I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
"However, the UK – which features the second-strongest tides in the world after Canada, and is a densely populated island of nearly 70 million people – could be an “exception”, Hogan adds. A 2021 study from academics at Edinburgh University found that tidal stream alone has the potential to deliver 11% of the UK’s current annual electricity demand, which is the same as the combined contribution of solar and biomass over the past year.
Industry group the British Hydropower Association adds that tidal range projects under development – all of which are currently stalled – would deliver 10GW of new capacity by 2030 if they were to receive permission and adequate funding. These projects are situated across Great Britain, including in Swansea Bay, Merseyside, the North Somerset Coast and the North Wales Coast. "
That's tidal stream (tidal current) vs tidal range, i.e. tide rising/falling. La Rance in Brittany is tidal range.
Is there any impact of these schemes on wildlife? e.g. can fish still swim from sea to river? Is there an impact on the food source for tidal wading birds?
I am a big fan of Morecambe Bay. I would be nervous about any blot on its landscape. But it already has a blot on its landscape: Heysham nuclear power station. I would guess a tidal power station would be less visually intrusive.
So I think we're lights off and heating off at 5-7pm tonight, we've got a battery powered floor lamp that's nicely charged and I think we'll keep the TV on.
Don't forget to turn up the heating in the run up to 5pm, so there's enough heat in the house to see you through a couple of hours!
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
I smell fee for service medicine too.
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
Do you think doctors never give bad advice, or laypersons should make their decisions entirely without reference to the advice doctors have given them, or psychologists are not really proper doctors?
In my case, if someone charged me a great deal of money (this being the US) to advise me of the probable effects of me having my penis surgically removed and replaced with a pretendy vagina, I would feel a bit aggrieved if the advice turned out to be utter bollocks. Which, if it were based on a philosophically meaningless delusion as to the existence of gender as a mystical entity like the soul and the Holy Spirit, it would be.
OT: The problem for Starmer is that the Tories do not "own Brexit 100%". A large part of the reason that Brexit attracted the support that it did was because Labour (under Corbyn) did not sufficiently oppose it. Labour may not be equally to blame for it, but they certainly share a massive responsibility for their acquiescence in the Brexit referendum debacle.
Labour simply for their incompetence (and lending their voters) bears some responsibility for losing the vote, nonetheless it was lost on the back of Cameron's hubris, but ownership? No, the Conservatives in general, and Boris Johnson in particular, tied themselves to the mast of Brexit and claimed it as their own.
So I think we're lights off and heating off at 5-7pm tonight, we've got a battery powered floor lamp that's nicely charged and I think we'll keep the TV on.
Don't forget to turn up the heating in the run up to 5pm, so there's enough heat in the house to see you through a couple of hours!
Yeah good shout, we got the message from Ovo this morning asking us to minimise electricity and gas usage for the two hours to avoid a blackout. Hopefully everyone else does it too. Tomorrow as well apparently.
Class has never been defined by earnings or wealth. It's quite possible to be well off and working class. There's a moderate correlation, but your bank account doesn't define or reflect your background, tastes and sensibilities.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
I smell fee for service medicine too.
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
"Where we were" wasn't a sustainable position, so of course we won't be able to return to it. Failing to acknowledge this was just one of the dishonesties of the useless Remain campaign.
Explain to me exactly how the EU could have made us change our position if we didn't want to, how we could have been forced to join the Euro or Schengen for example.
If you can't I'll assume its the usual Brexiteer evidence-free misinformation.
Our politicians, especially Mr Johnson, are undoubtedly morally beyond reproach. Oh, and our system of government is so superior that we would never have her-today-gone-tomorrow PMs. Our democracy is also so very superior, or so an hereditary peer told me only the other day, who was also backed up by a bishop and leading advocate of first-past-the-post MP in a very safe seat.
Our cabal can be booted out by our voters if they are not morally beyond approach.
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
"Where we were" wasn't a sustainable position, so of course we won't be able to return to it. Failing to acknowledge this was just one of the dishonesties of the useless Remain campaign.
Explain to me exactly how the EU could have made us change our position if we didn't want to, how we could have been forced to join the Euro or Schengen for example.
If you can't I'll assume its the usual Brexiteer evidence-free misinformation.
Well they were forcing us into the single banking rulebook even though it shouldn't have applied to us. Also the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
EFTA+ or EEA seem to be to be the best idea, and why we haven't persued it I've no idea. Upholds the referendum (out the EU) but listens to the 48%.
On another matter, and maybe its been discussed but whats this massive fraud going on in the EU at the moment?
We haven't pursued it primarily because the vocal second referendumers (2016-19 parliamentary faction leader: Sir Keir Starmer) forced the EEA supporting Leavers to have to ally with the ERG instead of with Remainers who would have accepted EEA.
Granted Richard Burgon isn't the greatest MP but he isn't wrong here.
@RichardBurgon · 3m Nurses are now earning £5,000 a year less in real terms than when the Tories came to power.
There are now 47,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS.
The NHS crisis can't be resolved without paying nurses properly.
Agree, but where does the money come from, without contributing to inflation?
From the rest of us - wealth tax, income tax, windfall tax, borrowing, we can debate, but clearly a situation where we can't get either an ambulance or reasonable care within hours is not acceptable, and more important than most of the things we spend money on. We pay the Government to prioritise, and at present they seem to be prioritising doing nothing very much for fear it might make MPs rebel. That, I suggest, is not a priority for most people.
Ask "most people" whether nurses should be paid more. They all say yes. Then show them the current pay scale, remembering to explain the DB pension scheme which adds circa 40% on to the said pay scale. Then see if their view changes.
Secondly, when people clamour for higher nurses pay, why the focus on nurses? What about doctors, porters and admin staff? Why just nurses? I don't know for sure but I'm guessing that nurses total less than half of the NHS staffing.
Isn't this just an emotive way of building a narrative to alter the balance between the public sector vs the private sector in favour of the former? Isn't this the real agenda?
There are 47,000 nursing vacancies. Many of them will be being filled on a shift by shift basis (because the Hospital has no choice but to pay whatever is demanded) by contract staff charging far more than the cost of an salaried staff member.
So we are currently not paying nurses enough for them to work AND the NHS is probably paying billions to agencies in a desperate attempt to avoid not having to close wards down at short notice.
So it's not a question of what the general public may think - it's a question of what level of pay is required to ensure nursing staffing levels return to sustainable levels - because the total cost will be far less than you think.
Also, concentrating on pay misses the fact that this is a complex system that the NHS is compelled to engage with by its very nature, of which pay is just one lever. Pay does make a difference, because money can smooth over a lot of small difficulties, but you can’t solve every problem by throwing £ at individual members of staff:
At the boundary, increasing pay may tempt some existing trained nurses back into nursing from other jobs, but the supply of trained nurses that exist in the UK at the current time is finite: If there aren’t enough nurses then you cannot fill the vacancies unless you import nursing staff from abroad, which carries it’s own costs. (I note in passing that the government decided to cancel bursaries for nursing courses.)
How much stress your staff are under & whether they are able to cope is not strongly linked to pay: Many staff worked incredibly hard during the pandemic under extremely difficult conditions & are completely burnt out. In many cases they were already working at 110% of sustainable output before the pandemic, as evidenced by the high rate of people leaving the nursing profession.
You can extend similar arguments to teaching. It’s not /just/ pay (although more pay will help). It’s also the stress the staff are under & the relentless workload because the government seems to be happy to pile on more work without actually employing sufficient people to do the work, expecting the existing staff to cope. What actually happens is that, at the margins, staff begin to quit because they can’t cope with the increased stress. This puts more work on the rest of the system & ultimately it either sheds workload somehow, or the work that is being done declines precipitously in quality.
The government has refused to engage with these issues in any kind of serious fashion & you’re seeing it across the board in the services sector - police, NHS, teachers all seem to be utterly exhausted whilst the quality of service they provide has fallen through the floor. Individual pay may be part of the problem, but personally I believe what’s driving this collapse is a refusal to match services adequately to the load put upon them, often by the government itself, leading to a self feeding downward spiral as staff quit for greener pastures elsewhere.
We’re now in a very difficult position & much of it is self-inflicted, even if the final trigger was an external stressor (Covid-19).
Very interesting comments.
BTW it was the UKG which cancelled byursaries in England with knock on effects for budgets for the devolved admins, but nevertheless bursaries for nursing still exist in Scotland - no idea about NI or Wales.
The court system is falling apart, with court dates delayed multiple years. It‘s completely unsustainable & having knock on effects on the rest of the criminal justice system (probably the wider economy too) yet the government doesn’t appear to care.
New tough laws will help no doubt. Somehow.
Its peanuts to put more money in there and it'd have a big effect.
The lack of money is political - because it makes zero sense in the real world.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
"However, the UK – which features the second-strongest tides in the world after Canada, and is a densely populated island of nearly 70 million people – could be an “exception”, Hogan adds. A 2021 study from academics at Edinburgh University found that tidal stream alone has the potential to deliver 11% of the UK’s current annual electricity demand, which is the same as the combined contribution of solar and biomass over the past year.
Industry group the British Hydropower Association adds that tidal range projects under development – all of which are currently stalled – would deliver 10GW of new capacity by 2030 if they were to receive permission and adequate funding. These projects are situated across Great Britain, including in Swansea Bay, Merseyside, the North Somerset Coast and the North Wales Coast. "
That's tidal stream (tidal current) vs tidal range, i.e. tide rising/falling. La Rance in Brittany is tidal range.
Is there any impact of these schemes on wildlife? e.g. can fish still swim from sea to river? Is there an impact on the food source for tidal wading birds?
I am a big fan of Morecambe Bay. I would be nervous about any blot on its landscape. But it already has a blot on its landscape: Heysham nuclear power station. I would guess a tidal power station would be less visually intrusive.
Yes Heysham's an eyesore even by power station standards.
Fish can still get through. I imagine there's environmental impacts, but everything has them.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
Wrong. Epically wrong.
There are at least a dozen locations where the tidal range would support a tidal lagoon in England and Wales. The output of the Cardiff lagoon alone would power 1.8 million homes.
There aren't 1.8 million homes in Wales.
The proposed Cardiff lagoon has almost identical output to Hinckley C. At about a third of the capital cost. And it would last twice as long. Minimum. Probably multiples of that.
No waste. No carbon. No risk of the land being uninhabitable for millenia.
A lagoon on the north Somerset coast has certain challenges, but could produce 2 or 3 times the output of Cardiff.
It is a scandal it has not been done already. The basic tech required has been around for decades
Centuries surely? Don't need to know anything that Faraday didn't. Earliest commercial hydroelectric plant 1882 apparently.
Not quite a century old yet, but Tongland hydro power station near Kirkudbright was built in the 1930s and still generates (as well as being a very pleasing bit of architecture.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But it goes to the truth of the Hussey allegations. It looks to me as if what she did to Hussey is about what the police used to do to gay men in public toilets. Evidence of her geeral character is relevant to assessing this possibility.
A Leonine ability to persist with the same hobby horses through different identities.
I don't understand your point, but astrology has never really done it for me.
Take a step back. "Who are you? Who were your parents? From what country?" are hardwired into human discourse, they are what everybody asks everybody else on first meeting in the Odyssey. They are still quite acceptable issues: I know from a superficial and recent acquaintance with the site the racial backgrounds of posters who for instance live in a Scandi country but are "really from" elsewhere. There's a qualified and understandable exception to this rule in the case of ethnic minorities, but to argue that anything beyond stupidity and tactlessness is involved requires arguing that Lady Hussey is not stupid and tactless. Looking at her, that is a paradox too far for me.
So turn the knob up to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on your Marshall outrage amp if you want, but it doesn't leave you much in the tank to respond to the KKK with.
I think I've commented at most a couple of times directly on the subject, so my outrage amp knob is still at single figures.
Afaics asking where someone is from wasn't the problem but doing it repeatedly and not accepting the person's answer of England/Britain/UK or whatever definition of this blighted hellhole she felt attached to was. Fwiw I blame the Firm as much for employing a silly old posho whose sensibilities stopped growing in 1959 as the sop. Revelations of their uselessness and idiocy are all to the good though.
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
On topic, I suspect Starmer will do nothing that scares the Red Wall.
I've been pointing out to my Brexit supporting friends that it is in their interests for Starmer to win a majority at the next election.
If we have a coalition I suspect the Lib Dem de minimis position for a coalition will be to rejoin the single market.
You have Brexit supporting friends? Well I suppose you'll have free use of a white van, should the need arise.
I am a lifelong Tory activist, regretfully I know a few Brexiteers, most aren't the foaming at the mouth EUSSR types, more the sorrow how messed up it all has become/what the Tory party has become.
Class has never been defined by earnings or wealth. It's quite possible to be well off and working class. There's a moderate correlation, but your bank account doesn't define or reflect your background, tastes and sensibilities.
You could easily be a self-employed tradesman on 62k a year.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
I smell fee for service medicine too.
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
Who will be the first Brexiteer to grow a pair of balls and admit they wrong?
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
As with nurses - the fact there isn't cover for the shift will be a management issue not the ambulance workers.
12 years of treating people like shit has finally come home to roost and everything is falling apart at roughly the same time.
Which opens up the question my wife was asking over the weekend - given how badly public sector workers are being paid compared to 2010 - where is all the money going?
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
Our politicians, especially Mr Johnson, are undoubtedly morally beyond reproach. Oh, and our system of government is so superior that we would never have her-today-gone-tomorrow PMs. Our democracy is also so very superior, or so an hereditary peer told me only the other day, who was also backed up by a bishop and leading advocate of first-past-the-post MP in a very safe seat.
Boris Johnson had to leave of because of democratic pressures. So did Liz Truss. There is no such pressure in the European Commission. Fully agree that the Lords should remove hereditary peers and bishops.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
As with nurses - the fact there isn't cover for the shift will be a management issue not the ambulance workers.
12 years of treating people like shit has finally come home to roost and everything is falling apart at roughly the same time.
Which opens up the question my wife was asking over the weekend - given how badly public sector workers are being paid compared to 2010 - where is all the money going?
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
Indeed, but by a stonking great lie on the side of a bus. It might as well have said: "Vote leave for lots, and lots of free, no strings attached cash in unmarked notes, delivered through your letterbox every day for the rest of your life".
The "stonking great lie" that was a number actually exceeded by Theresa May as a "Brexit bonus" for the NHS? That stonking great lie?
The Remain campaign was utterly hamstrung by Cameron having based his referendum on his "renegotiation" effort with the EU - something that played so badly with the voters, the Remain campaign was forbidden from ever mentioning it.
But even with that caveat, the Remain effort was ridiculously bad. It descended into the level of "If you vote to Brexit, your mum smells of wee..."
Although, I would have to concede that if PM Liz Truss had gone to the country with her economic offering...
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
So I think we're lights off and heating off at 5-7pm tonight, we've got a battery powered floor lamp that's nicely charged and I think we'll keep the TV on.
Don't forget to turn up the heating in the run up to 5pm, so there's enough heat in the house to see you through a couple of hours!
Yeah good shout, we got the message from Ovo this morning asking us to minimise electricity and gas usage for the two hours to avoid a blackout. Hopefully everyone else does it too. Tomorrow as well apparently.
I have a problem with that, in that I work until 6pm...
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
As with nurses - the fact there isn't cover for the shift will be a management issue not the ambulance workers.
12 years of treating people like shit has finally come home to roost and everything is falling apart at roughly the same time.
Which opens up the question my wife was asking over the weekend - given how badly public sector workers are being paid compared to 2010 - where is all the money going?
The bosses and shareholders of the agency companies for short hire gap filling, is one thing.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
"Where we were" wasn't a sustainable position, so of course we won't be able to return to it. Failing to acknowledge this was just one of the dishonesties of the useless Remain campaign.
Explain to me exactly how the EU could have made us change our position if we didn't want to, how we could have been forced to join the Euro or Schengen for example.
To show that we are "good Europeans", in exchange for something else we need, most likely. And following a Remain vote in a referendum, that vote would certainly have been used in the pressure. "You had the chance to leave and you didn't".
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
None of this is a surprise and, as you say, most of the solution is well-known, it's simply a matter of spending the money and taking the time to rebuild our entire energy infrastructure. No biggie. It's a solvable problem.
I don't see why you think it's something that is new or difficult? We've known for ages that wind is a large part of the solution but that wind alone cannot be all of the solution.
The huge problem at present is that under the baleful influence of the green morons we've started (and indeed gone a long way towards) dismantling the existing energy infrastructure *without* providing a replacement with adequate capacity in all conditions.
A quick look at gridwatch will tell you that for conditions like today (cold, short windless day - very common in UK winters, often for days at a time) renewable production is ~nil. This is not a problem which can be solved just by overbuilding wind turbines - wind was making about 2% of national demand when I looked just now - we'd have to erect 50x what's currently in place to satisfy current demand on a day like today.
Solar doesn't work well in the dark, when peak demand occurs, so that's a non-starter.
All this green stuff is nice to have to reduce the amount of gas and coal we burn when the wind is blowing, but it's *not* a workable replacement for the gas and coal plant that is needed at times like now.
Unfortunately our moronic politicians didn't seem to understand this, although it's been pointed out by anybody with a brain ever since people proposed going to renewables that you either need grid level storage (currently doesn't exist in any meaningful sense) or 100% dispatchable (I.e. fossil) backup. As a result over the last five years we've allowed owners to close and demolished almost all of our coal plants which we should have kept in commission for these sorts of moments.
If the lights go out tonight (and its not looking great judging by where gridwatch is now - better hope none of the interconnectors trip!), we should acknowledge that this is a predictable utter failure of government policy (this mess is nothing to do with Putin - we have the coal and gas we need, just not the capacity to burn it - we'd be in exactly the same mess if Putin had sent his boys home in February), and rethink the whole thing from scratch, starting with a moritorium on closures of our remaining fossil fuel plants.
Frankly I'd hang all the green lobby for treason - pour encourager les autre next time someone has a well funded stupid policy idea. It's thanks to them driving the biggest policy failure this century we're about to be in the cold and dark - I don't see why they shouldn't suffer too.
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
I think as an issue Brexit doesn't really excite the average voter any more. From the comments of my less politically interested friends, it's done so time to move on. Yes, it is causing problems but some of those they view as the EU being petty (e.g. making UK citizens going through immigration queues with everyone else when EU citizens can use the e-gates at airports). Only those who haven't moved on - on either side - get worked up any more.
The problem with rolling back the result of the vote is that it would play into the view of politicians ignoring the populace. Labour's problem in its heartlands is its image - it is seen as a middle-class, graduate run party that looks down on its traditional voting base as racist, ignorant and thick proles. Starmer has managed to pick up support because - at the moment - the focus is all on the Tories and he hasn't really said that much (having Rayner helps). But bringing Brexit up again would rekindle a lot of that sentiment.
Much as some leavers would like it to be the issue of Brexit has not gone away and it won't for many years. The "ignoring the will of the people" boat has sailed as there would have to be another referendum anyway,
The problem for the leavers comes when the voters come to see Brexit as the root of all their problems in the way Farage and the right-wing press managed to portray the EU. (I wonder how many still believe that line? Not many I suspect)
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
"Where we were" wasn't a sustainable position, so of course we won't be able to return to it. Failing to acknowledge this was just one of the dishonesties of the useless Remain campaign.
Explain to me exactly how the EU could have made us change our position if we didn't want to, how we could have been forced to join the Euro or Schengen for example.
To show that we are "good Europeans", in exchange for something else we need, most likely. And following a Remain vote in a referendum, that vote would certainly have been used in the pressure. "You had the chance to leave and you didn't".
The Lisbon Treaty is proof enough. Voters reject the constitution, the EU ignored them and repackaged it and governments across Europe colluded to deny voters a say on it. That was the turning point for me, until then I was fairly pro-EU.
EFTA+ or EEA seem to be to be the best idea, and why we haven't persued it I've no idea. Upholds the referendum (out the EU) but listens to the 48%.
On another matter, and maybe its been discussed but whats this massive fraud going on in the EU at the moment?
We haven't pursued it primarily because the vocal second referendumers (2016-19 parliamentary faction leader: Sir Keir Starmer) forced the EEA supporting Leavers to have to ally with the ERG instead of with Remainers who would have accepted EEA.
The EEA requires freedom of movement and EU law. So it fails both the immigration and sovereignty tests, the two main motivations behind the Leave vote. It would be the equivalent of changing the EU Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
Wrong. Epically wrong.
There are at least a dozen locations where the tidal range would support a tidal lagoon in England and Wales. The output of the Cardiff lagoon alone would power 1.8 million homes.
There aren't 1.8 million homes in Wales.
The proposed Cardiff lagoon has almost identical output to Hinckley C. At about a third of the capital cost. And it would last twice as long. Minimum. Probably multiples of that.
No waste. No carbon. No risk of the land being uninhabitable for millenia.
A lagoon on the north Somerset coast has certain challenges, but could produce 2 or 3 times the output of Cardiff.
It is a scandal it has not been done already. The basic tech required has been around for decades
Centuries surely? Don't need to know anything that Faraday didn't. Earliest commercial hydroelectric plant 1882 apparently.
Not quite a century old yet, but Tongland hydro power station near Kirkudbright was built in the 1930s and still generates (as well as being a very pleasing bit of architecture.
Falls of Clyde station, I think, upstream from New Lanark*, was the oldest? Ramsay MacDonald pet project, apparently. It's still gurgling away, or was when I visited a few years back.
Class has never been defined by earnings or wealth. It's quite possible to be well off and working class. There's a moderate correlation, but your bank account doesn't define or reflect your background, tastes and sensibilities.
You could easily be a self-employed tradesman on 62k a year.
And this is *household* income. One person on £38k and the other on £25k living together would put them in the top bracket of this spurious chart.
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
"Where we were" wasn't a sustainable position, so of course we won't be able to return to it. Failing to acknowledge this was just one of the dishonesties of the useless Remain campaign.
Explain to me exactly how the EU could have made us change our position if we didn't want to, how we could have been forced to join the Euro or Schengen for example.
To show that we are "good Europeans", in exchange for something else we need, most likely. And following a Remain vote in a referendum, that vote would certainly have been used in the pressure. "You had the chance to leave and you didn't".
The Lisbon Treaty is proof enough. Voters reject the constitution, the EU ignored them and repackaged it and governments across Europe colluded to deny voters a say on it. That was the turning point for me, until then I was fairly pro-EU.
The rank overrule of the voters on the Lisbon Treaty combined with the refusal to listen seriously to Cameron's attempt at renegotiation did it for me. It was clear the Eurocrats plus their domestic allies were going to do what they wanted with integration, democratic pressures be damned.
Things are looking bleak for energy supply winter 2023/24 unless Europe does something pretty urgently over the next 12 months.
Even with demand down about 25% across the EU (I've not seen the equivalent UK numbers but assume they are similar or a bit less down given more of our gas consumption is domestic), stocks are now depleting pretty fast and it's going to be a push to build up storage next year with only LNG imports unless demand falls further.
Electrification, insulation, domestic and industrial solar installations, fixing France's nuclear fleet and a bunch of demand suppressing measures are going to need to be accelerated come spring. Either that or Russia loses in Ukraine, has a regime change to a pro-Western government, Putin heads to the Hague and we're all best mates with Russia again. Which seems unlikely to say the least.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
"I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers"
Be honest, have you ever been told that by a single person?
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
If elected Starmer will have an almost entirely free hand on rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the EU. A rapprochement will not split Labour as it would the Tories and most voters will not care. But it’s getting to that point which is the challenge. Reviving Brexit as an issue makes things tougher, so there’s no sense in doing it.
That said, I think Foxy is right: should Labour take power and nothing much changes the party will bleed votes to those who are bolder. My guess is that Starmer understands this well enough. If he doesn’t, however, his colleagues and members (far less Corbyn-inclined, much more EU-friendly than before) will make it clear.
Opinion is moving more against Brexit as each month passes so I think Starmer will play it like he is for now but will change the tone when the numbers believing Brexit was a mistake gets to a 2-1 majority.
If we could rejoin on the same terms that we left on I believe we would rejoin in about 10 years time. Unfortunately that is unlikely to be the case and why I'm so pissed off with the leavers. They have prevented us ever returning to where we were so even if we do rejoin the Brexiteers have ensured that the country will be worse off than before. Well done.
Will all depend on how much the EU want us back when the time comes.
"Where we were" wasn't a sustainable position, so of course we won't be able to return to it. Failing to acknowledge this was just one of the dishonesties of the useless Remain campaign.
Explain to me exactly how the EU could have made us change our position if we didn't want to, how we could have been forced to join the Euro or Schengen for example.
If you can't I'll assume its the usual Brexiteer evidence-free misinformation.
Even if we rejoined they can't force us. To join the Euro you need to first join the ERM, and so to avoid joining the Euro a country can simply not join the ERM. This has been Sweden's policy and there has been no pressure on Sweden to join the Euro since it was defeated in a referendum. Before joining Schengen a country needs to undergo a technical evaluation and so can avoid joining Schengen by not requesting the technical evaluation. Personally I don't favour us joining the Euro any time soon but this is no barrier to me thinking we should rejoin the EU. I think we should join Schengen especially as it opens the way to through train services between Northern England and Scotland and the continent.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
"I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers"
Be honest, have you ever been told that by a single person?
Yes. Every day I see shit about how this is a UK specific or UK only issue. It's bullshit and yet it goes unchallenged.
As Ken Clarke often observed the health unions were the most militant unions he ever dealt with, if they do this, then they have blood on their hands.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
We clapped for them every Thursday. What more do they expect?
Imagine Ken Clarke, the deputy chairman of British American Tobacco for several years, saying healthworkers (or anybody else) "if" they do XYZ will have "blood on their hands".
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
The French are always striking.
Not sure about that. 2-1 suggests only modest success, though enough on the day.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
I smell fee for service medicine too.
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
Do you think doctors never give bad advice, or laypersons should make their decisions entirely without reference to the advice doctors have given them, or psychologists are not really proper doctors?
In my case, if someone charged me a great deal of money (this being the US) to advise me of the probable effects of me having my penis surgically removed and replaced with a pretendy vagina, I would feel a bit aggrieved if the advice turned out to be utter bollocks. Which, if it were based on a philosophically meaningless delusion as to the existence of gender as a mystical entity like the soul and the Holy Spirit, it would be.
The existence of transgender people is not a meaningless delusion. Studies of brain chemistry show that their brains more greatly reflect their desired sex than their biological one. The fact trans people have been documented throughout history across hundreds of cultures should be a clue.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
Indeed, but by a stonking great lie on the side of a bus. It might as well have said: "Vote leave for lots, and lots of free, no strings attached cash in unmarked notes, delivered through your letterbox every day for the rest of your life".
The "stonking great lie" that was a number actually exceeded by Theresa May as a "Brexit bonus" for the NHS? That stonking great lie?
The Remain campaign was utterly hamstrung by Cameron having based his referendum on his "renegotiation" effort with the EU - something that played so badly with the voters, the Remain campaign was forbidden from ever mentioning it.
But even with that caveat, the Remain effort was ridiculously bad. It descended into the level of "If you vote to Brexit, your mum smells of wee..."
Although, I would have to concede that if PM Liz Truss had gone to the country with her economic offering...
That is a fair point to the extent that the Remain campaign was abjectly pathetic. I am not sure your version of "Project Fear" is quite accurate, although their sales pitch wasn't much better. Cameron's basic premise pre- referendum that "the EU are a load of s*** without a wholesale renegotiation", which subsequently never materialised, making the Cameron led Remain sell of; "the EU are infact great now, disregard what I said earlier", implausible.
As for your correction of my post. I am yet to see the £315m (or whatever it was) per week spent on healthcare.
In reality the EU, as Cameron suggested, was "a bit s****", but many of us feared the alternative to be even worse. Even to rabid Remainers like myself, the POS material couldn't say much more than "the EU isn't great, but if you vote Leave your collective mothers will indeed reek of stale urine", and lo and behold 8 years on she (collectively) does.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
The French are always striking.
Not sure about that. 2-1 suggests only modest success, though enough on the day.
Aided of course by the refusal to give clear free kicks and penalties.
So I think we're lights off and heating off at 5-7pm tonight, we've got a battery powered floor lamp that's nicely charged and I think we'll keep the TV on.
Why have I had nothing from Eon about this? Are only some energy providers sending notifications?
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
The French are always striking.
Not sure about that. 2-1 suggests only modest success, though enough on the day.
Aided of course by the refusal to give clear free kicks and penalties.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
"However, the UK – which features the second-strongest tides in the world after Canada, and is a densely populated island of nearly 70 million people – could be an “exception”, Hogan adds. A 2021 study from academics at Edinburgh University found that tidal stream alone has the potential to deliver 11% of the UK’s current annual electricity demand, which is the same as the combined contribution of solar and biomass over the past year.
Industry group the British Hydropower Association adds that tidal range projects under development – all of which are currently stalled – would deliver 10GW of new capacity by 2030 if they were to receive permission and adequate funding. These projects are situated across Great Britain, including in Swansea Bay, Merseyside, the North Somerset Coast and the North Wales Coast. "
That's tidal stream (tidal current) vs tidal range, i.e. tide rising/falling. La Rance in Brittany is tidal range.
Is there any impact of these schemes on wildlife? e.g. can fish still swim from sea to river? Is there an impact on the food source for tidal wading birds?
I am a big fan of Morecambe Bay. I would be nervous about any blot on its landscape. But it already has a blot on its landscape: Heysham nuclear power station. I would guess a tidal power station would be less visually intrusive.
Yes Heysham's an eyesore even by power station standards.
Fish can still get through. I imagine there's environmental impacts, but everything has them.
One of the conditions for approval for Hinckley C was a "fisher scarer", that would move fish away from the massive water intakes in the Severn to keep the cooling systems operational.
Except, it was expensive and difficult. So the operators have ploughed on regardless, knowing that tons of marine life will perish.
You could ask your MP why this is being allowed. No doubt he will respond from the nuclear industry-prepared crib sheet, which will say something like "yes, but...Putin!"
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
"I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers"
Be honest, have you ever been told that by a single person?
Yes. Every day I see shit about how this is a UK specific or UK only issue. It's bullshit and yet it goes unchallenged.
That's nonsense. As far back as I can remember (and that is well over 50 years) we heard of strikes in France on the news and they are often more militant.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Elon Musk went on stage at Dave Chapelle's gig last night and got booed off stage. The footage was posted to Twitter and the user that posted it was permanently banned.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But it goes to the truth of the Hussey allegations. It looks to me as if what she did to Hussey is about what the police used to do to gay men in public toilets. Evidence of her geeral character is relevant to assessing this possibility.
A Leonine ability to persist with the same hobby horses through different identities.
I don't understand your point, but astrology has never really done it for me.
Take a step back. "Who are you? Who were your parents? From what country?" are hardwired into human discourse, they are what everybody asks everybody else on first meeting in the Odyssey. They are still quite acceptable issues: I know from a superficial and recent acquaintance with the site the racial backgrounds of posters who for instance live in a Scandi country but are "really from" elsewhere. There's a qualified and understandable exception to this rule in the case of ethnic minorities, but to argue that anything beyond stupidity and tactlessness is involved requires arguing that Lady Hussey is not stupid and tactless. Looking at her, that is a paradox too far for me.
So turn the knob up to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on your Marshall outrage amp if you want, but it doesn't leave you much in the tank to respond to the KKK with.
No it doesn't require any such thing. You're just a bigot who thinks he's good at tactical deployment of logic. Screw the Odyssey. It's immediately obvious that Hussey is a racist b*tch. Attending an event where she tries to move a fellow invitee's hair out of the way so she can see her surname on her badge in order to find out where she is "really" from, after the woman already told her she was from Britain? Hussey should be made as welcome at social events as Ilie Nastase has been in recent years. She's an ill-mannered, uncouth, racially prejudiced guttersnipe. Which doesn't at all mean she isn't stupid and tactless. Treating a black person the same way you'd treat a white person shouldn't be a matter of "tact", or pretence as it's also known.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
I smell fee for service medicine too.
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
Do you think doctors never give bad advice, or laypersons should make their decisions entirely without reference to the advice doctors have given them, or psychologists are not really proper doctors?
In my case, if someone charged me a great deal of money (this being the US) to advise me of the probable effects of me having my penis surgically removed and replaced with a pretendy vagina, I would feel a bit aggrieved if the advice turned out to be utter bollocks. Which, if it were based on a philosophically meaningless delusion as to the existence of gender as a mystical entity like the soul and the Holy Spirit, it would be.
The existence of transgender people is not a meaningless delusion. Studies of brain chemistry show that their brains more greatly reflect their desired sex than their biological one. The fact trans people have been documented throughout history across hundreds of cultures should be a clue.
I never, ever said it was. There is all the difference in the world between saying you are M with a characteristically F brain, or vv, and saying that you are therefore "really" F. If you say the former you can then have a sensible discussion about the pros and cons of one sort of transition or another. Say the latter and you get to where we actually are, with demands that mentioning the existence of cons be made a crime.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Bugger off is it. UKIP is deader than its membership.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
But TSE, I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers, surely this must be wrong and those Nuclear power plants are still operating.
"I keep being told by everyone that the UK is the only country that has striking workers"
Be honest, have you ever been told that by a single person?
Yes. Every day I see shit about how this is a UK specific or UK only issue. It's bullshit and yet it goes unchallenged.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But it goes to the truth of the Hussey allegations. It looks to me as if what she did to Hussey is about what the police used to do to gay men in public toilets. Evidence of her geeral character is relevant to assessing this possibility.
A Leonine ability to persist with the same hobby horses through different identities.
I don't understand your point, but astrology has never really done it for me.
Take a step back. "Who are you? Who were your parents? From what country?" are hardwired into human discourse, they are what everybody asks everybody else on first meeting in the Odyssey. They are still quite acceptable issues: I know from a superficial and recent acquaintance with the site the racial backgrounds of posters who for instance live in a Scandi country but are "really from" elsewhere. There's a qualified and understandable exception to this rule in the case of ethnic minorities, but to argue that anything beyond stupidity and tactlessness is involved requires arguing that Lady Hussey is not stupid and tactless. Looking at her, that is a paradox too far for me.
So turn the knob up to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on your Marshall outrage amp if you want, but it doesn't leave you much in the tank to respond to the KKK with.
No it doesn't require any such thing. You're just a bigot who thinks he's good at tactical deployment of logic. Screw the Odyssey. It's immediately obvious that Hussey is a racist b*tch. Attending an event where she tries to move a fellow invitee's hair out of the way so she can see her surname on her badge in order to find out where she is "really" from, after the woman already told her she was from Britain? Hussey should be made as welcome at social events as Ilie Nastase has been in recent years. She's an ill-mannered, uncouth, racially prejudiced guttersnipe. Which doesn't at all mean she isn't stupid and tactless. Treating a black person the same way you'd treat a white person shouldn't be a matter of "tact", or pretence as it's also known.
Sorry, you're quite right and the old trout is quite literally worse than Hitler. And I applaud her for it, cos that's how I roll.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Bugger off is it. UKIP is deader than its membership.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Bugger off is it. UKIP is deader than its membership.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
Charming.
Who voted for the likes of the last PM but, how many is it now?
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Why accurate? The argument against the claim is that whatever our contribution was, saving it is more than offset by reduced gdp as a result of Brexit. So no number would be accurate.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
What? Are you saying there is a huge Brexit bonus that has been put into the NHS? Or are you trying to mislead by saying more than that has gone into the NHS but from elsewhere? If so that is being disingenuous.
Not even the most fervent leaver believes we have got an economic bonus yet so there has been none of it to reinvest in the NHS.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
A lie is a lie I'm afraid and it was a lie that the leave campaign continued to promote at the forefront of their campaign even once it was proven to be a lie.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Why accurate? The argument against the claim is that whatever our contribution was, saving it is more than offset by reduced gdp as a result of Brexit. So no number would be accurate.
That would be a strange claim, since "GDP" isn't actual money that the government can spend.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
What? Are you saying there is a huge Brexit bonus that has been put into the NHS? Or are you trying to mislead by saying more than that has gone into the NHS but from elsewhere? If so that is being disingenuous.
Not even the most fervent leaver believes we have got an economic bonus yet so there has been none of it to reinvest in the NHS.
No, I'm saying that the actual amount we paid the EU worked out at more than £350 million per week once the numbers were crunched - even net.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Bugger off is it. UKIP is deader than its membership.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
Charming.
Who voted for the likes of the last PM but, how many is it now?
Oh, please, less of the "Charming" pearl-clutching. You start making sweeping generalisations of one party being the same as another and you'll get called out.
I'm sure the SNP will get pissed off at being called Alba-lite.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Over the last 25 years, sterling zone unemployment has been above 8% in one year. Over the same time period euro zone unemployment has only been BELOW 8% in five of them. I don't feel it will be difficult to win this argument.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Why accurate? The argument against the claim is that whatever our contribution was, saving it is more than offset by reduced gdp as a result of Brexit. So no number would be accurate.
That would be a strange claim, since "GDP" isn't actual money that the government can spend.
What a grotesquely pin headed point.
Does tax take vary directly, inversely, or not at all, with gdp?
So I think we're lights off and heating off at 5-7pm tonight, we've got a battery powered floor lamp that's nicely charged and I think we'll keep the TV on.
Why have I had nothing from Eon about this? Are only some energy providers sending notifications?
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Why accurate? The argument against the claim is that whatever our contribution was, saving it is more than offset by reduced gdp as a result of Brexit. So no number would be accurate.
You are honestly trying to claim that saying "We send the EU £270m a week", as of 2016, would be a "lie"?
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
Our currency is totemic in a way the franc mark lira drachma punt schilling look up the rest for yourself were not? Why? Is the Battle of Britain part of the reason?
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
A lie is a lie I'm afraid and it was a lie that the leave campaign continued to promote at the forefront of their campaign even once it was proven to be a lie.
When you are explaining, you are still losing. Six and a half years on.....
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Why accurate? The argument against the claim is that whatever our contribution was, saving it is more than offset by reduced gdp as a result of Brexit. So no number would be accurate.
You are honestly trying to claim that saying "We send the EU £270m a week", as of 2016, would be a "lie"?
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
How many people do you think we're swayed by the number being 350m a week rather than the accurate number of 270m? Genuine question.
Why accurate? The argument against the claim is that whatever our contribution was, saving it is more than offset by reduced gdp as a result of Brexit. So no number would be accurate.
You are honestly trying to claim that saying "We send the EU £270m a week", as of 2016, would be a "lie"?
Is that what the bus said?
No, the bus said £350m. I asked how many people did Remainers on here think were swayed by that number vs. £270m. Do keep up.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
Our currency is totemic in a way the franc mark lira drachma punt schilling look up the rest for yourself were not? Why? Is the Battle of Britain part of the reason?
We remain aloof from mainland Europe. Unless and until several decades of serious economic decline can be shown to be a result of not being in the EU, that reluctance to "ever closer union" will not sit comfortably with England at least. (The Scots seems happy to wear the Brussels yoke, so who knows, it might be r-UK...)
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Bugger off is it. UKIP is deader than its membership.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
Charming.
Who voted for the likes of the last PM but, how many is it now?
Oh, please, less of the "Charming" pearl-clutching. You start making sweeping generalisations of one party being the same as another and you'll get called out.
I'm sure the SNP will get pissed off at being called Alba-lite.
That is a crap analogy because the SNP haven't dramatically and drastically amended their raison d'etre to ape Alba. The Conservatives on the other hand have shifted from "one nation, centrist, feudal Tories" to a party whose agenda appears to be an ideological war with almost all state sector workers, and an unhinged view that all immigration, irrespective of from where, is a threat to both our national security, our culture and our Anglo-Saxon identity, oh and that Meghan Markle (see Bob Seeley and Tim Loughton) is a witch fit, only for the village pond ducking stool. Not even Ukip-lite. 100% Team Farage (even though he claims to hate your party).
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If that were the only obstacle to rejoining in 10 years time I doubt many voters under 60 would die on a hill to keep the pound. It is only an obsession with the sort of people who can't get the hang of litres and kilometres.
Er, sod of it, you condescending pillock. If you can't see how totemic our own currency is, you are doomed to lose the argument. Again.
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
OTOH, it's only on UKIP bumf that the currency actually is totemic.
Bugger off is it. UKIP is deader than its membership.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
@Carnyx is right about the currency symbol. And UKIP are still using it.
The two arrow symbol they use to illustrate this article reminded me of the PFLP's symbol. Which other parties are UKIP having alignment talks with, out of interest, if not with Reform UK? "ALL parties who align to our values have agreed to talk, except for Reform."
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
A lie is a lie I'm afraid and it was a lie that the leave campaign continued to promote at the forefront of their campaign even once it was proven to be a lie.
When you are explaining, you are still losing. Six and a half years on.....
Remainers don't have any problems with lies when it suits them. The number that parroted "the largest free trade area in the world" shows that.
It's an issue still because of the dumb, damaging, confrontational way in which the Tories have done Brexit. If they had been more sensible there would be far less opposition or concern.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
I agree, assuming that "the side of a bus" is shorthand for lies..
Assuming "a figure that turned out to be too small" counts as a "lie"?
A lie is a lie I'm afraid and it was a lie that the leave campaign continued to promote at the forefront of their campaign even once it was proven to be a lie.
When you are explaining, you are still losing. Six and a half years on.....
In terms of practical politics, it's always been true that a snappy lie that needs a long explanation to unpick is a powerful tactic. Plenty of examples of that from across the political spectrum. A snappy half-truth is even more powerful.
But it's important to remember this is a bad thing.
Comments
😆
I am a big fan of Morecambe Bay. I would be nervous about any blot on its landscape. But it already has a blot on its landscape: Heysham nuclear power station. I would guess a tidal power station would be less visually intrusive.
https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1601957925576114179
In my case, if someone charged me a great deal of money (this being the US) to advise me of the probable effects of me having my penis surgically removed and replaced with a pretendy vagina, I would feel a bit aggrieved if the advice turned out to be utter bollocks. Which, if it were based on a philosophically meaningless delusion as to the existence of gender as a mystical entity like the soul and the Holy Spirit, it would be.
I've been pointing out to my Brexit supporting friends that it is in their interests for Starmer to win a majority at the next election.
If we have a coalition I suspect the Lib Dem de minimis position for a coalition will be to rejoin the single market.
If you can't I'll assume its the usual Brexiteer evidence-free misinformation.
Very odd indeed.
Fish can still get through. I imagine there's environmental impacts, but everything has them.
Afaics asking where someone is from wasn't the problem but doing it repeatedly and not accepting the person's answer of England/Britain/UK or whatever definition of this blighted hellhole she felt attached to was. Fwiw I blame the Firm as much for employing a silly old posho whose sensibilities stopped growing in 1959 as the sop. Revelations of their uselessness and idiocy are all to the good though.
Paramedics could refuse to provide life and limb care during their escalating industrial “war” with the government, union bosses have warned.
About 25,000 ambulance staff, including paramedics and 999 call handlers, will walk out on December 21. They had been expected to cover all immediately life-threatening “category 1” calls, but union officers said staff may refuse them if the dispute continues.
Alan Lofthouse, a national officer for Unison, told Sky News: “The trouble is, if the government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to — so there’s a real urgency for the government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/strikes-latest-news-nurses-hospitals-nhs-train-rail-royal-mail-rishi-sunak-xfhxcpmls
12 years of treating people like shit has finally come home to roost and everything is falling apart at roughly the same time.
Which opens up the question my wife was asking over the weekend - given how badly public sector workers are being paid compared to 2010 - where is all the money going?
France's electricity network operator requested emergency help from Britain as the cold snap caused demand to surge across Europe.
RTE asked the National Grid if it could halve its scheduled exports through one of its interconnectors to the UK between 8am and 9am this morning as it wrestled with a spike in demand.
A combination of the cold weather, strikes among its nuclear power workers and delayed maintenance on its fleet of reactors prompted the request.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/12/12/ftse-100-markets-live-news-uk-economy-strikes-energy/
Grade deflation.
The Remain campaign was utterly hamstrung by Cameron having based his referendum on his "renegotiation" effort with the EU - something that played so badly with the voters, the Remain campaign was forbidden from ever mentioning it.
But even with that caveat, the Remain effort was ridiculously bad. It descended into the level of "If you vote to Brexit, your mum smells of wee..."
Although, I would have to concede that if PM Liz Truss had gone to the country with her economic offering...
A quick look at gridwatch will tell you that for conditions like today (cold, short windless day - very common in UK winters, often for days at a time) renewable production is ~nil. This is not a problem which can be solved just by overbuilding wind turbines - wind was making about 2% of national demand when I looked just now - we'd have to erect 50x what's currently in place to satisfy current demand on a day like today.
Solar doesn't work well in the dark, when peak demand occurs, so that's a non-starter.
All this green stuff is nice to have to reduce the amount of gas and coal we burn when the wind is blowing, but it's *not* a workable replacement for the gas and coal plant that is needed at times like now.
Unfortunately our moronic politicians didn't seem to understand this, although it's been pointed out by anybody with a brain ever since people proposed going to renewables that you either need grid level storage (currently doesn't exist in any meaningful sense) or 100% dispatchable (I.e. fossil) backup. As a result over the last five years we've allowed owners to close and demolished almost all of our coal plants which we should have kept in commission for these sorts of moments.
If the lights go out tonight (and its not looking great judging by where gridwatch is now - better hope none of the interconnectors trip!), we should acknowledge that this is a predictable utter failure of government policy (this mess is nothing to do with Putin - we have the coal and gas we need, just not the capacity to burn it - we'd be in exactly the same mess if Putin had sent his boys home in February), and rethink the whole thing from scratch, starting with a moritorium on closures of our remaining fossil fuel plants.
Frankly I'd hang all the green lobby for treason - pour encourager les autre next time someone has a well funded stupid policy idea. It's thanks to them driving the biggest policy failure this century we're about to be in the cold and dark - I don't see why they shouldn't suffer too.
The problem for the leavers comes when the voters come to see Brexit as the root of all their problems in the way Farage and the right-wing press managed to portray the EU. (I wonder how many still believe that line? Not many I suspect)
https://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst6492.html
*The famous planned factory community.
Even with demand down about 25% across the EU (I've not seen the equivalent UK numbers but assume they are similar or a bit less down given more of our gas consumption is domestic), stocks are now depleting pretty fast and it's going to be a push to build up storage next year with only LNG imports unless demand falls further.
Electrification, insulation, domestic and industrial solar installations, fixing France's nuclear fleet and a bunch of demand suppressing measures are going to need to be accelerated come spring. Either that or Russia loses in Ukraine, has a regime change to a pro-Western government, Putin heads to the Hague and we're all best mates with Russia again. Which seems unlikely to say the least.
Be honest, have you ever been told that by a single person?
Personally I don't favour us joining the Euro any time soon but this is no barrier to me thinking we should rejoin the EU. I think we should join Schengen especially as it opens the way to through train services between Northern England and Scotland and the continent.
Is he trying for the Cyril Smith prize?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GppZltZd6xs#t=184s
As for your correction of my post. I am yet to see the £315m (or whatever it was) per week spent on healthcare.
In reality the EU, as Cameron suggested, was "a bit s****", but many of us feared the alternative to be even worse. Even to rabid Remainers like myself, the POS material couldn't say much more than "the EU isn't great, but if you vote Leave your collective mothers will indeed reek of stale urine", and lo and behold 8 years on she (collectively) does.
Except, it was expensive and difficult. So the operators have ploughed on regardless, knowing that tons of marine life will perish.
You could ask your MP why this is being allowed. No doubt he will respond from the nuclear industry-prepared crib sheet, which will say something like "yes, but...Putin!"
Plus, given the option of losing the pound, I suspect more Brits would choose the US dollar than the Euro.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/zjutsq/elon_musk_got_booed_off_the_stage_at_the_dave/
Anyone claiming Musk Twitter is "free speech" favourable is an idiot.
But it is a key tenet for many Conservative voters.
Had you thought of switching to decaffeinated?
Who voted for the likes of the last PM but, how many is it now?
Not even the most fervent leaver believes we have got an economic bonus yet so there has been none of it to reinvest in the NHS.
I'm sure the SNP will get pissed off at being called Alba-lite.
Does tax take vary directly, inversely, or not at all, with gdp?
Choose one.
https://www.ukip.org/
The two arrow symbol they use to illustrate this article reminded me of the PFLP's symbol. Which other parties are UKIP having alignment talks with, out of interest, if not with Reform UK? "ALL parties who align to our values have agreed to talk, except for Reform."
"All" would normally suggest at least three.
But it's important to remember this is a bad thing.