If the polls continue like this can Sunak survive? – politicalbetting.com

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?
....

Phil said:

beinndearg said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Exodus of millionaires as Britain ‘loses its shine’
The ultra-wealthy are deserting the UK, piling extra pressure on public finances
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/news/repeated-tax-raids-driving-ultra-wealthy-britain-costing-us/ (£££)

The Telegraph would say that, wouldn't it

Dig down, and

"The country has suffered a net outflow of 12,000 wealthy individuals – those with assets and cash of more than $1m (£830,000) – since 2017, with some 1,500 rich individuals leaving in 2022."

UK report, UK consultancy, dollar values to raise the headline "millionaire" count, which then becomes ultra wealthy in the sub head. If you have sold a house and fcked off, $1m makes you hardly even well off these days, not wealthy and never mind ultra.

There may be a story about this, but this is not it.

“A bunch of people sold their London townhouses & retired to the Dordogne” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it does it?

Lets see, there are about 5million higher rate taxpayers (source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/number-of-individual-income-taxpayers-by-marginal-rate-gender-and-age ) so if they have an average forty year career, that’s 125,000 retiring each year. I bet most of those have assets worth > £800k on retirement (Bought a house in the 1990s & paid of the mortgage + pension assets gets you there easily). If all of those 1,500 leaving in 2022 were from this demographic that means that about 1% of these people are choosing to exit the country & enjoy retirement elsewhere.

Without more data on who this population are (an age breakdown would help!) this statistic is irrelevant to the story the Telegraph wants to tell.

The bit about the drop in non-doms is actually interesting though. HMRC claims they’ve taken the same amount in tax despite the 50% drop, not sure how that works? I guess the remaining non-doms are earning a lot of UK income & so were paying the majority of the tax raised from non-doms in the first place, which would imply that whilst the “citizens of nowhere” have f’ed off elsewhere those actually invested in the UK have stayed. Not quite the story the Telegraph wanted to tell!

As ever, newspaper spin on statistics is usually a far stronger story than one the stats will actually support.

TimS said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Net-zero tsar calls for a rooftop revolution and abolishing planning controls for fitting solar panels.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/12/rishi-sunak-stop-start-policies-harming-uk-green-investment-says-net-zero-tsar

But according to my mate down the pub, you do not need planning permission to fit solar panels on the roof unless your house is listed or in a conservation area. So that would be an easy win for Rishi. It makes you wonder about the rest.

Our house is in a conservation area and we're having to apply for full planning permission for panels on a flat roof that would be completely invisible from the street or back garden.

noneoftheabove said:

Cookie said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Cookie said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Exodus of millionaires as Britain ‘loses its shine’
The ultra-wealthy are deserting the UK, piling extra pressure on public finances
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/news/repeated-tax-raids-driving-ultra-wealthy-britain-costing-us/ (£££)

This is what happens when you try to squeeze the rich. They go away. And everyone else ends up having to pay more.

Who's tried to squeeze the rich?

Have you not been following politics of late?
If I was very rich, and I lived in a country where things like wealth taxes were being touted as the answer, or punitive tax rates on high incomes, I'd find somewhere where these things were less likely.

Yesterday it was nothing could take you from the North of England. Today all it takes is a few quid redistributed that would change your wealth level from very rich to still very rich.....

turbotubbs said:

Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong.
The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation.
I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).

For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.

Cookie said:

noneoftheabove said:

Cookie said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Cookie said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Exodus of millionaires as Britain ‘loses its shine’
The ultra-wealthy are deserting the UK, piling extra pressure on public finances
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/news/repeated-tax-raids-driving-ultra-wealthy-britain-costing-us/ (£££)

This is what happens when you try to squeeze the rich. They go away. And everyone else ends up having to pay more.

Who's tried to squeeze the rich?

Have you not been following politics of late?
If I was very rich, and I lived in a country where things like wealth taxes were being touted as the answer, or punitive tax rates on high incomes, I'd find somewhere where these things were less likely.

Yesterday it was nothing could take you from the North of England. Today all it takes is a few quid redistributed that would change your wealth level from very rich to still very rich.....

Ha, fair point!
Nothing would move me personally. (Well, not nothing. Who knows what will happen in life? But I'm very happy here.) But I'm not motivated by the same things that motivate the super rich.
Which is one reason (among many) that I'm NOT super rich.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

turbotubbs said:

Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong.
The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation.
I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).

For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.

Cookie said:

Selebian said:

JosiasJessop said:

Selebian said:

CarlottaVance said:

Nigelb said:

Taz said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945

They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.

I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

"I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
Bravo genderists 👏👏

https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918

It's pretty astonishing to me that the woodpile phrase was ever acceptable.

One that did surprise me was eeny, meeny, miny, moe. As a kid I understood that we were saying 'nicker' (which I took to mean 'thief') but now I wonder what other children and parents understood by it. I only became aware of the other version after the Clarkson fuss. Should maybe ask my parents.

I've never heard 'nicker' for that. It wa always the bad version.

One I used to hear frequently was "As black as a ****** down a coalmine at night."

Which never made much sense to me, as the 'night' bit is fairly irrelevant if they're in a coalmine. Unless, perhaps, it was an opencast pit. But then I'd realise I was probably overthinking it.

Another one that I still use, and which I'm fairly sure is not at all racist, is "It's a bit black over Bill's mother's", for when there are distant dark clouds threatening rain.

Yep. Makes me wonder if I was the only person saying 'nicker' At that age (primary school) I'd never heard the infamous N-word. I also didn't realise golliewogs were supposed to depict black people - I had no knowledge of the term 'wog' (to me didn't look like a person at all, some kind of weird monster, which is kind of the point, I guess). Sheltered childhood, I guess.

I remember at primary school in the early 80s watching a video which probably wasn't entitled 'don't be racist, kids', in which we found it utterly hilarious that the antagonist was calling the black character 'n****r'. We were aware of the word 'n****r' but had no idea it was pejoratively applied to black people - we just thought it a funny and vaguely rude word.
I don't think it had occurred to anyone in our almost-but-not-quite all white class to be racist before that video was shown.

In my own kids' world, eeny meeny miny moe still exists but one catches a catcher by its toe, which is slightly more poetic and makes no less sense than the original.

Phil said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

If you want businesses to focus on productivity you need an economic environment that encourages investment in infrastructure & training. Put corporation tax back up but 0-rate investments in capital investment or employee training?

A benefits system that’s more focused on training the out of work than it is on subsidising employers to employ unproductive workers on minimum wage might help too.

The latter is particularly difficult to unwind right now, but we’re back to that old problem with the UK economy - all the sensible solutions take ten years to have a noticeable effect.

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Taz said:

The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

Of course.
Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.

Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.

Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.

Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.

Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.

I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.

These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.

In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.

You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.

I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.

You didn't make them.

Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.

I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.

If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.

Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.

About time somebody called out Condescending_Royale. Go on!!!

ydoethur said:

turbotubbs said:

Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong.
The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation.
I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).

For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.

Seems an odd thing to be concerned about the Nazis' policies on immigration when it was their political violence that was much more noticeable.

Especially when that was a big deal all over the world at the time with the increasing economic and social dislocation from WW1 and rising populations. It was an important strand of interwar Tory thinking under Joynson-Hicks, for example. You also had nativist regimes in Hungary and Italy. Even in Ireland Cosgrave was noted for trying to restrict immigration (such as there was to Ireland) particularly personally refusing a request from Trotsky for asylum.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.

In the past, natural order is eventually restored and we see lots of new businesses popping up, with ones that make it through being in much better positions to exploit opportunities, and as a result it was normal to see a strong recovery leading to a stronger economy than before. The telling thing about post 2008, we never really saw that. Poor productivity, wage stagnation etc etc etc.

I am not being entirely serious, just condemning millions to unemployment benefits isn't great, on both a personal level and for society. But I think there is a something here, some lessons to be learned. Have we cushioned too much, particularly during COVID? We definitely have lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

I'd be more worried that in-work benefits, while intended to help workers, in fact subsidise bad employers and allows them to undercut good firms.

ydoethur said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.

Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".

Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.

What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.

Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.

On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.

Malmesbury said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Phil said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

If you want businesses to focus on productivity you need an economic environment that encourages investment in infrastructure & training. Put corporation tax back up but 0-rate investments in capital investment or employee training?

A benefits system that’s more focused on training the out of work than it is on subsidising employers to employ unproductive workers on minimum wage might help too.

The latter is particularly difficult to unwind right now, but we’re back to that old problem with the UK economy - all the sensible solutions take ten years to have a noticeable effect.

That was kind of my point. My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek as the information out today making it seem like recession won't be as bad as forecast, but I do think there is any underlying issue here and that for instance COVID we isolated a lot of workers / businesses when we know there are lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

In 2008 was all about focus on saving jobs / minimising unemployment, then a slowing of increases in public spending 2010-2015. My real question is what policies should government be taking, I don't believe save all jobs at all cost / everybody take a wage freeze to stop us having to fire anybody is the best way forward (obviously getting 5 million unemployed isn't either).

Around West London, lockdown did filter out businesses.

A number of the “staggering on with no apparent customers” shops gave up.

A number of the surviving ones took the grants and did some rebuilding/reimaging during lockdown.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

Nigel_Foremain said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?

No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.

In the past, natural order is eventually restored and we see lots of new businesses popping up, with ones that make it through being in much better positions to exploit opportunities, and as a result it was normal to see a strong recovery leading to a stronger economy than before. The telling thing about post 2008, we never really saw that. Poor productivity, wage stagnation etc etc etc.

I am not being entirely serious, just condemning millions to unemployment benefits isn't great, on both a personal level and for society. But I think there is a something here, some lessons to be learned. Have we cushioned too much, particularly during COVID? We definitely have lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

I'd be more worried that in-work benefits, while intended to help workers, in fact subsidise bad employers and allows them to undercut good firms.

Absolutely. The system, which really became warped by Gordon Brown obsession with his relative poverty rate versus pressure on not increasing minimum wage too fast led to all these in work benefits*, has led to a very perverse system, where race to the bottom employers effectively get subsidised by the state for paying crap (and which were filled by immigration), while having people on £40-50k still get in-work benefits combined with cliff-ends to these.

(and Osborne kicking reform into the long grass)

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.

In the past, natural order is eventually restored and we see lots of new businesses popping up, with ones that make it through being in much better positions to exploit opportunities, and as a result it was normal to see a strong recovery leading to a stronger economy than before. The telling thing about post 2008, we never really saw that. Poor productivity, wage stagnation etc etc etc.

I am not being entirely serious, just condemning millions to unemployment benefits isn't great, on both a personal level and for society. But I think there is a something here, some lessons to be learned. Have we cushioned too much, particularly during COVID? We definitely have lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

I'd be more worried that in-work benefits, while intended to help workers, in fact subsidise bad employers and allows them to undercut good firms.

Absolutely. The system, which really became warped by Gordon Brown obsession with his relative poverty rate versus pressure on not increasing minimum wage too fast led to all these in work benefits*, has led to a very perverse system, where race to the bottom employers effectively get subsidised by the state for paying crap (and which were filled by immigration), while having people on £40-50k still get in-work benefits combined with cliff-ends to these.

(and Osborne kicking reform into the long grass)

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.

In the past, natural order is eventually restored and we see lots of new businesses popping up, with ones that make it through being in much better positions to exploit opportunities, and as a result it was normal to see a strong recovery leading to a stronger economy than before. The telling thing about post 2008, we never really saw that. Poor productivity, wage stagnation etc etc etc.

I am not being entirely serious, just condemning millions to unemployment benefits isn't great, on both a personal level and for society. But I think there is a something here, some lessons to be learned. Have we cushioned too much, particularly during COVID? We definitely have lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

I'd be more worried that in-work benefits, while intended to help workers, in fact subsidise bad employers and allows them to undercut good firms.

Absolutely. The system, which really became warped by Gordon Brown obsession with his relative poverty rate versus pressure on not increasing minimum wage too fast led to all these in work benefits*, has led to a very perverse system, where race to the bottom employers effectively get subsidised by the state for paying crap (and which were filled by immigration), while having people on £40-50k still get in-work benefits combined with cliff-ends to these.

(and Osborne kicking reform into the long grass)

You'd think a Conservative government which cared about free markets would be all over this, especially as they could blame Gordon Brown. That they are not says something about the party's capture by the rentier class.

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.

Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".

Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.

What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.

Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.

Nigel_Foremain said:

Theuniondivvie said:

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

Poop, poop!

While IDS is clearly a plonker, if you think that a Morgan is a bad car it says more about you! Trying to think what a ScotNat/Anglophobe would drive? Apparently the leaders of your party like to be chauffeured about at great cost to the taxpayer. A link here shows a nationalist being chauffeured: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hitler-car.html?sortBy=relevant

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Casino_Royale said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

MoonRabbit said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.

Driverless does not exist.

“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-time-for-boris-to-take-on-the-rail-unions/

You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.

The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.

The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.

This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC

The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.

Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Taz said:

The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

Of course.
Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.

Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.

Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.

Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.

Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.

I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.

These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.

In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.

You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.

I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.

You didn't make them.

Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.

I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.

If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.

Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.

FrancisUrquhart said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.

In the past, natural order is eventually restored and we see lots of new businesses popping up, with ones that make it through being in much better positions to exploit opportunities, and as a result it was normal to see a strong recovery leading to a stronger economy than before. The telling thing about post 2008, we never really saw that. Poor productivity, wage stagnation etc etc etc.

I am not being entirely serious, just condemning millions to unemployment benefits isn't great, on both a personal level and for society. But I think there is a something here, some lessons to be learned. Have we cushioned too much, particularly during COVID? We definitely have lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

I'd be more worried that in-work benefits, while intended to help workers, in fact subsidise bad employers and allows them to undercut good firms.

Absolutely. The system, which really became warped by Gordon Brown obsession with his relative poverty rate versus pressure on not increasing minimum wage too fast led to all these in work benefits*, has led to a very perverse system, where race to the bottom employers effectively get subsidised by the state for paying crap (and which were filled by immigration), while having people on £40-50k still get in-work benefits combined with cliff-ends to these.

(and Osborne kicking reform into the long grass)

A gentle reminder that the Conservatives have been in power for the last 13 years. They've had plenty of time to change the benefits system.

Which is what I said....they have tinkered around the edges e.g. tax credits at the top end and the introduction of UC.

You say 13 years, but there has been the little issue of 2010-2015 they were in coalition (and the Lib Dems wouldn't allow too much revolution in this area), 2015-2018 BREXITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT / no majority, then 2020-2022 COVID (but I doubt a Boris government elected by a Red Wall would have done much to address this even without a global pandemic).

Which is why I said, Osborne certainly bottled opportunities for more.

Mexicanpete said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Theuniondivvie said:

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

Poop, poop!

While IDS is clearly a plonker, if you think that a Morgan is a bad car it says more about you! Trying to think what a ScotNat/Anglophobe would drive? Apparently the leaders of your party like to be chauffeured about at great cost to the taxpayer. A link here shows a nationalist being chauffeured: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hitler-car.html?sortBy=relevant

They are barstewards to drive. There is a several stage procedure before you start them, the ride is bone-shaking, the steering is heavy and all but the V8s are quite slow for a relatively light car. I love them but they are driven by people like IDS, so a Caterham is a much better bet.

Nigel_Foremain said:

Theuniondivvie said:

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

Poop, poop!

While IDS is clearly a plonker, if you think that a Morgan is a bad car it says more about you! Trying to think what a ScotNat/Anglophobe would drive? Apparently the leaders of your party like to be chauffeured about at great cost to the taxpayer. A link here shows a nationalist being chauffeured: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hitler-car.html?sortBy=relevant

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Taz said:

The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

Of course.
Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.

Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.

Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.

Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.

Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.

I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.

These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.

In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.

You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.

I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.

You didn't make them.

Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.

I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.

If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.

Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.

You didn't rebut me point by point, you just posted a rant. The TEC report and its headline findings triggered you, and that was your response.

It was in no sense considered or insightful, and I learnt nothing from it other than what I already knew: you hate the DfE, Ofsted and politicians - and teachers already do all this/need more funding and for government to stay out of their hair.

There might be something in it, but it isn't the whole of the answer - particularly where public policy requires join-up across education sectors, industry and communities - and more targeted investment, so it deserved more thought than your knee-jerk diatribe provided, particularly since there were plenty of education experts on the commission itself.

FrancisUrquhart said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.

In the past, natural order is eventually restored and we see lots of new businesses popping up, with ones that make it through being in much better positions to exploit opportunities, and as a result it was normal to see a strong recovery leading to a stronger economy than before. The telling thing about post 2008, we never really saw that. Poor productivity, wage stagnation etc etc etc.

I am not being entirely serious, just condemning millions to unemployment benefits isn't great, on both a personal level and for society. But I think there is a something here, some lessons to be learned. Have we cushioned too much, particularly during COVID? We definitely have lots of weak businesses with poor productivity.

I'd be more worried that in-work benefits, while intended to help workers, in fact subsidise bad employers and allows them to undercut good firms.

Absolutely. The system, which really became warped by Gordon Brown obsession with his relative poverty rate versus pressure on not increasing minimum wage too fast led to all these in work benefits*, has led to a very perverse system, where race to the bottom employers effectively get subsidised by the state for paying crap (and which were filled by immigration), while having people on £40-50k still get in-work benefits combined with cliff-ends to these.

(and Osborne kicking reform into the long grass)

A gentle reminder that the Conservatives have been in power for the last 13 years. They've had plenty of time to change the benefits system.

Which is what I said....they have tinkered around the edges e.g. tax credits at the top end and the introduction of UC.

You say 13 years, but there has been the little issue of 2010-2015 they were in coalition (and the Lib Dems wouldn't allow too much revolution in this area), 2015-2018 BREXITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT / no majority, then 2020-2022 COVID (but I doubt a Boris government elected by a Red Wall would have done much to address this even without a global pandemic).

Which is why I said, Osborne certainly bottled opportunities for more.

Of course, another possibility is that it is in-work benefits that are keeping unemployment down, and the Conservatives realise that.

Yes, but this comes back to the original point I made.....

Selebian said:

turbotubbs said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?

No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.

Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...

There's a Yes, Minister bit about that, where Humphrey (or maybe Bernard) explains that you should never employ anyone with a glowing reference, as the previous employer is clearly keen to get rid.

Theuniondivvie said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Theuniondivvie said:

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

Poop, poop!

While IDS is clearly a plonker, if you think that a Morgan is a bad car it says more about you! Trying to think what a ScotNat/Anglophobe would drive? Apparently the leaders of your party like to be chauffeured about at great cost to the taxpayer. A link here shows a nationalist being chauffeured: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hitler-car.html?sortBy=relevant

Golly, what a load of vitriolic supposition from a photo and the words poop and poop!

Theuniondivvie said:

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

Poop, poop!

Dura_Ace said:

rkrkrk said:

Dura_Ace said:

Leon said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

LostPassword said:

Selebian said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.

Yes there were. From the story:-

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.

The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.

I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.

You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.

The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.

Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.

That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.

There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.

A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A

Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.

Have you done a top 10 and worst 10 of politician's cars yet?

Good
1. Guy Verhofstadt - Excellent collection but we'll give him top spot for his AMG GT
2. Idi Amin - Citroen SM
3. Biden - '67 C2 vert
4. Trump - Lamborghini Diablo VT (think he also had a Countach)
5. Bush 43 - Ford F150 King Ranch
6. Medvedev - Porsche Cayenne Turbo
7. Uday Hussein - Lamborghini LM002
8. Shappsie - F80 330i
9. Mohammad Pahlavi - Lamborghini Miura
10. Francois Mitterand - Hotchkiss Grégoire

Bad
1. Johnson - Toyota Previa
2. IDS - Morgan Plus 8. Twatmobile of the highest order.
3. Sunak - Fucking X-Type
4. Marcus "Billy The" Fysh, MP - Subaru Forester (Once spat on by me, he was lucky I didn't need a shit.)
5. Starmer - RAV4
6. Cameron - Nissan Micra. Rich person with a shit car = scum of the earth
7. JRM - XJ Jag. Fuck off.
8. Brown - Vauxhall Omega. Jesus Christ.
9. Balls. Toyota Yaris. See Cameron.
10. Airey Neave. Mk.1 Cavalier

Nigel_Foremain said:

maxh said:

ydoethur said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.

Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".

Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.

What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.

Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.

On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.

My goodness Nigel. I think you win todays uninformed-bullshit-whataboutery award.

Really? I simply asked whether it is always "the government"? I did not say that they have no culpability.I know that this is a political site, and there is a tendency of those of a more rigid political perspective to be tribal but do try reading peoples' posts before trying to be a smartarse. @ydoethur's point is an interesting one, but it still doesn't remove my point, that blaming everything on "the government" is for simplistic fools. I see you confine yourself to the aforementioned category.

turbotubbs said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?

No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.

Well the offer of a good reference goes a long way. Of course in the new role the person is found out again and promised a good reference if they move on. And so it goes on...

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Casino_Royale said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

MoonRabbit said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.

Driverless does not exist.

“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-time-for-boris-to-take-on-the-rail-unions/

You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.

The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.

The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.

This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC

The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.

Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.

ydoethur said:

maxh said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Taz said:

The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

Of course.
Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.

Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.

Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.

Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.

Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.

I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.

These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.

In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.

You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.

I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.

You didn't make them.

Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.

I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.

If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.

Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.

About time somebody called out Condescending_Royale. Go on!!!

How disappointing. In a voyeuristic attempt to find this expletive-laden barney between ydoethur and CR i scrolled through two pages of ydoethur’s comments but couldn’t find a single swear word. The least you can do if you are going to bear a grudge on here is to link to your original argument so we can all enjoy it

My word. That's dedication. However, in the interests of science:

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4270270#Comment_4270270

It starts with 'bullshit' and carries on with 'what the fuck does this even mean?'

Casino_Royale said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Casino_Royale said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

MoonRabbit said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Even the DLR has a member of staff on every train that can drive them. They are paid the same as Underground staff.

Driverless does not exist.

“Like the NUM, the rail unions are engaged in a futile effort to preserve jobs which in many cases are no longer needed and should have been abolished decades ago. Trains have not needed guards since the mid 19th century when the invention of block signalling did away with the need to defend a broken-down train by running back down the line to warn approaching trains. Many commuter trains have run perfectly safely since the early 1980s with driver-only operation. As for drivers, in many cases they are not required, either. Driverless trains are not futuristic – they have existed for over 40 years. There are now over 100 metro systems in the world which run without drivers – at much lower expense and with the threat of strikes eliminated. On lightly-used rural lines, where traffic levels do not justify investment in driverless operation, it still makes sense to employ drivers, but there is no excuse for doing so on the London Underground.“

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-time-for-boris-to-take-on-the-rail-unions/

You're not arguing against the point I actually made - like a good Tory.

The Government wanted driver-only operation but they also claimed there would be no job losses as guards would be assigned another role and pay would remain the same. So it doesn't actually achieve anything except change for the sake of it.

The Government has a separate argument about driverless trains but as has been pointed out to them, this concept doesn't actually exist and wouldn't save any money. You'd still have drivers on the trains being paid the same - as on the DLR - they just wouldn't be running the trains all the time.

This is basically already what happens on certain parts of the Underground where they have CBTC

The DLR has 'passenger services agents', who usually act to check tickets/ disturbances but only drive manually to get to/from the depot and in case of emergency, and they are paid much less than tube drivers.

Also this is totally incorrect. I am happy to provide citations but anyone who has ridden the DLR knows that staff drive the trains frequently. They are trained to drive the trains in all conditions (including in case of emergency) and are paid the same as Tube drivers.

I worked at Canary Wharf for 7 years. I worked there because I was on the senior leadership team of Crossrail in the technical directorate, and worked very closely with TfL - including the operators. I am familiar with the DLR trains and how they operate. I also commuted on the Jubilee Line and DLR daily. So I am well aware of how frequently staff take over the controls, which tends to be in peak times with high frequency, and also that DLR passenger services agents are not paid the same as Tube drivers.

No doubt you'll mark this down to 'condescension' but although someone pointing out you've got the facts wrong might occasionally embarrass you it is not the same thing.

maxh said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

maxh said:

ydoethur said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.

Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".

Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.

What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.

Not forgetting the government have set teacher pay at a level higher than the funding they've actually provided for it, so staffing is having to be cut to stay in budget.

On top of that, supply budgets are about sucked dry after the last three years.

My goodness Nigel. I think you win todays uninformed-bullshit-whataboutery award.

Really? I simply asked whether it is always "the government"? I did not say that they have no culpability.I know that this is a political site, and there is a tendency of those of a more rigid political perspective to be tribal but do try reading peoples' posts before trying to be a smartarse. @ydoethur's point is an interesting one, but it still doesn't remove my point, that blaming everything on "the government" is for simplistic fools. I see you confine yourself to the aforementioned category.

Nigel dissembling is always less effective when what you actually wrote is in a quote chain.

I don’t have much issue with you asking whether it is all the government’s fault (except that your question is so clearly a
straw man).

But you very clearly didn’t just ask that. You attempted to lay blame for the fact that OLB’s kids school can’t recruit science teachers on left wing teachers and a ‘prizes for all’ mentality.

Which is nonsense.

Nigel_Foremain said:

Nigelb said:

.

Nigel_Foremain said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Poor teachers are kept on? Wut, have you been in a school in the last 20 years?

No, but I know a couple of governors. their experience has been that getting rid of the incompetent is a very long winded process and they normally pop up at another school. Same with the NHS. the public sector doesn't sack people, it simply pays them a large amount of money to go and be incompetent in another school/hospital/local authority.

So anecdote of an anecdote.
Teachers dismissed on grounds of capability don't just 'normally pop up at another school' in my experience.

No doubt you have your own anecdotes to inform your view. I have more direct experience of the NHS where I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is the case that doctors and other professionals are sacked after very long processes that then award a payout (often with NDAs attached) and they then find a job within the NHS at an institution close by. It seems very unlikely to me that teachers who are "managed out" of a school do not simply become a teacher at another school, particularly when there is such a shortage.

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

At my son's school they've had to reduce the number of science lessons in year 9 because they can't recruit science teachers. This government is running the country into the ground and ruining our childrens' future. Of course their privately educated kids will be fine. I'm so fucking furious with what these idiots are doing to us.

Is it always "the government"? They do, of course, have ultimate accountability, but other institutions, not least a very vocal minority of very left wing teachers who believe the "prizes for all" mentality, who seem to bask in their love of mediocrity also have a lot to answer for our poor state school provision. Until those on the left start to realise that improving standards also requires the weeding out of people who encourage those low standards then no public sector organisations will improve. Sadly the Left is the protector of the rights of vested interests to the detriment of pupils, patients and those who receive public sector "service".

Easier to blame the government and those terrible private schools though eh? Left wing thinking = simplistic chippy solutions for complex problems.

What a load of rubbish. The problem at my son's school is very specific - they can't hire teachers because the pay set by the government isn't competitive. There is absolutely zero problem with "prizes for all" (what does that even mean?) or low standards - it's a good school that simply can't afford to staff itself properly. And the people who could fix it - the government - simply don't fucking care. It actually isn't especially complex.

Recruitment for everyone at the moment is difficult. It is a massive problem. People do not want to change jobs, particularly when they have job security, so there is limited supply. There are private companies I know that have massively increased pay for roles and still can't find people to do them. Recruitment is very rarely just about pay. Teaching has challenges, but also benefits that other areas cannot compete with. One of the biggest challenges to pay is when schools (similar to hospitals) are not allowed by the unions to offer attractive pay differentials to attract people. So yes it is very complex, but carry on blaming "the government" if you must, and carry on letting off all the other actors such as local authorities, unions and teachers themselves off the hook. The vested interests like it that way.

What have the local authorities got to do with it? They don't run the school. It's the job of the government to run schools properly (especially since under the Academies system they have centralised control over education). If schools can't recruit at current funding levels then they need more money, end of story. Nothing is more critical to this country's future than the education of our children. It should be the government's top priority. If this government won't fund that properly then don't be surprised if parents vote in a government that will. There is so much anger and frustration at the school gates, believe me.

For the record, I see nothing as more important than the education of children and would love to see a massive increase in investment in teachers and education generally, (though this should be aligned with productivity). However, I would also like to see a break with the malign influence of left wing unions over teaching.

Mexicanpete said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

LostPassword said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

Taz said:

The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

Of course.
Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.

Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.

Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.

Yup. Progress towards a sustainable existence is a constant struggle against defeatism. Just as with wind power, the same types who are ridiculing heat pumps and the like now will no doubt be taking credit for them in a couple of decades.

Pointing out the problems and demanding answers is not defeatism, it's realism.

I'm tired of armchair commentators who know nothing about what they're talking about passing judgement on those who do, and have to do all the work, whilst they recline back in blissful spectation.

These are difficult problems,and they need careful thought, planning, resources and investment.

In light of your own remarks commenting about my insight into education that's deliciously ironic.

You didn't provide insight. You provided an expletive ridden and capitalised rant which you seemed to think was a killer argument.

I'd have been happy to take on point well-considered and fact based points.

You didn't make them.

Which tells me you didn't read it. Because I rebutted, point by point, what you had listed. True, I used swearing and capitalisations. But there was plenty of fact in there. You didn't at any point even try to show how I hadn't done so - just airily claimed in a fact free fashion that I hadn't done so.

I'm afraid the real issue is that what you posted didn't deserve anything less than swearing and capitalisations, as it was complete and utter nonsense. It was also rude, patronising, ignorant and failed to grapple with the key problems education faces.

If the original report was not as summarised, it may be worth reading. If it was, then it isn't.

Similarly, as you note armchair generals of various sorts generally don't understand what they're talking about. The issue is that bizarrely in education people listen to the armchair generals and dismiss the experts. And then wonder (a) why things aren't working as they expected (b) why teachers get mad at them for talking essentially abusive nonsense.

Your point by point rebuttal shredded Royale's rather weak and dream laden thesis.

Why shouldn't you use profanity? You are angry at the bizarre and systematic undermining of all but elite schooling.

Secondary schooling in Wales is not great in Wales (although my children's experience in a RC comp was first class) so it is not necessarily a Party political issue. Where party politics does come into this is the Conservative Party fixation with elite selection to the detriment of all others.

I had an excellent non-selective experience and a dreadful selective experience. An experience not borne out by, for example, HY's promoted narrative. My non-selective experience was superb because at that moment in time resources, the political will and the enthused teachers to make the experience work were showered upon comprehensive schools.

I have no real idea how the nation moves forward with its vastly substandard educational system. What I do know is selective education is not the answer, and I realise that whatever we do, we can only progress when the current state of inertia that you highlight is thrown in the educational dumpster.

Education is not, and should not be all about exam success. Yes that is part of it, but the most important measure is that of value added.

Leon said:

beinndearg said:

Leon said:

Gin o’clock in Bangkok. The city comes alive

Looks like a warmer London to me. I am off to the Masai Mara, then Lamu.

Bangkok is always great at this time of year. Climatically it is perfect, the “cool” dry season, which means 32C and mostly sunny every day, with low humidity. The total sweet spot. Evenings are deliciously warm but not sticky

But this winter, after 3 years of Covid, it is magnificent

turbotubbs said:

Apropos of not much, someone pointed the new R4 podcast - 'Nazis - the road to power'. I have listened to the first few episodes. Its interesting but there are some glaring issues. On the whole, the party within Germany did not use the term Nazi, or indeed did most Germans - they were National Socialists. This podcast is dramatised reconstructions and they keep using Nazi, something that is totally wrong.
The second thing is this - the National Socialists were an anti semitic party, but their programme was not solely anti-semitic, yet to here this podcast its all about the Jews, and has lots of talk of stopping Jewish immigration - not something I have come across before in the many texts I've read about this era. In the early stages of the party and for many members the national socialist idea meant something - the subjugation of individual will to the greater good for the nation.
I wonder at the credentials behind the production. It seems that they are quite clearly trying to link to modern concerns re immigration (that might just be my take on it).

For all that, its interesting, but there are far better sources than this. The World At War, for instance.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Unpopular controversial thought.....does the UK need a proper recession to shake out weak businesses and focus on productivity?

I am of the opinion that 2008 approach of companies, supported by government, to try and minimise business failure and amount of unemployment, by encouraging wage reductions / freezes, might have had the unintended consequence that it allowed a lot of weak businesses with poor productivity to continue unreformed. Same with support during COVID.

OK so we lose a lot of weak businesses, the economy shrinks and more people are claiming benefits. If productivity goes up but production falls, who gains? If efficiency goes up but more workers are on the dole, who gains? There needs to be some mechanism by which new, better businesses are created.