Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
It's going to need more than "with, they felt, the prime minister's implicit permission", I suspect.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
The embarrassing and ridiculous arguments from the palsied Remoaners on here that the referendum was advisory and it was fine to try and get it overturned blah blah blah fucking blah would not be so risibly and offensively stupid if ONE SINGLE REMAIN POLITICIAN had said, during the actual referendum campaign, that "oh, by the way, this vote is just advisory, we don't have to obey it and if you vote Leave we might ignore you and have a second vote, hope that's OK"
But they didn't did they? Not one single person ever said that because it is so plainly absurd and wanky. They would have got thrown into Lake Windermere
No one said it, because it is bollocks. Everyone agreed, at the time, with David Cameron in his speech to the entire British nation:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum"
The Leavers agreed that this was it, their one and only chance for a generation. The Remainers agreed this was it, the one and only vote - BECAUSE THEY ARROGANTLY EXPECTED TO WIN IT, EASILY
All else is chaff. PFF
It doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is a f*cking calamity.
Why oh why did Cameron think it was a good idea to give the people a vote on this. Did he really think the average uneducated lazy moron who lives in sh*tholes like Scunthorpe would understand the nuisances of international trade?
David Cameron = worst PM in history.
The Scunthorpe morons did have a feel for the labour market though, and since then we've seen an incredibly tight one. That might not be down to Brexit, but what they thought would happen did occur, in the end.
Whether that leads to real earnings growth for those on lower incomes (and reduced inequality) is yet to be seen.
You might be right that the trade deals were better for people on low incomes compared with what we have now but it's pretty hard to prove.
It is being seen. It hasn't and it isn't.
In the last official figures I saw many low income earners were actually getting above inflation pay rises thanks to the tightness of the labour market.
Since then, inflation has risen even higher thanks to commodity prices rather than thanks to the labour market. Whether real wages continue to rise in these circumstances is yet to be seen.
Of course the labour market reforms are structural changes, while the global inflationary environment is temporary due to the conflict in Ukraine and the aftermaths of Covid. So it will take many years to see whether we get real pay rises or not, especially for lower income earners in industries favoured by free movement in the past.
Yes but. No one was promised "in many years". It was sold as a magical solution to all ills. It isn't. Energy price cap predicted to rise to £2800 pa.
I don't think anyone sold it as a magical solution to all ills.
Inflation is rising due to global conditions, not Brexit. You could argue that without the tight labour market bringing pay rises to people, that the cost of living crisis would be even worse now.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
In the UK many of us buy our energy from EDF. Who charge the market rate and make a bucket of money.
In France most people buy their energy from EDF. Who as they are owned by the French government take the profits made here to order a tight cost cap for French consumers.
What could we do here and now? Nail to the floor the price cap. That will drive even some of the bigger companies out of the market with infrastructure that can then be handed to our own StateCo.
I keep saying this - the solution is across the channel.
That’s an interesting, if radical idea. Problem is that the generators and the retailers are not one and the same, so I doubt it would work as easily as you suggest. And the ability of this government to manage the consequences ….
Don’t be daft.
Its also completely false.
In France the price is a lot less variable due to the fact that they are getting their energy from uranium instead of gas.
So in the past when gas was cheaper than nuclear EDF consumers were paying less in the UK than EDF consumers in France were.
Now that the price of gas has surged, while the price of nuclear is much more fixed, the situation has reversed.
Having state ran industries doesn't make things better. Investing in nuclear energy does make energy less variable but not necessarily cheaper.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
That’s what happens when you let peons take the hit which you yourself deserve - they talk.
Hitler was an election winner too, people just thought eventually that it was more than just winning
Ken, is that you?
Hitler really wasn't an election winner, he managed to outwit an 87 year old guy, became Chancellor, and after that....
TSE, is it you that posts on Digital Spy under TSE?
Yes.
Nice, I didn't know you were such a techy. I've over there too
I'm very techy.
In a previous job BT/Cellnet/o2 were clients, as were a few other tech companies.
I used to work for one of their competitors, on the Red team
VOice DAta FONE.
I was conflicted out of advising them.
They were an absolute shambles internally, I don't know what it's like nowadays. Very much stuck in the late 90s.
I'm led to believe BT is now very well run, Openreach especially - one of the better decisions to have been to hive them off and have them focus on FTTP.
They've just installed FTTP here (can't order it yet). They had it all done in under a month, very impressive.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
And I'm right now on the Eurostar. 1st foray to abroads for a decade. Tremendously exciting!
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Hitler was an election winner too, people just thought eventually that it was more than just winning
Ken, is that you?
Hitler really wasn't an election winner, he managed to outwit an 87 year old guy, became Chancellor, and after that....
TSE, is it you that posts on Digital Spy under TSE?
Yes.
Nice, I didn't know you were such a techy. I've over there too
I'm very techy.
In a previous job BT/Cellnet/o2 were clients, as were a few other tech companies.
I used to work for one of their competitors, on the Red team
VOice DAta FONE.
I was conflicted out of advising them.
They were an absolute shambles internally, I don't know what it's like nowadays. Very much stuck in the late 90s.
I'm led to believe BT is now very well run, Openreach especially - one of the better decisions to have been to hive them off and have them focus on FTTP.
They've just installed FTTP here (can't order it yet). They had it all done in under a month, very impressive.
My friend works for BT, fairly high up, says it is very well run, especially now they have decided on a strategy, after six years of umming and ahhing.
EE - To be the front facing brand for mobiles and pretty much all retail customers.
BT - Businesses and legacy landline customers
Plusnet - For cheapskates.
Best thing they've done is the all UK call centres, and the fact they own the best/most spectrum.
FWIW - I also expect the Vodafone UK and Three UK merger* to go ahead in the 18 months.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
"How different, how very different from the home life of our own dear Queen."
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
Thing as as most of us just move on with our lives however we voted
Bollocks
A we have seen, Brexiteers are obsessed by the vote.
Others are more interested in the outcome, the ongoing and ever deepening shitshow that Brexit has become.
Instead of addressing the issues, Brexiteers can only whine "but we won....."
This is @Leon all over. A man so conflicted that he was a Remainer right up to the ballot box and is now so full of bile towards anyone of his former constituency that he has become a swivel-eyed loon on the subject.
As they say, there's no one so zealous as a convert. But in Leon's case I doubt the sincerity. I think it's all faux outrage because he doesn't really know what he thinks and that frightens him.
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
And I'm right now on the Eurostar. 1st foray to abroads for a decade. Tremendously exciting!
Lucky you! We took it last month en route to the Black Forest. Trains are the best.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
Indeed… but, to be honest, I remain unclear why a right-wing Conservative government beloved of libertarians even got to a point where they felt that the state should set the price of a commodity.
This is a socialist government, high taxes, high spending, price caps, and a windfall tax looming.
I’m fully expecting rent controls.
And I'm fully expecting some loyalists (not naming names) to try to justify them too.
The sooner Boris is out of office, the better.
But is all this what TSE calls good old fashioned 60s/70s Labour government policies because Boris and his ministers believes in it, believes the country needs high tax high spend - or because of absence of direction and values and ideas in this government? Lady Thatcher and her governments believed in stuff, they had very clear ideas and plans going forward. I disagree with what TSE implies, I don’t think it’s clear Boris believes in the socialism of his government, he just doesn’t believe or understand enough in what the Conservative Party has always stood for. From that point of view he’s never been a fit leader, to beat Corbyn in a one off and then crash, political boom and bust, is not the measurement, you need to have enduring values as foundation to keep on winning.
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
It went oddly quiet for a few weeks and now it has appeared again.
This must be planned, I see no other explanation.
You're going to be pretty miffed if you get fined for an event where the organiser didn't.
The other thing is whilst a FPN isn't a criminal record, it will be need to be declared on a future government focused/based jobs.
There's going to be a lot of pissed off people.
Yes, WATO was pretty damning for BJ today, to be amplified on Panorama tonight. Junior staffers full of indignation that they've been fined and/or lost their jobs, while the Supreme Leader has got away with it - again. Who can blame them?
And the whole thing is fronted by Laura K, who it would be hard to label as a Commie seeking to bring down the government.
Of course the referendum wasn't advisory. No government could have not implemented it. Cameron thought he would win so paid lip service to the details.
That said, any flavour of "leaving the EU" would have also been legitimate eg EEA (although I have my doubts, expressed at the time, about that). Anti-immigrationers would have hated it but would that have put us in a worse place, divided nation-wise, than we are now? Probably, possibly not.
Also, for the nth time, a second referendum would not have been undemocratic. Hugely administratively awkward, irritating, unwieldy and probably unworkable if there was one every week, but not undemocratic. No vote asking "the people" (the same people who had voted previously) to opine on something could be undemocratic.
As for parliament "trying to frustrate democracy", parliament is democracy. They are voted there by the people to make decisions so by definition everything they did was democratic.
Therein lies much of the problem that haunted post-Referendum politics at Westminster. Many MPs just would not accept that a Referendum, often with a higher turnout than they achieved to get elected, was in any way an equivalent - let alone dominant on a single issue - form of democracy.
So they dicked around for four years, with their own General Election mandates giving them an authority to do so.
The problem was the conflict between the GE and the referendum. An elected MP would legitimately say - but my constituents want X so I am not going to vote against their wishes because that's why I'm here. You say one outranked the other but that is open to debate and certainly AFAIA not written down anywhere.
Having referendums in (our in particular) parliamentary system is problematic to say the least.
But there was no conflict between the referendum and any GE.
2015 election: Majority elected on pledge to hold and respect the referendum. 2016 referendum: Majority for leave. 2017 election: Nearly 600 out of 650 MPs elected on pledge to respect the referendum result and implement Brexit. 2019 election: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done.
Leavers essentially had to win 4 elections or referendum and they won all 4 of them. Had any of the 4 elections or referendum turned out differently, we'd have never left.
The conflict in 2017 was the hundreds of MPs elected promising to respect the results, but who didn't. They paid the price electorally for their deceit two years later.
Yes, democratically. So all is well. And the MPs in parliament behaved democratically also. They disagreed about the type of Brexit, which is perfectly legitimate.
If the 650 MPs had wanted 650 versions of Brexit that would have been perfectly democratic and all anyone would have done would be to oppose everyone else. As I said, it is indicative of the tension of a referendum within a parliamentary democracy.
Except some duplicitous MPs like Grieve and Starmer didn't just reject a form of Brexit, they decided to reject every form of Brexit.
MPs like Grieve and Starmer being duplicitous liars is constitutionally or democratically acceptable, but voters like Leon are within their rights to be aggrieved at MPs who are duplicitous liars. That is a universal concept, I am aggrieved at Boris for being a duplicitous liar too, so Starmer and Grieve etc aren't the only ones that applies to.
I'm sure each had a form of Brexit they preferred and were holding out for that. What is the problem with that?
They didn't, those two said they were rejecting every form of Brexit. After being elected on a platform saying the opposite.
MPs have the right to be duplicitous liars who say one thing to get elected and do the opposite when in office, but that doesn't justify it or mean the public can't decide they'd rather get rid of the duplicitous liars.
Ah. Did they say all that before the election? Did Grieve say he would implement Brexit? Or did he always voice his dissent.
I believe he said that he would, yes, and I know that Starmer said that Labour would too, before the election.
After the election they did differently, but I've never seen a single quote from Grieve before the election to say anything other than he would respect the vote, which I believe is what he campaigned on.
The Lib Dems and SNP campaigned on overturning the vote. They got their mandate for their MPs, as an extremely small minority of the Commons, but that's it for them. Grieve and Starmer etc is different though.
We can be critical of Dominic Grieve from both a Remain and Leave perspective.
Clarke voted against Article 50, and made no secret during the election of his preferences on Brexit (as he has done for his whole career). During the 2017-19 parliament he voted for Theresa May's deal.
Grieve voted for Article 50, and stood on a platform in 2017 supportive of May's negotiation strategy. He then voted against every single deal presented to him - making him more hardline than most ERG members.
Which of these two men did more to avoid No Deal? It is a mystery to me why Grieve is so lauded.
Where is Grieve lauded? Clarke is the best PM we never had.
Grieve is an odious snob. He doesn't even try to hide it
I don't particularly disagree but that would not mark him out from a couple of hundred of other parliamentarians.
One thing I've heard a couple of times now is that Sue Gray wasn't going to necessarily directly nail the PM - that it would be a damning report for the civil service and senior officials. But also that she was willing to harden that up - and may be doing exactly that. https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1529058967422377984
So what you're suggesting Scott is that Sue Gray may be engaging in politics rather than sticking with the original report? So we should discount whatever she comes out with as politically motivated?
I'm surprised to see you saying that Scott rather than someone else.
She was trying to save Johnson's blushes, but then it would appear he put political pressure onto her, so she though **** you matey boy! So it is warts and all now!
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
I also notice a new filter in dev version of photoshop has a text-to-image ability.
Er... that's been standard in Apple Photos for yonks. Snap a document on my iPhone, save as text.
Erhhhh....i don't think you are quite understanding the tech. You are talking about just image categorisation and OCR, this is text to novel image generation. When it comes to AI, Apple are miles behind.and just lost one of their top brains which isn't going to help.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
In the UK many of us buy our energy from EDF. Who charge the market rate and make a bucket of money.
In France most people buy their energy from EDF. Who as they are owned by the French government take the profits made here to order a tight cost cap for French consumers.
What could we do here and now? Nail to the floor the price cap. That will drive even some of the bigger companies out of the market with infrastructure that can then be handed to our own StateCo.
I keep saying this - the solution is across the channel.
That’s an interesting, if radical idea. Problem is that the generators and the retailers are not one and the same, so I doubt it would work as easily as you suggest. And the ability of this government to manage the consequences ….
Don’t be daft.
Its also completely false.
In France the price is a lot less variable due to the fact that they are getting their energy from uranium instead of gas.
So in the past when gas was cheaper than nuclear EDF consumers were paying less in the UK than EDF consumers in France were.
Now that the price of gas has surged, while the price of nuclear is much more fixed, the situation has reversed.
Having state ran industries doesn't make things better. Investing in nuclear energy does make energy less variable but not necessarily cheaper.
No, it’s not completely false (though some of the detail is much confused), but the retail side would be of little use to the government, while going for the useful generators would be pretty well nationalisation by confiscation.
It would also poison the UK as a place for foreign investment for decades.
By comparison, windfall taxes have no discernible downside at all.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
That's not my problem. Or that of the opposition parties.
Incumbency can be a bit of a b******!
Cynically honest, but entirely truthful.
A Conservative solution might have been to cut taxes, so that people would have more of their take home pay to spend on the rising bills. Instead Rishi and Boris chose to tax and spend, raising taxes even further and using Gordon Brown's preferred tax to do so.
They didn't cause the inflation, but they are making matters worse for working people by raising taxes in order to featherbed the inheritances of those who aren't working for it.
They maxed out the credit card but didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining and so Labour are going to have to clear up the mess. As per.
BREAKING: Tory Tom Tugendhat has told @MattChorley on @TimesRadio that he is "talking to colleagues" about the Prime Minister's position today.
Adds that this is a "time for all of us to look at what this country needs" and we should be "pretty ruthless in our views."
I certainly think that Tory MPs need a vote on Boris. That is what the Brady letters are for - to ask the Parliamentary Party whether they have confidence in the Prime Minister to continue in post.
If they say they do, then they have to make the best of a very bad job going into the election with him.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
I also notice a new filter in dev version of photoshop has a text-to-image ability.
Super interesting. I'm not sure Google Brain - imagen - is obvs better than Dalle-2 tho. They seem to have different strengths (looking at that thread). Imagen is better with written words, and obeying instructions, Dalle-2 feels a little more imaginative
Both are, of course, astonishing, and probably revolutionary
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
There was a background of violence surrounding the July 1932 election, not just from the Nazis, but it's wrong to ignore the fact that 37% of German votes went to the Nazis. The German electorate 'chose' the Nazis every bit as much as the 2010 and 2015 UK electorate chose the Tories.
That is not to defend the Nazis, who were imo pretty much unparalleled in evil, far from it - but it should be a warning from history that populist extremists can game the democratic process.
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
BTW leon did you see my post on previous thread about Dalle2 being so last month....google brain just surpassed it.
It did? Feck. It's so hard to keep up!
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
This sounds like a "Tell me what I want to hear" approach to legal advice. The case against Braverman is that she subordinates law to her politics—here's another piece of evidence. https://twitter.com/mattholehouse/status/1529078540561485824
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
Options are:
1. That state can subsidise it and provide short term relief to those who need it. 2. Lots of excess deaths over the winter through lack of heating and food combined with a crime epidemic and boom for loan sharks.
We will end up with mostly 1, although the government will only get there in small steps rather than seeing it is blatantly obviously going to happen so they may as well be ahead of the curve for once.
It is not a time for ideology but pragmatism.
From this government? They will let people die. And blame the dead for not having stuffed newspaper in-between layers of their clothes. Then sneer some more. And the people who have suffered but not died will still be told to vote Tory because Starmer is woke.
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
There was a background of violence surrounding the July 1932 election, not just from the Nazis, but it's wrong to ignore the fact that 37% of German votes went to the Nazis. The German electorate 'chose' the Nazis every bit as much as the 2010 and 2015 UK electorate chose the Tories.
That is not to defend the Nazis, who were imo pretty much unparalleled in evil, far from it - but it should be a warning from history that populist extremists can game the democratic process.
As you say there was a background of violence surround the July 1932 election, but they didn't come to power after that. Indeed there was a further election in November 1932 where the Nazis lost votes and still didn't come to power.
They only got into office in 1933, on the back of even more violence not election results.
Yes democracy can be warped, but what happened in 1930s Germany was violence not democracy.
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
In 1933 maybe, in July 1932 however the Nazis certainly won most seats and votes amidst the backdrop of the Great Depression without the violence the SS and brownshirts deployed in 1933 to ensure they won a majority with the DNVP
Amid foreign chatter about Ukraine making a peace deal or concessions to end Russia’s war against it, this new survey by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology: 82% of Ukrainians say NO territorial concessions should be made; just 10% back some. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1529056147679981570
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
And I'm right now on the Eurostar. 1st foray to abroads for a decade. Tremendously exciting!
Lucky you! We took it last month en route to the Black Forest. Trains are the best.
Yep I agree. We are doing Lisbon to Algarve by train in a few weeks and we toured Italy by train twice a few years ago.
Hmmm. Graun feed on HMG and the law(s) of the land:
'Government lawyers have been told to be less risk averse in their advice for ministers, the [No,. 10] spokesperson revealed. This was another item that came up at cabinet today.
The spokesperson said: "The attorney general [Suella Braverman] updated cabinet on a review of the government legal department. She said overall performance was high, however there were incidences where advice was too risk averse or took a computer says no approach to dealing with challenging policy areas. Following the review the government legal department has received revised guidance to ensure they are more attuned to the government’s desire to tackle difficult and longstanding issues."
The spokesperson said Braverman did not give details of over-cautious legal advice, but she did say departments were getting legal advice that was “more risk averse than was needed and didn’t reflect the sort of risk appetite that ministers had”. Braverman may have been thinking in particular of legal advice relating to Brexit. The head of the government legal department resigned in 2020 when the government introduced legislation that would ignore parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, contrary to international law. Those clauses were later dropped from the internal market bill but the government has recently revived its threat to abandon parts of the protocol. Braverman told No 10 that this would be legal, but other lawyers take a different view.'
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
A dry slope? No snow dome? Wouldn't bother turning up.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
In the UK many of us buy our energy from EDF. Who charge the market rate and make a bucket of money.
In France most people buy their energy from EDF. Who as they are owned by the French government take the profits made here to order a tight cost cap for French consumers.
What could we do here and now? Nail to the floor the price cap. That will drive even some of the bigger companies out of the market with infrastructure that can then be handed to our own StateCo.
I keep saying this - the solution is across the channel.
That’s an interesting, if radical idea. Problem is that the generators and the retailers are not one and the same, so I doubt it would work as easily as you suggest. And the ability of this government to manage the consequences ….
Don’t be daft.
Its also completely false.
In France the price is a lot less variable due to the fact that they are getting their energy from uranium instead of gas.
So in the past when gas was cheaper than nuclear EDF consumers were paying less in the UK than EDF consumers in France were.
Now that the price of gas has surged, while the price of nuclear is much more fixed, the situation has reversed.
Having state ran industries doesn't make things better. Investing in nuclear energy does make energy less variable but not necessarily cheaper.
No, it’s not completely false (though some of the detail is much confused), but the retail side would be of little use to the government, while going for the useful generators would be pretty well nationalisation by confiscation.
It would also poison the UK as a place for foreign investment for decades.
By comparison, windfall taxes have no discernible downside at all.
The whole neocon idea that we need to have a retail market for what is essentially the monopoly* of electricity distribution has run into the sand. It was only ever a means of adding inefficiencies (cost of switching, call-centres etc.) and syphoning off profits for the rich. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
(*Last time I checked there was only one supply coming into my house.)
Boris got to be in really serious danger now. People doing on the record interviews saying Boris regularly popped in for a drink at the regular WTF parties.
What's the problem, this happens in most offices
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
A dry slope? No snow dome? Wouldn't bother turning up.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
That's not my problem. Or that of the opposition parties.
Incumbency can be a bit of a b******!
Cynically honest, but entirely truthful.
A Conservative solution might have been to cut taxes, so that people would have more of their take home pay to spend on the rising bills. Instead Rishi and Boris chose to tax and spend, raising taxes even further and using Gordon Brown's preferred tax to do so.
They didn't cause the inflation, but they are making matters worse for working people by raising taxes in order to featherbed the inheritances of those who aren't working for it.
They maxed out the credit card but didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining and so Labour are going to have to clear up the mess. As per.
Nice trolling attempt but of course Osborne did fix the roof, also Hammond whom I didn't like for other reasons also continued Osborne's repairs and for that he deserves credit.
In the final pre-pandemic year of 2019 we had the deficit coming down yet to the the best fiscal position of the UK had seen 2002. This is nothing like Brown turning on the spending taps like a reckless hooligan maxing out the credit card by 2007.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
Indeed… but, to be honest, I remain unclear why a right-wing Conservative government beloved of libertarians even got to a point where they felt that the state should set the price of a commodity.
This is a socialist government, high taxes, high spending, price caps, and a windfall tax looming.
I’m fully expecting rent controls.
And I'm fully expecting some loyalists (not naming names) to try to justify them too.
The sooner Boris is out of office, the better.
But is all this what TSE calls good old fashioned 60s/70s Labour government policies because Boris and his ministers believes in it, believes the country needs high tax high spend - or because of absence of direction and values and ideas in this government? Lady Thatcher and her governments believed in stuff, they had very clear ideas and plans going forward. I disagree with what TSE implies, I don’t think it’s clear Boris believes in the socialism of his government, he just doesn’t believe or understand enough in what the Conservative Party has always stood for. From that point of view he’s never been a fit leader, to beat Corbyn in a one off and then crash, political boom and bust, is not the measurement, you need to have enduring values as foundation to keep on winning.
Boris is basically a Brexity Heseltine as he said himself. This government is essentially New Labour plus Brexit, it is not Thatcherite no but neither is it socialist
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
There was a background of violence surrounding the July 1932 election, not just from the Nazis, but it's wrong to ignore the fact that 37% of German votes went to the Nazis. The German electorate 'chose' the Nazis every bit as much as the 2010 and 2015 UK electorate chose the Tories.
That is not to defend the Nazis, who were imo pretty much unparalleled in evil, far from it - but it should be a warning from history that populist extremists can game the democratic process.
As you say there was a background of violence surround the July 1932 election, but they didn't come to power after that. Indeed there was a further election in November 1932 where the Nazis lost votes and still didn't come to power.
They only got into office in 1933, on the back of even more violence not election results.
Yes democracy can be warped, but what happened in 1930s Germany was violence not democracy.
Fair point. They'd have been in office in July 1932 had Germany had FPTP though.
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
There was a background of violence surrounding the July 1932 election, not just from the Nazis, but it's wrong to ignore the fact that 37% of German votes went to the Nazis. The German electorate 'chose' the Nazis every bit as much as the 2010 and 2015 UK electorate chose the Tories.
That is not to defend the Nazis, who were imo pretty much unparalleled in evil, far from it - but it should be a warning from history that populist extremists can game the democratic process.
As you say there was a background of violence surround the July 1932 election, but they didn't come to power after that. Indeed there was a further election in November 1932 where the Nazis lost votes and still didn't come to power.
They only got into office in 1933, on the back of even more violence not election results.
Yes democracy can be warped, but what happened in 1930s Germany was violence not democracy.
Fair point. They'd have been in office in July 1932 had Germany had FPTP though.
Indeed and TSE said Hitler was never an election winner which was wrong, not Hitler never formed a valid elected government which would likely have been true under the PR system Germany had and still has
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
And I'm right now on the Eurostar. 1st foray to abroads for a decade. Tremendously exciting!
Lucky you! We took it last month en route to the Black Forest. Trains are the best.
Yep I agree. We are doing Lisbon to Algarve by train in a few weeks and we toured Italy by train twice a few years ago.
I didn’t know you could go to faro by train from Lisbon. Interesting. Should be fun
Europe’s forgotten railway branch lines are a wonder. We have a fair few in the UK
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
In the UK many of us buy our energy from EDF. Who charge the market rate and make a bucket of money.
In France most people buy their energy from EDF. Who as they are owned by the French government take the profits made here to order a tight cost cap for French consumers.
What could we do here and now? Nail to the floor the price cap. That will drive even some of the bigger companies out of the market with infrastructure that can then be handed to our own StateCo.
I keep saying this - the solution is across the channel.
That’s an interesting, if radical idea. Problem is that the generators and the retailers are not one and the same, so I doubt it would work as easily as you suggest. And the ability of this government to manage the consequences ….
Don’t be daft.
Its also completely false.
In France the price is a lot less variable due to the fact that they are getting their energy from uranium instead of gas.
So in the past when gas was cheaper than nuclear EDF consumers were paying less in the UK than EDF consumers in France were.
Now that the price of gas has surged, while the price of nuclear is much more fixed, the situation has reversed.
Having state ran industries doesn't make things better. Investing in nuclear energy does make energy less variable but not necessarily cheaper.
No, it’s not completely false (though some of the detail is much confused), but the retail side would be of little use to the government, while going for the useful generators would be pretty well nationalisation by confiscation.
It would also poison the UK as a place for foreign investment for decades.
By comparison, windfall taxes have no discernible downside at all.
The whole neocon idea that we need to have a retail market for what is essentially the monopoly* of electricity distribution has run into the sand. It was only ever a means of adding inefficiencies (cost of switching, call-centres etc.) and syphoning off profits for the rich. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
(*Last time I checked there was only one supply coming into my house.)
While the National Grid plc may be an effective monopoly company, it seems to do a fairly good job at its remit.
However the energy firms are not a monopoly. The fact that you can, if you so choose, select a tariff that gets its energy from renewable sources for instance and the firm you switch to is required to honour your choices is part of the market working as intended.
United Utilities [and other regional providers] is a better example of an effective monopoly than the energy firms.
Even pre-privatisation there was a difference in role between what the National Grid does and what pre-privatised firms like MANWEB did.
BREAKING: Tory Tom Tugendhat has told @MattChorley on @TimesRadio that he is "talking to colleagues" about the Prime Minister's position today.
Adds that this is a "time for all of us to look at what this country needs" and we should be "pretty ruthless in our views."
I certainly think that Tory MPs need a vote on Boris. That is what the Brady letters are for - to ask the Parliamentary Party whether they have confidence in the Prime Minister to continue in post.
If they say they do, then they have to make the best of a very bad job going into the election with him.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
Indeed… but, to be honest, I remain unclear why a right-wing Conservative government beloved of libertarians even got to a point where they felt that the state should set the price of a commodity.
This is a socialist government, high taxes, high spending, price caps, and a windfall tax looming.
I’m fully expecting rent controls.
And I'm fully expecting some loyalists (not naming names) to try to justify them too.
The sooner Boris is out of office, the better.
But is all this what TSE calls good old fashioned 60s/70s Labour government policies because Boris and his ministers believes in it, believes the country needs high tax high spend - or because of absence of direction and values and ideas in this government? Lady Thatcher and her governments believed in stuff, they had very clear ideas and plans going forward. I disagree with what TSE implies, I don’t think it’s clear Boris believes in the socialism of his government, he just doesn’t believe or understand enough in what the Conservative Party has always stood for. From that point of view he’s never been a fit leader, to beat Corbyn in a one off and then crash, political boom and bust, is not the measurement, you need to have enduring values as foundation to keep on winning.
Boris is basically a Brexity Heseltine as he said himself. This government is essentially New Labour plus Brexit, it is not Thatcherite no but neither is it socialist
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
It is interesting that the Ukraine government is now describing the battle being waged in the Donbass as the largest in Europe since WW2. There are a number of indications that the intensity of the fighting has reached a new level with high casualties on both sides but the story is drifting down the news agenda here because of the lack of pictures from the front. Presumably our media, entirely understandably, consider the risks to their staff just too high to take.
Its hard to imagine either side can keep this up for long. The winner is a lot more uncertain than some of the Ukranian propaganda would have us believe.
Neil Hauer is one of the few Western journalists near the front line. From his latest reports it looks like the Ukrainians will struggle to prevent the encirclement of Severodonetsk and Lysyschansk - the last remaining territory in Luhansk Oblast held by Ukraine.
The embarrassing and ridiculous arguments from the palsied Remoaners on here that the referendum was advisory and it was fine to try and get it overturned blah blah blah fucking blah would not be so risibly and offensively stupid if ONE SINGLE REMAIN POLITICIAN had said, during the actual referendum campaign, that "oh, by the way, this vote is just advisory, we don't have to obey it and if you vote Leave we might ignore you and have a second vote, hope that's OK"
But they didn't did they? Not one single person ever said that because it is so plainly absurd and wanky. They would have got thrown into Lake Windermere
No one said it, because it is bollocks. Everyone agreed, at the time, with David Cameron in his speech to the entire British nation:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum"
The Leavers agreed that this was it, their one and only chance for a generation. The Remainers agreed this was it, the one and only vote - BECAUSE THEY ARROGANTLY EXPECTED TO WIN IT, EASILY
All else is chaff. PFF
It doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is a f*cking calamity.
Why oh why did Cameron think it was a good idea to give the people a vote on this. Did he really think the average uneducated lazy moron who lives in sh*tholes like Scunthorpe would understand the nuisances of international trade?
David Cameron = worst PM in history.
Who or what made Scunthorpe a sh*thole, if that's what it is?
Ah Scunthorpe. My favourite EVER graffiti joke. If Typhoo put the T in Britain etc.
BREAKING: Tory Tom Tugendhat has told @MattChorley on @TimesRadio that he is "talking to colleagues" about the Prime Minister's position today.
Adds that this is a "time for all of us to look at what this country needs" and we should be "pretty ruthless in our views."
I certainly think that Tory MPs need a vote on Boris. That is what the Brady letters are for - to ask the Parliamentary Party whether they have confidence in the Prime Minister to continue in post.
If they say they do, then they have to make the best of a very bad job going into the election with him.
This ought to be Game Over.
But we've said that before, so many times...
How someone like Zahawi, sent out to lie for the Barnacle, only for No.10 to admit the lie a couple of hours later, can continue to support the liar after the latest revelations, is a matter of wonder.
Those in his position have about 24 hours to salvage their reputations. Otherwise they go down with him.
It is interesting that the Ukraine government is now describing the battle being waged in the Donbass as the largest in Europe since WW2. There are a number of indications that the intensity of the fighting has reached a new level with high casualties on both sides but the story is drifting down the news agenda here because of the lack of pictures from the front. Presumably our media, entirely understandably, consider the risks to their staff just too high to take.
Its hard to imagine either side can keep this up for long. The winner is a lot more uncertain than some of the Ukranian propaganda would have us believe.
Neil Hauer is one of the few Western journalists near the front line. From his latest reports it looks like the Ukrainians will struggle to prevent the encirclement of Severodonetsk and Lysyschansk - the last remaining territory in Luhansk Oblast held by Ukraine.
Still, this encirclement is a lot smaller than the one they seemed to be assuming for initially when they took Izium.
The Russians seem to be expending a lot of effort in stopping the gifted Ukrainian kit reaching the front. Their propaganda is all about their successes in this regard.
The embarrassing and ridiculous arguments from the palsied Remoaners on here that the referendum was advisory and it was fine to try and get it overturned blah blah blah fucking blah would not be so risibly and offensively stupid if ONE SINGLE REMAIN POLITICIAN had said, during the actual referendum campaign, that "oh, by the way, this vote is just advisory, we don't have to obey it and if you vote Leave we might ignore you and have a second vote, hope that's OK"
But they didn't did they? Not one single person ever said that because it is so plainly absurd and wanky. They would have got thrown into Lake Windermere
No one said it, because it is bollocks. Everyone agreed, at the time, with David Cameron in his speech to the entire British nation:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum"
The Leavers agreed that this was it, their one and only chance for a generation. The Remainers agreed this was it, the one and only vote - BECAUSE THEY ARROGANTLY EXPECTED TO WIN IT, EASILY
All else is chaff. PFF
It doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is a f*cking calamity.
Why oh why did Cameron think it was a good idea to give the people a vote on this. Did he really think the average uneducated lazy moron who lives in sh*tholes like Scunthorpe would understand the nuisances of international trade?
David Cameron = worst PM in history.
Who or what made Scunthorpe a sh*thole, if that's what it is?
Ah Scunthorpe. My favourite EVER graffiti joke. If Typhoo put the T in Britain etc.
A friend used to work there. He was very glad he got a new job elsewhere before email and the first crude net nannies. Vide also Penistone (a real pain to spell out over the phone ...).
Amid foreign chatter about Ukraine making a peace deal or concessions to end Russia’s war against it, this new survey by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology: 82% of Ukrainians say NO territorial concessions should be made; just 10% back some. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1529056147679981570
This was also interesting.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1529088113326313474 Ukrainians are split on ditching NATO aspirations, poll by KMIS finds 🔹42% say it's possible for Ukraine to receive security guarantees from separate countries, without NATO membership 🔹39% say only NATO can give 🇺🇦 security 🔹19% don't know
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
And I'm right now on the Eurostar. 1st foray to abroads for a decade. Tremendously exciting!
Lucky you! We took it last month en route to the Black Forest. Trains are the best.
Yep I agree. We are doing Lisbon to Algarve by train in a few weeks and we toured Italy by train twice a few years ago.
I didn’t know you could go to faro by train from Lisbon. Interesting. Should be fun
Europe’s forgotten railway branch lines are a wonder. We have a fair few in the UK
Only Tunes to Faro is on the branch line. The rest is main lines. Ordinary trains are 3h30 Lisbon to Faro, but the Alfa Pendular tilting train does it in 3h00. It starts at Porto, so you can in fact do Porto to Faro without changing. And it’s dirt cheap.
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
Whilst your second point is entirely correct, I don't see how you can interpret @HYUFD's post as "Defending the Nazis" ?
He responded to TSE (rightly) saying they weren't election winners by posting without comment "election results" [one of which is infamously neither free nor fair] that seemed to imply they were.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
There was a background of violence surrounding the July 1932 election, not just from the Nazis, but it's wrong to ignore the fact that 37% of German votes went to the Nazis. The German electorate 'chose' the Nazis every bit as much as the 2010 and 2015 UK electorate chose the Tories.
That is not to defend the Nazis, who were imo pretty much unparalleled in evil, far from it - but it should be a warning from history that populist extremists can game the democratic process.
As you say there was a background of violence surround the July 1932 election, but they didn't come to power after that. Indeed there was a further election in November 1932 where the Nazis lost votes and still didn't come to power.
They only got into office in 1933, on the back of even more violence not election results.
Yes democracy can be warped, but what happened in 1930s Germany was violence not democracy.
Fair point. They'd have been in office in July 1932 had Germany had FPTP though.
Potentially, although as always we need to be wary too much about comparing results across electoral systems, since people vote and act differently under different systems.
Potentially if Germany had FPTP they would have avoided the paralysed indecision in the Reichstag that provided the fertile ground for the rise of the NSDAP.
The election which is generally regarded as the "last genuinely democratic election of the Weimar Republic" was in 1928 and in that the Nazis won just 12 seats. If under FPTP the SPD had been able to win a majority at that election then the course of history could have been completely different, but this is pure speculation at this point.
BREAKING: Tory Tom Tugendhat has told @MattChorley on @TimesRadio that he is "talking to colleagues" about the Prime Minister's position today.
Adds that this is a "time for all of us to look at what this country needs" and we should be "pretty ruthless in our views."
I certainly think that Tory MPs need a vote on Boris. That is what the Brady letters are for - to ask the Parliamentary Party whether they have confidence in the Prime Minister to continue in post.
If they say they do, then they have to make the best of a very bad job going into the election with him.
Not enough Brady letter though are there. Just the other day Charles Walker back-tracked from his view that Johnson should go. How many MPs who previously sent letters in subsequently withdrew them? It is difficult for them to write another don't you think?
The embarrassing and ridiculous arguments from the palsied Remoaners on here that the referendum was advisory and it was fine to try and get it overturned blah blah blah fucking blah would not be so risibly and offensively stupid if ONE SINGLE REMAIN POLITICIAN had said, during the actual referendum campaign, that "oh, by the way, this vote is just advisory, we don't have to obey it and if you vote Leave we might ignore you and have a second vote, hope that's OK"
But they didn't did they? Not one single person ever said that because it is so plainly absurd and wanky. They would have got thrown into Lake Windermere
No one said it, because it is bollocks. Everyone agreed, at the time, with David Cameron in his speech to the entire British nation:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum"
The Leavers agreed that this was it, their one and only chance for a generation. The Remainers agreed this was it, the one and only vote - BECAUSE THEY ARROGANTLY EXPECTED TO WIN IT, EASILY
All else is chaff. PFF
It doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is a f*cking calamity.
Why oh why did Cameron think it was a good idea to give the people a vote on this. Did he really think the average uneducated lazy moron who lives in sh*tholes like Scunthorpe would understand the nuisances of international trade?
David Cameron = worst PM in history.
Who or what made Scunthorpe a sh*thole, if that's what it is?
Ah Scunthorpe. My favourite EVER graffiti joke. If Typhoo put the T in Britain etc.
A friend used to work there. He was very glad he got a new job elsewhere before email and the first crude net nannies. Vide also Penistone (a real pain to spell out over the phone ...).
I had forgotten all the censorship you used to get when sending and receiving emails. One of my customers years ago was a manufacturer of plumbing stuff and he used to tell the problems they used to get with ballcock.
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
Indeed… but, to be honest, I remain unclear why a right-wing Conservative government beloved of libertarians even got to a point where they felt that the state should set the price of a commodity.
This is a socialist government, high taxes, high spending, price caps, and a windfall tax looming.
I’m fully expecting rent controls.
And I'm fully expecting some loyalists (not naming names) to try to justify them too.
The sooner Boris is out of office, the better.
But is all this what TSE calls good old fashioned 60s/70s Labour government policies because Boris and his ministers believes in it, believes the country needs high tax high spend - or because of absence of direction and values and ideas in this government? Lady Thatcher and her governments believed in stuff, they had very clear ideas and plans going forward. I disagree with what TSE implies, I don’t think it’s clear Boris believes in the socialism of his government, he just doesn’t believe or understand enough in what the Conservative Party has always stood for. From that point of view he’s never been a fit leader, to beat Corbyn in a one off and then crash, political boom and bust, is not the measurement, you need to have enduring values as foundation to keep on winning.
Boris is basically a Brexity Heseltine as he said himself. This government is essentially New Labour plus Brexit, it is not Thatcherite no but neither is it socialist
It's socialism for the old and a Thatcherite dystopia - but now thanks to Brexit with no means of escape - for anyone under 40.
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
And I'm right now on the Eurostar. 1st foray to abroads for a decade. Tremendously exciting!
Lucky you! We took it last month en route to the Black Forest. Trains are the best.
Yep I agree. We are doing Lisbon to Algarve by train in a few weeks and we toured Italy by train twice a few years ago.
I didn’t know you could go to faro by train from Lisbon. Interesting. Should be fun
Europe’s forgotten railway branch lines are a wonder. We have a fair few in the UK
I hope you can as otherwise I am stuffed. No you can. 3 and a half hours, 22.15 Euros, every couple of hours.
We are then taking the coastal train to Estomber-Lagoa, 5.75 Euros
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
Took a little Day 1 trip on the central section of the Elizabeth Line in my lunch hour. Wow. Really incredible. It even smells new. Next time I will take the crazy funicular style lift at Liverpool Street. With interchanges at Farringdon and Whitechapel both providing access to our patch of SE London, this will be our new way of getting to the West End. It was worth the wait.
No spoliers!!!
I'm making a shellfish strategic decision to delay my trip until tomorrow!
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
That's not my problem. Or that of the opposition parties.
Incumbency can be a bit of a b******!
Cynically honest, but entirely truthful.
A Conservative solution might have been to cut taxes, so that people would have more of their take home pay to spend on the rising bills. Instead Rishi and Boris chose to tax and spend, raising taxes even further and using Gordon Brown's preferred tax to do so.
They didn't cause the inflation, but they are making matters worse for working people by raising taxes in order to featherbed the inheritances of those who aren't working for it.
They maxed out the credit card but didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining and so Labour are going to have to clear up the mess. As per.
Nice trolling attempt but of course Osborne did fix the roof, also Hammond whom I didn't like for other reasons also continued Osborne's repairs and for that he deserves credit.
In the final pre-pandemic year of 2019 we had the deficit coming down yet to the the best fiscal position of the UK had seen 2002. This is nothing like Brown turning on the spending taps like a reckless hooligan maxing out the credit card by 2007.
La di da. Talk to the hand basically.
Next thing it'll be "It started in Wuhan" or "It's a GLOBAL Crisis".
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
Indeed… but, to be honest, I remain unclear why a right-wing Conservative government beloved of libertarians even got to a point where they felt that the state should set the price of a commodity.
This is a socialist government, high taxes, high spending, price caps, and a windfall tax looming.
I’m fully expecting rent controls.
And I'm fully expecting some loyalists (not naming names) to try to justify them too.
The sooner Boris is out of office, the better.
But is all this what TSE calls good old fashioned 60s/70s Labour government policies because Boris and his ministers believes in it, believes the country needs high tax high spend - or because of absence of direction and values and ideas in this government? Lady Thatcher and her governments believed in stuff, they had very clear ideas and plans going forward. I disagree with what TSE implies, I don’t think it’s clear Boris believes in the socialism of his government, he just doesn’t believe or understand enough in what the Conservative Party has always stood for. From that point of view he’s never been a fit leader, to beat Corbyn in a one off and then crash, political boom and bust, is not the measurement, you need to have enduring values as foundation to keep on winning.
Boris is basically a Brexity Heseltine as he said himself. This government is essentially New Labour plus Brexit, it is not Thatcherite no but neither is it socialist
It's socialism for the old and a Thatcherite dystopia - but now thanks to Brexit with no means of escape - for anyone under 40.
Even as a figure of speech it's ridiculous to say that there is "no means of escape" because of Brexit. Do you think every country in the world outside the EU is like East Germany?
Daniel Hewitt @DanielHewittITV · 16m NEW: Head of Ofgem says he will be writing to Rishi Sunak today to inform him the price cap is expected to be £2,800 in October, up from £1,971.
The government is going to be so unpopular when that kicks in.
I am in the car listening to "You and yours" on R4 as I have my socially distanced lunch. There are tearful PENSIONERS who are cancelling direct debits and have turned off the heating since Christmas, people living in single rooms, people considering selling their homes and people renting out spare rooms to pay for non- energy essentials. This looks like, as you might suggest, "Stepmom" territory.
So what's the solution? Because as far as I can see the wholesale price of gas is outside the ability of government to influence. The state could subsidise it, but then the state would have to massively increase taxation to pay for it.
Of course, the solution is to have built a bunch of tidal lagoons five years ago. And we should still do that. But that doesn't really help right now.
That's not my problem. Or that of the opposition parties.
Incumbency can be a bit of a b******!
Well, no, but it would be nice if somebody would come up with a solution other than 'the government must do something'. @RochdalePioneers , @Nigelb and @noneoftheabove have all put forward potential ideas. I don't know how workable any of them are but at least they are all something - grateful to all for the thoughts.
Tottenham Court Road to Paddington in FIVE minutes
Farringdon to Canary Wharf: ten minutes
Heathrow to anywhere in central London: thirty minutes, 44 minutes to Canary Wharf
Game-changer for a lot of places along the line
More money spunked on London and the South East while the rest of the nation gets nothing.
Au contraire. We get massive bus cuts.
Rest of the country needs to stop voting Tory if they don't want that kind of thing to happen to them.
Well New Labour gave us sweet FA too in terms of transport investment. Both HS2 and Crossrail started under their watch as well. Money lavished on the south east and London.
Government net support for bus travel in England outside London in real terms (2020/21 prices) rose from £1.02bn in 1996/97 to £1.89bn in 2009/10. By 2019/20 it had fallen back to £1.35bn. So Tory governments = "massive bus cuts" outside of London. Yet these areas keep voting Tory. Data from www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus05-subsidies-and-concessions; BUS0502, tab BUS0502b.
That's because most people outside London (and perhaps a few other big cities) never use buses.
Because there aren't any busses.
Nah. There are plenty of buses where I live. There's also a direct train from 5 minutes walk from my front door to 5 minutes walk from my wife's workplace - and it's still better to drive.
Serious question, why is it better to drive.
What's the train journey time and frequency of service?
I suspect I know the answer but it's best to have it confirmed.
2 tph in the peak but not every 30 minutes, 1 tph off-peak. Takes about 20 minutes.
Buses are about every 5 minutes but obviously much slower, journey time up to an hour in the peak.
Thought it would be - that's the typical story of too slow compared to driving (bus) and a too infrequent train service...
Even if there was a train every 15 minutes it would still be better to drive. Cheaper, for one thing.
That's a function of the way you pay for driving.
You pay a huge upfront cost to have a car, and several large costs each year to continue to own one - but once you do that, the costs per mile are pretty low. Whereas the costs to you personally of having public transport available are very low, but the costs per mile of making a journey are high.
If this is seen as a problem there are solutions, but they require more of a remodelling of behaviours than most people are prepared to make. (Our family wouldn't need to own two cars - what a waste of assets! - if we could be reasonably sure one would be available to use when we wanted. The cost per mile could be high, but the overall cost of motoring would still be lower - but the motivation to use non-car modes when we could, like, for 800m trips to One Stop to buy milk, would be there. We'd be better off, public transport would be more viable and therefore more plentiful and therefore more attractive, the planet would be cleaner. But we'd have to stop using the boot of the car as a shed for things-without-permanent-homes.)
A couple of decades ago I worked on a project for the DfT. I developed the road routing portion of their transport portal. The basic idea being you would put in origin and destination and it would give you a route for road, rail and bus to get there. The idea being when people used it and saw how much cheaper and convenient public transport was that they would get out of their cars.
They ended up loading all sorts of costs such as cost of car, wear and tear, insurance onto the road costing. As I remember cost of car was calculated for example as average price paid for a new car/ average number of miles expected in a cars lifetime.
85% of the time it was still cheaper and quicker to go by car than public transport. This number rapidly increasing as you added car occupants. As I remember we calculated put car passengers to 2 and it was literally 5% of journeys that were cheaper by public transport still.
Comments
In the Knapper's Gazette we had a small "leaving masked ball" for 3,000 people during Lockdown 1, complete with Naked Bouncy Castle and seventeen hot air balloons, topless midnight indoor netball, a free vodka bar with 200 foot high ice sculptures, a performance by Roger Waters and the Treorchy male voice choir, a special dry ski slope in the garden and a "general knowledge quiz Down Below Job fun orgy" where you got oral sex and a tot a Aldi rum if you won a round, and vice versa
Who didn't do this? Only prudes and nay-sayers. We all had to let off steam
DAta
FONE.
I was conflicted out of advising them.
David Cameron won 36.1% in 2010 and 36.8% in 2015.
Just saying.
It's certainly how it was bought
In France the price is a lot less variable due to the fact that they are getting their energy from uranium instead of gas.
So in the past when gas was cheaper than nuclear EDF consumers were paying less in the UK than EDF consumers in France were.
Now that the price of gas has surged, while the price of nuclear is much more fixed, the situation has reversed.
Having state ran industries doesn't make things better. Investing in nuclear energy does make energy less variable but not necessarily cheaper.
I'm led to believe BT is now very well run, Openreach especially - one of the better decisions to have been to hive them off and have them focus on FTTP.
They've just installed FTTP here (can't order it yet). They had it all done in under a month, very impressive.
German election March 1933 Nazis 288, SPD 120, KPD 81, Centre 72, DNVP Conservatives 52
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election
Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, this might end up as the biggest story of all. The arrival of proper AI
Anyway ta, I shall go and check it now
We were in lockdown you muppet.
https://twitter.com/ak92501/status/1528851863306752000?t=T2vISFi1O_6MrxYU6m9tKQ&s=19
I also notice a new filter in dev version of photoshop has a text-to-image ability.
Scott Bryan
@scottygb
For a few moments this morning the BBC News ticker said the words “Manchester United are rubbish.”
The 1933 election was after a reign of terror including the Reichstag fire and still the Nazis failed to get a majority. They were not a free and fair election.
EE - To be the front facing brand for mobiles and pretty much all retail customers.
BT - Businesses and legacy landline customers
Plusnet - For cheapskates.
Best thing they've done is the all UK call centres, and the fact they own the best/most spectrum.
FWIW - I also expect the Vodafone UK and Three UK merger* to go ahead in the 18 months.
*Might be a takeover or something else.
As they say, there's no one so zealous as a convert. But in Leon's case I doubt the sincerity. I think it's all faux outrage because he doesn't really know what he thinks and that frightens him.
TSE was right, the National Socialist Party never won or came to power following a free and fair election. They came to power after violence and then used violence to gain more and cement their power.
And the whole thing is fronted by Laura K, who it would be hard to label as a Commie seeking to bring down the government.
It would also poison the UK as a place for foreign investment for decades.
By comparison, windfall taxes have no discernible downside at all.
If they say they do, then they have to make the best of a very bad job going into the election with him.
How long before the full technology (with images of people) escapes into the wild, so to speak?
It really is nuclear grade stuff.
Both are, of course, astonishing, and probably revolutionary
That is not to defend the Nazis, who were imo pretty much unparalleled in evil, far from it - but it should be a warning from history that populist extremists can game the democratic process.
Need to sharpen up my brain's 'text to meaning' ability!
Although poor Rishi did. Case of good boy running with the wrong crowd.
They only got into office in 1933, on the back of even more violence not election results.
Yes democracy can be warped, but what happened in 1930s Germany was violence not democracy.
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1529056147679981570
The Wuhan Institute of Virology was ALSO doing gain-of-function research into…. Monkeypox
The scriptwriters of 2022 are somehow managing to outdo the writers of “2021” and “2020”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/did-monkeypox-leak-from-wuhan-
So far there is no smoking gun and it seems unlikely it came from Wuhan. But still. WTAF
'Government lawyers have been told to be less risk averse in their advice for ministers, the [No,. 10] spokesperson revealed. This was another item that came up at cabinet today.
The spokesperson said: "The attorney general [Suella Braverman] updated cabinet on a review of the government legal department. She said overall performance was high, however there were incidences where advice was too risk averse or took a computer says no approach to dealing with challenging policy areas. Following the review the government legal department has received revised guidance to ensure they are more attuned to the government’s desire to tackle difficult and longstanding issues."
The spokesperson said Braverman did not give details of over-cautious legal advice, but she did say departments were getting legal advice that was “more risk averse than was needed and didn’t reflect the sort of risk appetite that ministers had”. Braverman may have been thinking in particular of legal advice relating to Brexit. The head of the government legal department resigned in 2020 when the government introduced legislation that would ignore parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, contrary to international law. Those clauses were later dropped from the internal market bill but the government has recently revived its threat to abandon parts of the protocol. Braverman told No 10 that this would be legal, but other lawyers take a different view.'
(*Last time I checked there was only one supply coming into my house.)
In the final pre-pandemic year of 2019 we had the deficit coming down yet to the the best fiscal position of the UK had seen 2002. This is nothing like Brown turning on the spending taps like a reckless hooligan maxing out the credit card by 2007.
I have been busy today but just managed to read the BBC Panorama report and I have this response
For goodness sake Boris, just go
I have also text my mp saying Boris must go
Europe’s forgotten railway branch lines are a wonder. We have a fair few in the UK
However the energy firms are not a monopoly. The fact that you can, if you so choose, select a tariff that gets its energy from renewable sources for instance and the firm you switch to is required to honour your choices is part of the market working as intended.
United Utilities [and other regional providers] is a better example of an effective monopoly than the energy firms.
Even pre-privatisation there was a difference in role between what the National Grid does and what pre-privatised firms like MANWEB did.
But we've said that before, so many times...
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1529045741519486978
Still, this encirclement is a lot smaller than the one they seemed to be assuming for initially when they took Izium.
Those in his position have about 24 hours to salvage their reputations. Otherwise they go down with him.
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1529072707299684353
If none of them have the self respect to think they can do a better job than the liar, then they might as well give up now.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1529088113326313474
Ukrainians are split on ditching NATO aspirations, poll by KMIS finds
🔹42% say it's possible for Ukraine to receive security guarantees from separate countries, without NATO membership
🔹39% say only NATO can give 🇺🇦 security
🔹19% don't know
Potentially if Germany had FPTP they would have avoided the paralysed indecision in the Reichstag that provided the fertile ground for the rise of the NSDAP.
The election which is generally regarded as the "last genuinely democratic election of the Weimar Republic" was in 1928 and in that the Nazis won just 12 seats. If under FPTP the SPD had been able to win a majority at that election then the course of history could have been completely different, but this is pure speculation at this point.
We are then taking the coastal train to Estomber-Lagoa, 5.75 Euros
Amazing value. Italy was the same, very cheap.
I'm making a shellfish strategic decision to delay my trip until tomorrow!
Next thing it'll be "It started in Wuhan" or "It's a GLOBAL Crisis".
They ended up loading all sorts of costs such as cost of car, wear and tear, insurance onto the road costing. As I remember cost of car was calculated for example as average price paid for a new car/ average number of miles expected in a cars lifetime.
85% of the time it was still cheaper and quicker to go by car than public transport. This number rapidly increasing as you added car occupants. As I remember we calculated put car passengers to 2 and it was literally 5% of journeys that were cheaper by public transport still.