. Does "more than" bind to "six" or to "six times less"? If the former, then the claim is correct (leaving aside slippage between power and energy).
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited November 2021

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
    The Red Wallers aren't as stupid as Labour thinks they are, either. There are many reasons Labour lost them in the last few years, and there was undeniably a pull factor from the Conservative's warm words - and there are significant doubts about whether those warm words are just hot air.

    But there was also a massive push factor: in the form of Labour MPs who treated the areas they represented terribly, and as a captive vote. "They'll always vote for me, so why should I hold any surgeries?" (c) Stuart Bell.

    The same thing happened less than a decade earlier in Scotland, with solid-red areas going over to the SNP. If you treat the voters with contempt, they'll eventually treat you with such as well.

    The question therefore becomes how long will red-wallers be willing to wait to see change? Some things can be done fairly quickly - or within a year or two - such as moving government departments or trying to attract in new businesses. New infrastructure can take a decade or more. There's a chance that as long as they see progress in areas - where there was none before - they might be patient.

    I also think it's wrong to assume red wallers will flock back to Labour. They've broken their ties with the party; they might well go elsewhere if fed up with the Tories - to the Lib Dems or Greens.

    In addition, Starmer's about as far away from a Red Waller as it's possible to get. So is Boris, but he's Boris. Starmer isn't.
    I agree with you about Labour's challenges - I don't expect these seats to automatically flip back. My specific point about hospitals was that it isn't a waiting game. The Tories are telling people they are building new hospitals in seats like Carlisle. As voters aren't stupid enough to consider a new ward to be a new hospital they will have to suffer being told they *are* stupid as the Tories claim they have delivered investment that isn't there. Similar with the towns fund - easy for whips to threaten this because the money isn't being delivered anyway - many towns appear to have been promised the same money.

    What I expect is low turnout. Having abandoned Labour many red wallers will think whats the point. Many people who have voted a couple of times in their lives (Brexit and 2019) won't bother, many Tories dahn sarf won't vote because green trans woke issues and corruption.
    I haven't time (even in retirement) today to do the research but was turnout in the Red Wall seats (defining those as the ones Labour lost for the first time since 1945) so much higher in 2019 compared to the (say) three previous elections?
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
    I think the biggest mistake in the sentence (the one nobody else seems to have noticed yet) may actually have been added by a sub editor who didn’t understand what the journalist originally wrote…
    Truthfully, I don't feel qualified to comment on the physics. So I don't know what the actual mistakes are. I just can't understand why anyone would read that construction and think it was acceptable.
    The problem is that megawatt hours are units of energy, not power. 1MWh brings in about £100-£150 so a reactor that proceed 500 of them is not something you want costing about a billion pounds. One that produces five hundred an hour on the other hand might be financially viable.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited November 2021
    Sandpit said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Clearly not proof read by someone with an O-Level in physics!

    Of course, it’s only when you know about the subject that they make such glaring errors. On things when you rely on them to inform you, there’s never any errors at all. :confused:
    The BBC article has it right:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatts of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver.

    Has it just been corrected?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Surely this can be done cheaper. We have a fleet of nuclear submarines tied to the dock in Rosyth and Devonport. Swap the reactors out for the latest model, tow then to an off-shore wind farm and plug them in...
    Probably be far too expensive to run per MWh.

    Although interestingly, AIUI some US Navy ships are designed to be able to provide power (and clean water) to land, e.g. docks, and have been used in such a manner after natural disasters. Dura_Ace'd know more...
    The Russians build floating power stations (Lomonsov class) on barge hulls with modified propulsion reactors that they tow in to the Arctic regions to provide energy to isolated towns like Pevek.

    Being stationed on that must be very close to, if not, the worst maritime job in the world.


  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
    I think the biggest mistake in the sentence (the one nobody else seems to have noticed yet) may actually have been added by a sub editor who didn’t understand what the journalist originally wrote…
    Truthfully, I don't feel qualified to comment on the physics. So I don't know what the actual mistakes are. I just can't understand why anyone would read that construction and think it was acceptable.
    The problem is that megawatt hours are units of energy, not power. 1MWh brings in about £100-£150 so a reactor that proceed 500 of them is not something you want costing about a billion pounds. One that produces five hundred an hour on the other hand might be financially viable.
    I will admit I wouldn't have spotted that, but now you put it that way... :lol:
  • But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    Is it? Surely the trouble with that phrase is that it is unclear. Whether it is wrong depends how you parse the sentence. Does "more than" bind to "six" or to "six times less"? If the former, then the claim is correct (leaving aside slippage between power and energy).
    If the phrase is unclear then it is a mistake for that reason alone.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    MattW said:

    Sandpit said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Clearly not proof read by someone with an O-Level in physics!

    Of course, it’s only when you know about the subject that they make such glaring errors. On things when you rely on them to inform you, there’s never any errors at all. :confused:
    The BBC article got it right:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatts of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver.
    No, the original quote is still in the article, and has the units wrong - refers to “500 megawatt hours of power”

    On the substantive article, great news, this could and should be a huge future export industry, as well as cleaning up the domestic power supply.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
    The Red Wallers aren't as stupid as Labour thinks they are, either. There are many reasons Labour lost them in the last few years, and there was undeniably a pull factor from the Conservative's warm words - and there are significant doubts about whether those warm words are just hot air.

    But there was also a massive push factor: in the form of Labour MPs who treated the areas they represented terribly, and as a captive vote. "They'll always vote for me, so why should I hold any surgeries?" (c) Stuart Bell.

    The same thing happened less than a decade earlier in Scotland, with solid-red areas going over to the SNP. If you treat the voters with contempt, they'll eventually treat you with such as well.

    The question therefore becomes how long will red-wallers be willing to wait to see change? Some things can be done fairly quickly - or within a year or two - such as moving government departments or trying to attract in new businesses. New infrastructure can take a decade or more. There's a chance that as long as they see progress in areas - where there was none before - they might be patient.

    I also think it's wrong to assume red wallers will flock back to Labour. They've broken their ties with the party; they might well go elsewhere if fed up with the Tories - to the Lib Dems or Greens.

    In addition, Starmer's about as far away from a Red Waller as it's possible to get. So is Boris, but he's Boris. Starmer isn't.
    I agree with you about Labour's challenges - I don't expect these seats to automatically flip back. My specific point about hospitals was that it isn't a waiting game. The Tories are telling people they are building new hospitals in seats like Carlisle. As voters aren't stupid enough to consider a new ward to be a new hospital they will have to suffer being told they *are* stupid as the Tories claim they have delivered investment that isn't there. Similar with the towns fund - easy for whips to threaten this because the money isn't being delivered anyway - many towns appear to have been promised the same money.

    What I expect is low turnout. Having abandoned Labour many red wallers will think whats the point. Many people who have voted a couple of times in their lives (Brexit and 2019) won't bother, many Tories dahn sarf won't vote because green trans woke issues and corruption.
    Remember when New Labour said there were x number of new policemen on the street, and it turned out that overall numbers had hardly increased: they'd counted replacements for officers leaving the job. Labour thought the voters were stupid enough to buy that, and many other similar announcements.

    If the voters see money being spent, or advancing plans for money to be spent, they'll count that. What's more, there's *talk* about investment where Labour couldn't even be bothered to talk about it.

    On the hospitals/wards: if it is new investment, that's pretty much just semantics.

    There are three broad types of infrastructure spending: maintenance (keeping things running), renewal (replacing work-out things) and enhancements (building capability that was not there before). If the new ward is one of the first two, then it's bad. If the latter, who cares what it's called? They're getting an enhancement. So the question becomes whether the new wards are enhancements or just replacements.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    DO DONATIONS TO THE UK CONSERVATIVE PARTY LEAD TO A PEERAGE? TRADE SECRETARY TREVELYAN SAYS: WE WANT A 'RICH MIX' IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS
    https://twitter.com/GuyReuters/status/1457612329521238017
  • MattW said:

    Sandpit said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Clearly not proof read by someone with an O-Level in physics!

    Of course, it’s only when you know about the subject that they make such glaring errors. On things when you rely on them to inform you, there’s never any errors at all. :confused:
    The BBC article has it right:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatts of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver.

    Has it just been corrected?
    By the look of it, yes. I cut and pasted the original.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    If I were an MP nowadays, I'd be *very* careful about putting in for even reasonable expenses, leaving me significantly out-of-pocket. And that's unreasonable.

    It is the same for councillors. Screaming abuse every time expenses are published. The more obvious the expense (childcare as one example), the worse the abuse. I know quite a few councillors, most claim very little despite spending quite a lot.
    Childcare is a great example, because it’s a big expense that most voters have to pay out of their own pocket when they go to work.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited November 2021

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
    I think the biggest mistake in the sentence (the one nobody else seems to have noticed yet) may actually have been added by a sub editor who didn’t understand what the journalist originally wrote…
    Truthfully, I don't feel qualified to comment on the physics. So I don't know what the actual mistakes are. I just can't understand why anyone would read that construction and think it was acceptable.
    The problem is that megawatt hours are units of energy, not power. 1MWh brings in about £100-£150 so a reactor that proceed 500 of them is not something you want costing about a billion pounds. One that produces five hundred an hour on the other hand might be financially viable.
    That was what my reply was getting at. :)

    My understanding is that generation is MW, while storage is MWh.

    So eg if a storage facility to store excess wind energy had 500 MWh capacity then that would be the same as the generating capacity of a 500MW power plant running for just one hour.

    Which is why the construction cost of storage capacity per MWh needs to be a teensy fraction of the cost of generation per MW - and we'd need storage in the GWh ranges to provide a reasonable MW output for a day.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    On the SMR power stations, I think they are different from submarine ones as used in this country as they are Low Enrichment Uranium, rather than Highly Enriched.

    Which is easier under the NPT, I think.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited November 2021

    ydoethur said:

    But it isn’t more than “six times less” (would it kill them to write one sixth?): it’s less than.

    I thought it was the Torygraph that had fired all its subeditors.
    I think the biggest mistake in the sentence (the one nobody else seems to have noticed yet) may actually have been added by a sub editor who didn’t understand what the journalist originally wrote…
    I'll give you that one.

    I was more poked by "megawatt hours of power". But I associate with thermal calculations.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726

    MattW said:

    Sandpit said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Clearly not proof read by someone with an O-Level in physics!

    Of course, it’s only when you know about the subject that they make such glaring errors. On things when you rely on them to inform you, there’s never any errors at all. :confused:
    The BBC article has it right:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatts of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver.

    Has it just been corrected?
    By the look of it, yes. I cut and pasted the original.
    Still haven't corrected that horrible grammar, though.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    edited November 2021
    Watched the fight on YouTube after reading this article. Seems a pretty clear case of crookedness to me. The winner was so embarrassed he considered suicide

    “ “There’s hardened resentment built up in me that I will probably carry for the rest of my life”

    @Lawton_Times on an emotional reunion for Roy Jones Jr with Park Si-hun, the two boxers at the centre of one of the Olympic Games’ greatest injustices”

    https://twitter.com/timessport/status/1457603994679971841?s=21

    https://youtu.be/QZY_0eXCROM
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Sandpit said:

    MattW said:

    Sandpit said:

    Spot the glaring error:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatt hours of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver

    From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59201945

    Edit: errors

    Clearly not proof read by someone with an O-Level in physics!

    Of course, it’s only when you know about the subject that they make such glaring errors. On things when you rely on them to inform you, there’s never any errors at all. :confused:
    The BBC article got it right:

    These reactors will be capable of generating nearly 500 megawatts of power - three times as much as much as most existing nuclear submarine reactors but more than six times less than the 3.2 gigawatts that the large plant under construction at Hinkley Point will deliver.
    No, the original quote is still in the article, and has the units wrong - refers to “500 megawatt hours of power”

    On the substantive article, great news, this could and should be a huge future export industry, as well as cleaning up the domestic power supply.
    I can't find that now.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    The fact the betting markets have only moved from 40% to 39% on Con Maj shows they don’t seem to overreact to recency as much as political news obsessives.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    The big problem is not how much MPs are paid...

    😂"When reading of the latest cock-up, scandal or crony controversy the same question floats to mind: how on earth is this person a member of parliament?"


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-real-stench-in-parliament-is-mediocrity-l7qkd275j
  • isam said:

    The fact the betting markets have only moved from 40% to 39% on Con Maj shows they don’t seem to overreact to recency as much as political news obsessives.

    yes name one election decided on polls 2-3 years out? None.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited November 2021
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
    Employees booking with their ‘favourite’ airline for the points, has always been a problem for company expenses departments. The solution is to have a travel agent offer three quotes and make a logical choice.

    Also, the rules they impose on everyone else, for example taking travel and accommodation out of IR35, are getting stricter and more onerous. MPs should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.
    The expenses rules for an employee are very similar to that of an MP (heck they are actually worse as I can lord it over our local MPs by sitting in first class while if they do that they cannot claim the fare - it's why they now fly to Heathrow).

    The only difference is that MPs do need to be in 2 separate places (constituency + Westminster) so the 40% rule for an employee is not applied to an MP.

    @MattW has a more detailed explanation below and I really can't be bothered with edge cases, so they get a few pounds extra it won't be more than £1000.

    However, can someone explain why they wish to attack MP wages because a Tory MP decided that £80,000 wasn't enough...
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Good morning @BorisJohnson. A very simple question - will you kick disgraced sexual harasser Rob Roberts out of the @Conservatives Party and out of Parliament? Or are you happy that he is still an MP because he voted to help you defend corruption?
    https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1457621384025284609
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    isam said:

    The fact the betting markets have only moved from 40% to 39% on Con Maj shows they don’t seem to overreact to recency as much as political news obsessives.

    yes name one election decided on polls 2-3 years out? None.
    Insights don't come any profounder than that
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Scott_xP said:

    The big problem is not how much MPs are paid...

    😂"When reading of the latest cock-up, scandal or crony controversy the same question floats to mind: how on earth is this person a member of parliament?"


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-real-stench-in-parliament-is-mediocrity-l7qkd275j

    Oh that's easy - anyone with a brain knows there are way less stressful ways to earn money.

    And there are enough constituents who believe they need their problem fixed now that it's now a 24/7 job.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    eek said:

    isam said:

    The fact the betting markets have only moved from 40% to 39% on Con Maj shows they don’t seem to overreact to recency as much as political news obsessives.

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
    Employees booking with their ‘favourite’ airline for the points, has always been a problem for company expenses departments. The solution is to have a travel agent offer three quotes and make a logical choice.

    Also, the rules they impose on everyone else, for example taking travel and accommodation out of IR35, are getting stricter and more onerous. MPs should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.
    The expenses rules for an employee are very similar to that of an MP (heck they are actually worse as I can lord it over our local MPs by sitting in first class while if they do that they cannot claim the fare - it's why they now fly to Heathrow).

    The only difference is that MPs do need to be in 2 separate places (constituency + Westminster) so the 40% rule for an employee is not applied to an MP.
    Yes, I was replying to Robert’s suggestion that MPs just get handed an allowance rather than claim expenses individually. I think it’s an important principle that MPs have to deal with the crap they impose on everyone else, otherwise the rules for everyone else will get more and more complex and onerous. I would treat an MP like a small business owner, and subject them to exactly the same level of paperwork.

    Wasn’t the reason that first class ticket got banned for backbenchers, that they were turning up and buying the most expensive ticket possible, rather than booking the day before as you or I might do?
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
    2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
    3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
    4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
    5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

    — Matthew 7:1–5 KJV
    The Sermon on the Whataboutery? Is that the new Tory spin line or are you urging Boris to sack the Home and Justice Secretaries?
    Read what it says on the tin. All I am saying is that when it comes to corruption Labour had better be sure its hands are and have been clean.

    There is corruption in all Parties, always has been, always will be.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited November 2021
    eek said:

    isam said:

    The fact the betting markets have only moved from 40% to 39% on Con Maj shows they don’t seem to overreact to recency as much as political news obsessives.

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
    Employees booking with their ‘favourite’ airline for the points, has always been a problem for company expenses departments. The solution is to have a travel agent offer three quotes and make a logical choice.

    Also, the rules they impose on everyone else, for example taking travel and accommodation out of IR35, are getting stricter and more onerous. MPs should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.
    The expenses rules for an employee are very similar to that of an MP (heck they are actually worse as I can lord it over our local MPs by sitting in first class while if they do that they cannot claim the fare - it's why they now fly to Heathrow).

    The only difference is that MPs do need to be in 2 separate places (constituency + Westminster) so the 40% rule for an employee is not applied to an MP.
    The key point is that MPs' arrangements aren't intrinsically any more complex than those of most major companies - yes, there is a greater need for second homes which might need tailored arrangements - but all the other issues you can think of about expenses have been faced and answered by remuneration professionals before. I could easily write them an expenses policy, for an appropriate fee.

    Company expenses policies work on the basis of clear rules or guidance, trusting your people to make sensible judgements within these (rather than trying to cover every eventuality), and line manager sign-off. The CEO would normally have theirs signed off by the Finance Director.

    MPs are in the unusual situation of not having a line manager to sign them off, but I would expect the senior people in IPSA to keep an eye on things and 'have a word' if they see something that isn't serious but looks like somebody starting to push the boundaries.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    rcs1000 said:

    alex_ said:

    A possible step in the right direction:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/07/mps-could-be-barred-from-consultancy-roles-in-sleaze-clampdown

    I'd go further... No other paid employment allowed for MPs. I'd also double their salaries.

    I'd set MPs salaries at double the median salary and leave it at that.

    If MPs want a higher salary, they can improve the economy nationwide.
    I like the tie-in but double median salary (so circa £62k) is too low - we want to attract good quality people to be MPs. I'd go for 4 or 5 times median salary.
    I think the salary is too high already, we've already got far more demand of people wanting the job than there is supply of vacancies.

    We should have people getting attracted to the job because they want to do so for public service, not because its a well paid sinecure.
    Demand of people, or demand of good quality people? Given some of the duffers (to put it diplomatically) in there at the moment, something is going wrong with the selection process if its the latter.

    (Surplus demand is of course kinda a pre-requisite for a functioning democracy!!!)
    I would freeze or lower the salaries for MPs and increase the salaries for ministers, especially in the cabinet.
    All that does is increase the power of the PM and the party over ministers.
    But it would also increase the personal stakes for MPs to bring down the PM so overall I think it would enhance parliamentary power.
    Would it? If they brought down the PM, they would increase the electorate's view that they were a bunch of eejits, and therefore lower the chance they would have a ministerial position in future.
    Talking of that, I’m curious as to why Labour went so hard calling for Boris to resign. There was no way that was going to happen. So effectively it killed the story. You’d have thought there would be a better angle of attack
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited November 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Good morning @BorisJohnson. A very simple question - will you kick disgraced sexual harasser Rob Roberts out of the @Conservatives Party and out of Parliament? Or are you happy that he is still an MP because he voted to help you defend corruption?
    https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1457621384025284609

    Ms Rayner knows very well that the PM cannot kick an MP out of Parliament - otherwise why is convicted harasser Claudia Webbe still there?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Anne Marie Trevelyan says it’s ok if Boris Johnson doesn’t turn up for today’s sleaze debate as he can pop it on the telly “in the corner of his office” #today
    https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1457623769049092097
  • eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    No.

    The answer is to recognize that - apart from committing distance - MPs have roughly the same number of constituents, and should therefore have similar costs.

    I have my own business. I work to make sure that I always get the best value.

    But when I was an employee, and there were two planes I could take, I would choose based on airmiles, not on value to my employer.

    Why would MPs be different?

    Much better for them to have North Shropshire constituency Ltd, that recieves £100,000/year in revenue and needs to pay all expenses out of that. If the constituency company wants to give that as cash to the MP, well he can defend it at the next General Election, and that would (of course) be taxable.
    Employees booking with their ‘favourite’ airline for the points, has always been a problem for company expenses departments. The solution is to have a travel agent offer three quotes and make a logical choice.

    Also, the rules they impose on everyone else, for example taking travel and accommodation out of IR35, are getting stricter and more onerous. MPs should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.
    The expenses rules for an employee are very similar to that of an MP (heck they are actually worse as I can lord it over our local MPs by sitting in first class while if they do that they cannot claim the fare - it's why they now fly to Heathrow).

    The only difference is that MPs do need to be in 2 separate places (constituency + Westminster) so the 40% rule for an employee is not applied to an MP.

    @MattW has a more detailed explanation below and I really can't be bothered with edge cases, so they get a few pounds extra it won't be more than £1000.

    However, can someone explain why they wish to attack MP wages because a Tory MP decided that £80,000 wasn't enough...
    Same thing happened to me on fares. No first class rail travel allowed at our lowly level so we flew instead.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Anne Marie Trevelyan forced to deploy several “Clearlys" and an "In Due Course" during her Today interview suggests govt position on current sleaze row still very much evolving
    https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1457624192292163585
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    "I would never want to see a ban on second jobs overall. I think we would lose hugely," Trevelyan says, as her nightmare broadcast round continues.
    https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1457624342951518208
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Good morning @BorisJohnson. A very simple question - will you kick disgraced sexual harasser Rob Roberts out of the @Conservatives Party and out of Parliament? Or are you happy that he is still an MP because he voted to help you defend corruption?
    https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1457621384025284609

    Ms Rayner knows very well that the PM cannot kick an MP out of Parliament - otherwise why is Claudia Webbe still there?
    You mean she is as thick as I think she is?
  • eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    The big problem is not how much MPs are paid...

    😂"When reading of the latest cock-up, scandal or crony controversy the same question floats to mind: how on earth is this person a member of parliament?"


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-real-stench-in-parliament-is-mediocrity-l7qkd275j

    Oh that's easy - anyone with a brain knows there are way less stressful ways to earn money.

    And there are enough constituents who believe they need their problem fixed now that it's now a 24/7 job.
    MPs are amongst the top 3% of earners.

    Do you think that 97% of the country lacks a brain?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,726
    edited November 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Anne Marie Trevelyan forced to deploy several “Clearlys" and an "In Due Course" during her Today interview suggests govt position on current sleaze row still very much evolving
    https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1457624192292163585

    The government has had more positions on this than somebody working through the whole Kama Sutra.

    And the outcome in terms of being screwed is about the same.

    Edited for autocorrect SNAFU, although I do like the idea of Paterson's fuckups being the karma Sutra.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    SKS could make hay. Whether he does or not remains to be seen. Labour needs to attack wider government corruption than just Owen Paterson, who will have gone anyway.

    Blair won a landslide in 1997 not just because of Tory sleaze, but because he and his team set out a vision that was positive, and placed it under simple banners: "Things can only get better", "education, education, education", etc.

    Labour needs to set out their vision for the country - and ensure it's positive. They also need to show the voters they've rooted out the last of the anti-Semitism and other poisons that festered and thrived within the party under Corbyn.

    All we've seen from Starmer is a worthy and weighty self-indulgent tome that was fully in WORN territory. It will have ad zero impact on the public, or even his party.

    Labour's problem is Boris pinched all the popular bits from Corbyn, so if Labour were to propose, say, new hospitals or more police or better internet in remote areas, so what? Boris has already got those in hand, or at least he says he has.

    You are right that Labour does need to present a positive vision, but it also needs to destroy Boris and his government. And all of us should welcome an end to lies and corruption.
    The challenge for Labour is that the Tories have stolen all of Labour's policies - new hospitals and the like.

    The challenge for the Tories is that they have promised new hospitals and are delivering new units on existing hospitals.

    As I keep pointing out, red wall voters are not as stupid as southern Tories think they are. Saying "vote for us and get a new hospital", then not opening a new hospital but saying "look, here is your new hospital" is likely to get them run out of town at the next election.

    There is a dripping arrogance problem with the Tories. They won with "jam tomorrow" in 2019. They now have to deliver jam. If they fail to deliver jam AND ask "do you like your jam", it won't end well. How do you deliver on impossible promises you had no intentions of keeping?
    I’m not sure I buy that argument

    I think if you expand a perfectly good hospital in a constituency with a cancer or paediatric ward or whatever voters will accept that as fulfilment of a pledge. They think “new hospital” = expansion of healthcare provision
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re MPs salaries:

    The problem is that being an MP is expensive (unless you are fortunate enough to be the MP for Westminster). Your constituents are - at the very least - a drive away, and could be a flight or long train journey away.

    Unless you are in London, you will need two homes, and you will need to travel between them. And you probably need to staff an office.

    We have attempted to square this circle by paying MPs a little, but allowing them to claim a lot of expenses. And inevitably this means there are lots of edge cases about what is acceptable behaviour.

    You are in Westminster for a HoC vote, and you miss the last train to your constituency in Oxford. Is it acceptable to get a taxi (cost £250) home and to expense it?

    I can think of hundreds of little things are at the discretion of MPs, and which may - or may not - be acceptable.

    The answer is to have an allowance. No more fiddling expenses.

    So the answer is, in other words, to give the MP a huge tax-free sum of public money, for which they are utterly unaccountable?

    It’s also what the EU does.
    Or you have all MP expenses via a HoC credit card plus travel booked centrally.

    And no, it is not acceptable to get a £250 taxi home. You stay in your second home.
This discussion has been closed.