Why stoking the culture wars ensures a Tory shellacking – politicalbetting.com

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Gallowgate said:

kle4 said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Jonathan said:

Casino_Royale said:

Jonathan said:

Renewable energy. Stop talking, start doing. Solves so many problems. It needs to be approached with some urgency.

Tell it to these boys:

Nothing there to stop us investing in renewables and becoming an energy self sufficient, low carbon UK. Time to end the political BS, we can do this.

I agree but my point is we are never going to race well-ahead of the pack where this causes us huge relative economic pain.

We will go as fast as we can that makes logical political and economic sense to do so in the short-medium term.

The solution, of course, is tech, engineering and megaproject delivery skills.

Moving the Treasury to Darlo could help with this - especially if you can tap into the down to earth engineering talent pool in the North.

I've never really understood the idea that the weight of government bureaucracy will shift if the offices are located in another location.

I mean, is the DVLA of particularly Welsh character because it is in Swansea? Why would location drive thinking?

Well it should if the recruitment pool (and hiring policies) are different. You definitely have a different pool of candidates on Teesside than you in London whatever way you look at it.

The Treasury recruits new civil servants straight from university. It is cleaners and catering staff who might come from a Teeside Jobcentre but they do not set economic policy. There might be an indirect effect in the medium term as senior mandarins live in the North-East but more likely it would just make recruitment more difficult.

Of course, it would benefit the town in which it is based in the same way having any new, large employer would do, in terms of jobs and wages spent locally.

Though will such a Treasury move outlive Sunak? It is an easy target for cuts.

Merging the FCO (London based) with DFID (largely in East Kilbride) has been problematic, with WFH the only viable solution for many teams.

Jonathan said:

MarqueeMark said:

ydoethur said:

JosiasJessop said:

ydoethur said:

JosiasJessop said:

ydoethur said:

JosiasJessop said:

ydoethur said:

rcs1000 said:

Fishing said:

Net Zero is a much bigger and juicier target than trans bathrooms during an energy crisis.

Yes, because we'd be in a much better position today if we still got all our energy from hydrocarbons.

Back in 2021, you could (rightly) claim that renewables were increasing the price of our electricity.

Today, the government paying a guaranteed £43/MWh for wind looks like like utter genius.

Building tidal lagoons instead of endlessly faffing around with overpriced and probably never to be built nuclear power stations would have looked much more like utter genius.

We hear a lot about tidal lagoons, but I am (currently) unconvinced. The scale required to make a difference is massive, and despite what the proponents say, the costs will likewise be massive.

Having said that, I'm in favour if having as varied a power generation system in the UK as possible; we should throw everything into the mix. It's just that I doubt tidal lagoons will prove to be as cheap or effective as their proponents claim.

Whether you are convinced or not has become irrelevant because the government vetoed large scale trials, claiming it would undoubtedly be more expensive, shorter lived and less reliable than the nuclear options they were exploring. Which was clearly bullshit.

They don't have to be a silver bullet. Only more reliable than wind, cheaper than gas and longer lasting than nuclear.

Which they undoubtedly would be. There is no realistic way you can juggle the numbers to come out with a different answer.

If we'd built five lagoons five years ago we'd be in a much better situation now.

"Which they undoubtedly would be."

We are talking about new tech done on a scale that had not been attempted before. Worse, we are talking about a new tech that almost wholly involves groundworks and water: perhaps the most complex and troublesome types of civil engineering. And to make a difference, they need to be large in scale (even if individual ones are small).

If we'd started building five lagoons five years ago, we'd probably still be building them. In fact, we'd probably still be in the planning stage.

This is not a reason not to build them: but I can't see them being anywhere near as advantageous or easy as you make out.

The Swansea proposal was around the same size as the Sihwa or Rance power stations. The latter has been operating for nearly 60 years. The former for over a decade.

We are not really talking new technology here.

We are at this scale. The proponents of the Swansea scheme refer to it thus: "Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon will be the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant."

Now, dams have been built. Barriers have been built. Barrages have been built. The Sihwa scheme is impressive. But the scale of these schemes is still impressive from a civ eng point of view.

http://www.tidallagoonpower.com/projects/swansea-bay/

Well, they were talking nonsense then, because their projected output for the initial lagoon AIUI was around 230 MWH - slightly less than Rance at 240.

Swansea was a small scale proof of concept project. It would have had 15 operative turbines. It was a testbed for the Cardiff lagoon that will have 160 operative turbines that power 1.6 million homes.

The anti-tidal lobby (largely nuclear) have cleverly extrapolated the Swansea numbers when the prize (and the economics) is a series of Cardiff-scale projects around our coast.

So, how do we unlock progress? Is it conceivable on this issue, our political leaders could agree and push something through?

The way forward is a vaccines-type task force. The existing BEIS civil servants either out the loop or with a firm choice. "Tell me how to develop large scale tidal lagoon power stations in a way which makes economic and environmental sense. A report that says that can't be done will come with your P45s."

williamglenn said:

I want to abolish the top down Whitehall inspired Stalinist housing targets - that’s the wrong way to generate economic growth.

The best way to stimulate economic growth is bottom-up with tax incentives for investment and simplified regulations.

https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1548585397478883328

Absolutely damn right that deregulation is what is needed. 👍

I won't hold my breath that they'll happen though.

Professor Matthew Goodwin seems to think the culture wars are more likely to be beneficial for the Tories and bad for the other parties.

As ever, turn to Yes Minister to reflect politics today. Brilliant. https://twitter.com/JonnyGeller/status/1548295799959760897/video/1

BartholomewRoberts said:

Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.

From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:

1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution
2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick
3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris
4. Sunak - Too high tax
5. Badenoch - Anti-woke

I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.

I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.

I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

The Sunday Mail hatchet job on Maudaunt today is extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting, while at the same time they have Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet extolling him as if he is a deity

However, it is reported more sensible senior conservatives are demanding Johnson resigns his seat on the 6th September as they do not want the Johnson drama continuing, with all the investigations into his behaviour due in the Autumn

I'll be interesting to watch the DM and MoS flip to undying support the moment Mordaunt wins.

You do have to wonder what goes through the minds of the editorial staff. Do they have to have a Masters in Hypocrisy to join the team?

IanB2 said:

Northern_Al said:

kle4 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.

From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:

1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution
2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick
3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris
4. Sunak - Too high tax
5. Badenoch - Anti-woke

I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.

The woke stuff is Badenoch's hook - it is what she was most known for going in to the contest, since she has little other experience to draw on, and it provides differentiation.

It may be she would have a number of interesting or distinct other positions, but it would be a gamble as currently she has little to go on.

I think that Badenoch's take on woke is less important than her take on the role of the state. She has said that 'the state should do less, but do it better'.

I think that Badenoch needs to be pinned down on exactly which areas of public life the state should withdraw from, how much this would save, and the social impact of the state withdrawing.

Good luck with that: once you've taken out pensions spending (rising), the NHS (rising), social care (rising) and education (already stretched), and defence (new demands?), what's left is a small proportion and mostly already under-funded.

Well yes, that was my point. But Badenoch has yet to be challenged on it, and some people are wanting her to be PM shortly.

Latest odds:

Sunak 2.74
Mordaunt 2.76
Truss 6.8
Badenoch 10
Tugendhat 140

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.160663234

Andy_JS said:

Latest odds:

Sunak 2.74
Mordaunt 2.76
Truss 6.8
Badenoch 10
Tugendhat 140

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.160663234

Lay Badenoch, buy Truss.

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda.
But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.

If that was happening en masse then perhaps.

But as it isn't...

But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%.
If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are:
1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club?
=2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club?
=2) the environment: we're all doomed.
4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.

That's the way the Cookie crumbles.

DavidL said:

Scott_xP said:

moonshine said:

There is a sick culture at the treasury, where they think their role is to balance the books. It’s not, it’s to promote long term wealth creation.

Lucky we now have a chancellor for whom long term wealth creation comes naturally...

Nadhim Zahawi’s story just doesn’t appear to add up.

An ever growing pile of questions for the man now responsible for overseeing the nation's finances.

Time for him to come clean with the British people.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nadhim-zahawi-may-have-avoided-millions-in-tax-with-trust-0n8mt7kj7

more questions for the chancellor in the Observer https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1548569702061981696/photo/1

I think that there is very little chance of him being in the next cabinet which means these stories will matter less but yet another interesting pick by Boris.

What we need is a byelection in Stratford on Avon.

IanB2 said:

Northern_Al said:

kle4 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.

From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:

1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution
2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick
3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris
4. Sunak - Too high tax
5. Badenoch - Anti-woke

I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.

The woke stuff is Badenoch's hook - it is what she was most known for going in to the contest, since she has little other experience to draw on, and it provides differentiation.

It may be she would have a number of interesting or distinct other positions, but it would be a gamble as currently she has little to go on.

I think that Badenoch's take on woke is less important than her take on the role of the state. She has said that 'the state should do less, but do it better'.

I think that Badenoch needs to be pinned down on exactly which areas of public life the state should withdraw from, how much this would save, and the social impact of the state withdrawing.

Good luck with that: once you've taken out pensions spending (rising), the NHS (rising), social care (rising) and education (already stretched), and defence (new demands?), what's left is a small proportion and mostly already under-funded.

Quite - I don't think people realise that a lot of dead wood really was cut away, and I supported that, but at the end of the day you cannot make significant reductions forever will making them in the areas of biggest expenditure.

You know, if any of these five were really sharp they would have promised everyone a free owl by now.

RochdalePioneers said:

Beibheirli_C said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

Perhaps Trans people will be cast as modern day witches? Will the madder Tories think that burning transwomen at the stake might reverse the economic woes?

It could generate Community Heat. Simply assemble the poor around the wicker man, lecture them about the evils of woke, and burn the tranny. Solve all of society's problems at once!

At least transmen will be safe since, from the rabid foaming on the right, you would think that only transwomen are going to destabilise society and bring it crashing down. I presume that non-binary and intersex people are also not "Enemies of Right Thinking People"?

MarqueeMark said:

DavidL said:

NickPalmer said:

ydoethur said:

Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.

I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.

I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.

What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.

That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....

I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.

OnboardG1 said:

Gallowgate said:

kle4 said:

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Jonathan said:

Casino_Royale said:

Jonathan said:

Renewable energy. Stop talking, start doing. Solves so many problems. It needs to be approached with some urgency.

Tell it to these boys:

Nothing there to stop us investing in renewables and becoming an energy self sufficient, low carbon UK. Time to end the political BS, we can do this.

I agree but my point is we are never going to race well-ahead of the pack where this causes us huge relative economic pain.

We will go as fast as we can that makes logical political and economic sense to do so in the short-medium term.

The solution, of course, is tech, engineering and megaproject delivery skills.

Moving the Treasury to Darlo could help with this - especially if you can tap into the down to earth engineering talent pool in the North.

I've never really understood the idea that the weight of government bureaucracy will shift if the offices are located in another location.

I mean, is the DVLA of particularly Welsh character because it is in Swansea? Why would location drive thinking?

Well it should if the recruitment pool (and hiring policies) are different. You definitely have a different pool of candidates on Teesside than you in London whatever way you look at it.

You also lose institutional knowledge. Therese an example in DEFRA of a chap who is the guy who knows everything about specific areas or organic food law. If he were to leave because he didn’t want to relocate to Stoke on Trent (and the lobbying firms would be circling after him with chequebooks) then you’d need to train someone else up. Certainly possible, but you’re looking at 5 years of not having your walking encyclopaedia in the department. You can mitigate that with extensive knowledge sharing and documentation, but even private companies I’ve worked for never actually do. I can name someone at each firm who, if they were hit by a bus, would cause their department to sink or collapse in efficiency. Multiply that across an entire government department and your going to have to make some serious investments to get your staff up to speed quickly (which might end up costing more).

My wife worked for an Irish government department/agency for a few months after it was relocated out of Dublin. The department had only managed to retain one senior member of staff who knew what needed to be done, and how, but he seemed to struggle with the situation and was hard to get hold of as he was mired in alcoholism. So she got very bored very quickly as there was little for her to do and no-one to help her find something to do or train her in how to do it. She didn't stay long.

IshmaelZ said:

RochdalePioneers said:

IshmaelZ said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

Gosh, satire, sooo clever and funny

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/hospital-says-patient-could-not-26506744

Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.

You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.

The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.

So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.

Ken Dodd tax evasion trial

KD my accountant died
Prosecutor Did that really matter?
KD Well, it mattered to him

I am sure this woman will realise how trivial her problems are when she learns that she is a "fringe issue" and "edge case" to a white flightist posting on an Internet forum from somewhere near Aberdeen. Women, hey? Mountains and molehills.

Edge cases matter. But the moral panic being created with the claim that these are not edge cases but widespread?

Silly boy

RochdalePioneers said:

IshmaelZ said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

Gosh, satire, sooo clever and funny

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/hospital-says-patient-could-not-26506744

Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.

You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.

The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.

So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.

The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.

The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.

From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:

1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution
2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick
3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris
4. Sunak - Too high tax
5. Badenoch - Anti-woke

I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.

Truss sound on the economy? Had no idea you were so supportive of borrowing vast sums of money to pay for spending. A bit more socialist than your usual libertarian positions...

FrankBooth said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

The Sunday Mail hatchet job on Maudaunt today is extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting, while at the same time they have Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet extolling him as if he is a deity

However, it is reported more sensible senior conservatives are demanding Johnson resigns his seat on the 6th September as they do not want the Johnson drama continuing, with all the investigations into his behaviour due in the Autumn

Why would the Mail be so hostile to her? Because she is seen as too liberal? Not a proper Thatcherite? Or is there something darker going on?

Threat to the true believers and Truss

ClippP said:

DavidL said:

Scott_xP said:

moonshine said:

There is a sick culture at the treasury, where they think their role is to balance the books. It’s not, it’s to promote long term wealth creation.

Lucky we now have a chancellor for whom long term wealth creation comes naturally...

Nadhim Zahawi’s story just doesn’t appear to add up.

An ever growing pile of questions for the man now responsible for overseeing the nation's finances.

Time for him to come clean with the British people.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nadhim-zahawi-may-have-avoided-millions-in-tax-with-trust-0n8mt7kj7

more questions for the chancellor in the Observer https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1548569702061981696/photo/1

I think that there is very little chance of him being in the next cabinet which means these stories will matter less but yet another interesting pick by Boris.

What we need is a byelection in Stratford on Avon.

Well if more many more stories emerge we might get one soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/17/zahawi-urged-to-explain-source-of-26m-mystery-loans

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nadhim-zahawi-may-have-avoided-millions-in-tax-with-trust-0n8mt7kj7 £££

tlg86 said:

Are the Tories focussing on culture wars? It’s seems to me that they are focussing on honesty and integrity.

Penny Mordaunt has been caught in a lie. Not a great place to be given why this contest is happening.

Has Mordaunt been caught in a lie? See my post earlier in the thread: neither the Mail nor the Sunday Times have a smoking gun. Of course, impressions are often more important.

Scott_xP said:

As ever, turn to Yes Minister to reflect politics today. Brilliant. https://twitter.com/JonnyGeller/status/1548295799959760897/video/1

I love Bernard (and Fowlds) so much. Underrated due to the general brilliance of the Humphrey/Hacker verbal sparring.

Bernard is my idol.

LostPassword said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.

From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:

1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution
2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick
3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris
4. Sunak - Too high tax
5. Badenoch - Anti-woke

I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.

I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.

I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.

From what I understand she's suggesting that Covid-related borrowing should be spread over a longer time period, like war bonds.

That's exactly what I suggested at the time of Sunak's stupid NI tax rise.

Day to day spending should not be getting borrowed, but Covid-spending should be

A large sum of the money Sunak's tax rise is going to clear the Covid backlog, despite hundreds of billions of borrowing. What I suggested is that previously was that the Treasury should calculate the cost of clearing the Covid backlog and add that to the Covid borrowing. That borrowing should then be amortised over a timespan rather than just a couple of years as Sunak wanted. We should then return to standard borrowing targets, taking into account the amortisation of Covid borrowing.

That's completely different to Brownian borrowing for day-to-day expenditure.

Cyclefree said:

RochdalePioneers said:

IshmaelZ said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

Gosh, satire, sooo clever and funny

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/hospital-says-patient-could-not-26506744

Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.

You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.

The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.

So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.

The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.

The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.

Surely the "overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases" did not occur in changing rooms at all, but in any case, why would self-ID questions matter in unisex changing rooms? The clue is in the name.

HYUFD said:

bondegezou said:

HYUFD said:

Yes focusing on the cost of living crisis is key and that means targeted tax cuts, controlling spending and increasing energy supplies.

However that does not mean there are no votes to be had in the culture wars, especially if it means pushing back at the extremes of the left attacking our culture and heritage, even ballet now under threat

https://twitter.com/DanielJHannan/status/1548526406904135685?s=20&t=bbAF4XFZQxzkrIZEPt8Ovg

Ah, yes, defending ballet, guaranteed Red Wall vote winner.

Guaranteed blue wall winner in Kensington, Westminster and the Home counties, defending Churchill and our history guaranteed red wall
winner and ensuring trans rights are balanced with womens' rights important to win the latter

The way to win the red wall is to tax the blue wall until the pips squeak.

I agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that the ST article is not quite as damning as it seems to think. The better case against Mordaunt is that her own words in the Commons show what her views were. It is her now claiming that she didn't say or believe those words that raises serious questions about her integrity as @DavidL points out.

One reason why this issue has taken up time is because Mordaunt was Minister for Equalities for some time and because she doesn't have much else to her name. 1 tiny trade deal as Trade Minister. What did she do or champion on Overseas Aid when responsible for that? She apparently suggested that part of the Overseas Aid budget could be used for a new Royal Yacht, which seems an eccentric use, at best. It is also telling that none of the MPs who worked with her in those Ministries have publicly supported her. Is there maybe a touch of the "Everyone likes Boris until they get to know him about her"?

For Badenoch, the risk is that this is the only issue she will be remembered for. Again it is because this has been her brief. She needs more experience and to talk about other issues.

The big ones for me are energy security and cost - fuel bills are a big source of anxiety for us even though we have done everything we can to insulate, be as energy efficient as possible, installed solar panels etc etc - and housing for my children. As well as the cost of living.

Tax cuts simply don't feature. And if this is what the Tories bang on about - instead of focusing help on the poorest - they will lose. And deservedly so.

bondegezou said:

Cookie said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda.
But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.

If that was happening en masse then perhaps.

But as it isn't...

But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%.
If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are:
1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club?
=2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club?
=2) the environment: we're all doomed.
4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.

Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.

I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.

Not at all, nor Rosa Parks. But it is astonishing how ubiquitous she is.
And to be clear, I'm definitely not arguing for a return to the 1950s, or even the 1980s, when growing up gay must have been very painful. (I remember nothing in my childhood to remember race being an issue - don't remember any racist attitudes being expressed, whereas there were certainly homophobic attitudes, in both sense of the word - though the number of non- white people in my year could be counted on the fingers of one hand, so maybe it just wasn't visible.) I just think the amount of prominence that schools give to woke issues is massively disproportionate.
Reflecting on the way I've expressed this, the point is I don't actually oppose 'woke'. If woke means don't be racist or homophobic and treat everyone with respect, then of course I'm all in. What I'm opposed to is the prominence given to it, as if your race and gender identity and sexuality are the only important things about you, and the 'if you're not with us your against us' attitude: that if you're not prominently displaying your woke credentials at every opportunity you're a horrible old gammon.

MarqueeMark said:

DavidL said:

MarqueeMark said:

DavidL said:

NickPalmer said:

ydoethur said:

Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.

I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.

I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.

What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.

That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....

I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.

We still have to see how long those offshore developments last. Seawater is going to expose every possible weakness in their build. If many last 30 years I will be seriously surprised. Then they need rebuilding from the seabed up.

Contrast with tidal lagoons that have a 120 year minimum life expectancy - but in reality, they will likely last centuries with a bit of tlc. Sure, the turbines will need changing out. They recently did that at La Rance - they should last another 60 years.

La Rance is the cheapest power production in France.

It depends upon the strike price for those 120 years though surely?

120 years at rip off strike prices is a problem.
120 years at a low price is great.

If tidal lagoons can be built, privately, with the same strike price commitments as granted to offshore wind etc then the state should get out of the way and ensure planning consent is granted. If it can't, then it might not be economic.

Foxy said:

bondegezou said:

Cookie said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda.
But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.

If that was happening en masse then perhaps.

But as it isn't...

But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%.
If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are:
1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club?
=2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club?
=2) the environment: we're all doomed.
4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.

Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.

I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.

I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.

Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.

Nigelb said:

NickPalmer said:

ydoethur said:

Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.

I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.

I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.

Some back of the envelope calculations here gave a cost per kWh for the Swansea project pretty similar to that for nuclear.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/13/tidal-power-still-expensive-still-unlikely-contribute-much/

‘Order of magnitude’ worse than what ? Certainly not nuclear.
And how did they calculate “return on investment” ?
Seems very strange indeed.

And note that Swansea was a pilot project - and also that Sihwa was significantly cheaper to construct per MW of capacity (less than half the cost).

Nuclear came out very badly too, though from memory tidal was twice as bad as nuclear on the 2008 (?) figures. We decided against it too, and I've come to feel that was a mistake. The "return on investment" was IIRC based on "energy production over 30 years at current projected prices compared with cost of construction".

My post wasn't trying to argue that we made the right decisions, though I still think that the investment in wind has turned out to be right. Rather, I was illustrating the process. Ministers can question the reports they get, but are not really in a position to decide that the figures are totally wrong. I don't see a particular motivation for civil servants to be biased in the calculations (though I note Marquee Mark's point above about a later review). But different people come to different conclusions based on their assumptions, and where I think the policy process can be improved is to give more scope for NGOs and indeed interest groups to influence policy before it'd made. We were largely looking at the civil service brief (which to be fair seemed to have looked at input from NGOs etc.), and if we'd had five different reports we'd have been better able to say "But xxx says your figures are wrong because ..., what do you say to that?"

Even in my current modest role on a district council executive, I've been stressing to the officers that I never want to see a simple reocmmendation to sign off - I want a range of options with pros and cons to choose from (and I'm experience enough to spot a biased set where you're being steered to the middle one). Otherwise the political process is largely a formality.

LostPassword said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

LostPassword said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.

From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:

1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution
2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick
3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris
4. Sunak - Too high tax
5. Badenoch - Anti-woke

I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.

I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.

I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.

From what I understand she's suggesting that Covid-related borrowing should be spread over a longer time period, like war bonds.

That's exactly what I suggested at the time of Sunak's stupid NI tax rise.

Day to day spending should not be getting borrowed, but Covid-spending should be

A large sum of the money Sunak's tax rise is going to clear the Covid backlog, despite hundreds of billions of borrowing. What I suggested is that previously was that the Treasury should calculate the cost of clearing the Covid backlog and add that to the Covid borrowing. That borrowing should then be amortised over a timespan rather than just a couple of years as Sunak wanted. We should then return to standard borrowing targets, taking into account the amortisation of Covid borrowing.

That's completely different to Brownian borrowing for day-to-day expenditure.

I don't think you can just magic half our existing debt into war bonds. But that's by-the-by, because, when challenged on the policy during the debate, Truss defended it by explicitly arguing we could borrow more because our current debt levels were lower than other countries.

That is an explicit argument for borrowing to pay for tax cuts, to borrow to cover day-to-day expenditure rather than take the hard choice of taxing or cutting spending. And it's a massive inflationary kick to the economy when inflation is already high.

Of course you can treat half our existing debt as war bonds, war bonds are just bonds with an attitude attached to them not a different type of bond.

Borrowing to reverse the tax rise may be a tax cut but limited to Covid borrowing is also absolutely the right thing to do and what should have been done all along.

Reversing the NI hike may be "inflationary" but it is the right thing to do. If non-working people have to face a bit more inflation rather than putting all the burden on working people, then that's not an issue for me.

I don't know who will win this Tory leadership contest but I'm feeling increasingly disappointed. Maybe it is the need to appeal to the Tory selectorate but it doesn't feel as if the big challenges are being dealt with. I did like the fact that Kemi talked about trade offs in the C4 debate even if her solutions would be more to the right than I would probably want.

Are we prepared to have an excess of supply in the housing market? If a farmer takes rotten food to the market he has to accept that no-one will likely buy it. Housebuilders don't seem to face the same consumer pressure. I'm not convinced removing regulations is likely to improve that. Has Truss set herself against Nimbyism?

Benpointer said:

Foxy said:

bondegezou said:

Cookie said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda.
But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.

If that was happening en masse then perhaps.

But as it isn't...

But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%.
If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are:
1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club?
=2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club?
=2) the environment: we're all doomed.
4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.

Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.

I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.

I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.

Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale was a far, far more significant figure than Mary Seacole. Nightingale shaped modern nursing, hospital design, infection control and epidemiology. Mary Seacole probably was overlooked because of her skin colour but she is more on the level of Grace Darling in showing courage and determination in a humanitarian cause.

pigeon said:

tlg86 said:

On the hot weather, there’s going to be a decent breeze, which should take the edge off.

A Southerly, which will therefore be like turning on a hairdryer to compound the misery. There's nothing to be done but keep indoors as much as possible.

Well that’s why we’re getting the hot weather. This was the same a few years ago when the record was last broken and it certainly didn’t feel that hot. Whereas that Sunday in August 2003, there wasn’t a breath of wind. Now that was hot.

Mordaunt did well in that interview IMO

Benpointer said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda.
But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.

If that was happening en masse then perhaps.

But as it isn't...

But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%.
If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are:
1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club?
=2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club?
=2) the environment: we're all doomed.
4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.

That's the way the Cookie crumbles.

@Benpointer thats very good.

FrankBooth said:

I don't know who will win this Tory leadership contest but I'm feeling increasingly disappointed. Maybe it is the need to appeal to the Tory selectorate but it doesn't feel as if the big challenges are being dealt with. I did like the fact that Kemi talked about trade offs in the C4 debate even if her solutions would be more to the right than I would probably want.

Are we prepared to have an excess of supply in the housing market? If a farmer takes rotten food to the market he has to accept that no-one will likely buy it. Housebuilders don't seem to face the same consumer pressure. I'm not convinced removing regulations is likely to improve that. Has Truss set herself against Nimbyism?

Sadly, you don't get discussions of downsides in a leadership contest, just as you don't in an election. You don't get the much between those times either, to be fair. This isn't a feature of the modern age; I don't ever remember an advocate of any given position presenting a measured consideration of its costs as well as its benefits.
I agree it's a bit depressing though.

rcs1000 said:

ydoethur said:

rcs1000 said:

ydoethur said:

rcs1000 said:

Fishing said:

Net Zero is a much bigger and juicier target than trans bathrooms during an energy crisis.

Yes, because we'd be in a much better position today if we still got all our energy from hydrocarbons.

Back in 2021, you could (rightly) claim that renewables were increasing the price of our electricity.

Today, the government paying a guaranteed £43/MWh for wind looks like like utter genius.

Building tidal lagoons instead of endlessly faffing around with overpriced and probably never to be built nuclear power stations would have looked much more like utter genius.

Particularly with renewables, you want a portfolio approach.

But I still find it astonishing that at a time when hydrocarbon prices are through the roof, a few people come out of the woodwork and say "Well, if only we'd not increased our reliance on renewables, we'd be fine."

I'm not a man to through around the "retard" word lightly. But W.T.F.

The issue with wind is it went hand in hand with the expansion of CCGT power, which was the only realistic way of balancing the load when the wind wasn't blowing.

And that's now coming home to roost with a vengeance.

If there were effective storage solutions available for wind generation things would be different. But there are none available yet.

With all due respect, there's really nothing complicated about storing gas. The UK used to have sites all across the country.

UK gas storage capacity - whether at the utility level (Rough) or at the local level (the Oval) - cost almost nothing to maintain, and yet was still shut down.

It appears there is actually nothing about bringing back gas storage (or seemingly much about energy security full stop) in the 'energy security' bill. Most of what pertains to the oil and has industry here seems to be putting costs on to them and new regulations concerning spillage and habitats. Both of which might be warranted, but seem a little out of kilter with the times. Increasing domestic output and being able to store it are surely the priorities?

https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/insight/uk-energy-security-bill-introduced-amid-political-turmoil-has-wide-ranging-implications-for

It is clear that this bill must be amended to reopen any gas storage facilities that have been decommissioned but which are still intact. Otherwise we will be in the ludicrous position of asking Europe if we can buy back some of the gas we sold them.

Farooq said:

Cookie said:

bondegezou said:

Cookie said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Cookie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda.
But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.

If that was happening en masse then perhaps.

But as it isn't...

But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%.
If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are:
1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club?
=2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club?
=2) the environment: we're all doomed.
4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.

Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.

I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.

Not at all, nor Rosa Parks. But it is astonishing how ubiquitous she is.
And to be clear, I'm definitely not arguing for a return to the 1950s, or even the 1980s, when growing up gay must have been very painful. (I remember nothing in my childhood to remember race being an issue - don't remember any racist attitudes being expressed, whereas there were certainly homophobic attitudes, in both sense of the word - though the number of non- white people in my year could be counted on the fingers of one hand, so maybe it just wasn't visible.) I just think the amount of prominence that schools give to woke issues is massively disproportionate.
Reflecting on the way I've expressed this, the point is I don't actually oppose 'woke'. If woke means don't be racist or homophobic and treat everyone with respect, then of course I'm all in. What I'm opposed to is the prominence given to it, as if your race and gender identity and sexuality are the only important things about you, and the 'if you're not with us your against us' attitude: that if you're not prominently displaying your woke credentials at every opportunity you're a horrible old gammon.

Lucky you

Farooq, yes, I was trying to make clear that this was en entirely personal perspective as a white child growing up in an entirely white environment. But non-white people weren't casually disparaged in conversation in the same way that gay people were.

Cyclefree said:

RochdalePioneers said:

IshmaelZ said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

Gosh, satire, sooo clever and funny

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/hospital-says-patient-could-not-26506744

Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.

You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.

The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.

So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.

The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.

The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.

I wasn't describing sexual assaults on women as edge cases - just the example given. Men need to be stopped from assaulting women and there is a huge amount that men need to do to educate and motivate ourselves as a gender to not have this macho predatory women as chattel bullshit that drives it.

My point is that if you want to go and assault and rape women you don't need to pretend to be trans to do it - just drag them off as the vast majority of cases are. The endless obsession about the trans threat let's this government off the hook who seemingly make little effort to bother investigating and prosecuting rapists.

TheScreamingEagles said:

I’m delighted to inform you all that I’ve been chosen by Opinium to give my thoughts on tonight’s debate.

It is quite the honour that Opinium have selected me to be part of 1,000 or so ordinary voters in this panel.

Yes. Very ordinary...

Nigelb said:

LostPassword said:

ydoethur said:

rcs1000 said:

ydoethur said:

rcs1000 said:

Fishing said:

Net Zero is a much bigger and juicier target than trans bathrooms during an energy crisis.

Yes, because we'd be in a much better position today if we still got all our energy from hydrocarbons.

Back in 2021, you could (rightly) claim that renewables were increasing the price of our electricity.

Today, the government paying a guaranteed £43/MWh for wind looks like like utter genius.

Building tidal lagoons instead of endlessly faffing around with overpriced and probably never to be built nuclear power stations would have looked much more like utter genius.

Particularly with renewables, you want a portfolio approach.

But I still find it astonishing that at a time when hydrocarbon prices are through the roof, a few people come out of the woodwork and say "Well, if only we'd not increased our reliance on renewables, we'd be fine."

I'm not a man to through around the "retard" word lightly. But W.T.F.

The issue with wind is it went hand in hand with the expansion of CCGT power, which was the only realistic way of balancing the load when the wind wasn't blowing.

And that's now coming home to roost with a vengeance.

If there were effective storage solutions available for wind generation things would be different. But there are none available yet.

We don't have the excess of wind energy to store. Storage only becomes an issue when there is frequently an excess that needs time-shifting. I'm confident that if we rapidly doubled our wind generation that you would see large-scale storage deployed to store the excess wind energy that would be produced at times.

Not immediately, but significant amounts of cheap surplus electricity would provide the incentive for it.
The more straightforward immediate term response would be to make larger scale interconnects with Europe economically attractive. Continent wide interconnects will probably come before very large scale storage.

Someone here last time this was discussed said quite sensibly that you can just use excess wind power to push water up a hill, then let it roll down and generate power when the wind stops. That sounded fairly sensible. Not sure how much excess there is at present.

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I’m delighted to inform you all that I’ve been chosen by Opinium to give my thoughts on tonight’s debate.

It is quite the honour that Opinium have selected me to be part of 1,000 or so ordinary voters in this panel.

Thanks for confirming that it isn’t 1,000 ordinary voters.

Are you disappointed that Mordaunt is trying to appear to be anti-woke?

Opinium down weight my views because I take a 10/10 interest in politics.

They also have this great filter question.

As for Penny, she is still my second choice after Tom.

RochdalePioneers said:

Cyclefree said:

RochdalePioneers said:

IshmaelZ said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JonWC said:

I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.

To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.

The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?

Gosh, satire, sooo clever and funny

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/hospital-says-patient-could-not-26506744

Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.

You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.

The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.

So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.

The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.

The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.

I wasn't describing sexual assaults on women as edge cases - just the example given. Men need to be stopped from assaulting women and there is a huge amount that men need to do to educate and motivate ourselves as a gender to not have this macho predatory women as chattel bullshit that drives it.

My point is that if you want to go and assault and rape women you don't need to pretend to be trans to do it - just drag them off as the vast majority of cases are. The endless obsession about the trans threat let's this government off the hook who seemingly make little effort to bother investigating and prosecuting rapists.

Yes but Cyclefree makes some excellent points that "pro-trans" policies can be abused by predators, which is why many women oppose them.

To take the toilet position as an example, the rational "pro-trans" position is to get away with toilets of differing sexes and to make them unisex. However, if Cyclefree's data is right that women are greater at risk from unisex changing rooms than single-sex ones, then that is a problem.

Similarly with sport, its self-evident that allowing transwomen to compete in professional sport is unfair so should be as prohibited as doping, which shouldn't mean that transwomen can't be treated as women in other respects normally.

There needs to be some sensible compromises on this topic without the heat and fire. Personally I would want to be as supporting as possible towards transmen and transwomen so long as doing so doesn't put in jeopardy or unfairly penalise actual women.

Its interesting to note that almost none of this conversation is about transmen.