Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

The U.S. is planning to send Ukraine the Abrams main battle tank in its more advanced M1A2 configuration, rather than the older A1 version that the military has in storage, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations - Politico
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1618656055353016322

They’ll have fun, against the WWII-era T-34s the enemy is proudly showing off today. 80-year-old tanks.

I think it’s fair to say, that the Russians are now struggling to field any more tanks, and that whatever the West can supply to Ukraine is going to make a massive difference in short order.

That depends. The skills and resources on the critical path aren’t the crews that will be fighting in them, but the guys who’ll be servicing and maintaining and repairing them. Those modern tanks are mightily complicated, and very hungry for spare parts.

Definitely agree. Tank warfare, done properly, is a huge logistical operation.

Not done properly, like the Russians last February, it results in expensive pieces of equipment being abandoned because they have no fuel or ammo, or they can’t be repaired in the field.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Taz said:

malcolmg said:

Leon said:

Well THAT was a night

Go on you are dying to tell us

He’s just itching to be asked 👍😂😂😂

It’s probably the first time in twenty years he’s not had to take the blue pill.

Best 11 seconds of his life.

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

The U.S. is planning to send Ukraine the Abrams main battle tank in its more advanced M1A2 configuration, rather than the older A1 version that the military has in storage, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations - Politico
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1618656055353016322

They’ll have fun, against the WWII-era T-34s the enemy is proudly showing off today. 80-year-old tanks.

I think it’s fair to say, that the Russians are now struggling to field any more tanks, and that whatever the West can supply to Ukraine is going to make a massive difference in short order.

That depends. The skills and resources on the critical path aren’t the crews that will be fighting in them, but the guys who’ll be servicing and maintaining and repairing them. Those modern tanks are mightily complicated, and very hungry for spare parts.

Definitely agree. Tank warfare, done properly, is a huge logistical operation.

Not done properly, like the Russians last February, it results in expensive pieces of equipment being abandoned because they have no fuel or ammo, or they can’t be repaired in the field.

1) the Russians aren’t going to use a T34 - they haven’t resorted to the rusting T-55s they have. Yet.
2) The Ukrainians have been running a range of tanks since the start of the war. Given what we know of loses and successes, they are ahead of the Russians. Adaptability seems to be a forte of their military.

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

The U.S. is planning to send Ukraine the Abrams main battle tank in its more advanced M1A2 configuration, rather than the older A1 version that the military has in storage, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations - Politico
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1618656055353016322

They’ll have fun, against the WWII-era T-34s the enemy is proudly showing off today. 80-year-old tanks.

I think it’s fair to say, that the Russians are now struggling to field any more tanks, and that whatever the West can supply to Ukraine is going to make a massive difference in short order.

That depends. The skills and resources on the critical path aren’t the crews that will be fighting in them, but the guys who’ll be servicing and maintaining and repairing them. Those modern tanks are mightily complicated, and very hungry for spare parts.

Definitely agree. Tank warfare, done properly, is a huge logistical operation.

Not done properly, like the Russians last February, it results in expensive pieces of equipment being abandoned because they have no fuel or ammo, or they can’t be repaired in the field.

And yet you didn’t even give me a ‘like’ for my incisive to-the-point analysis? That’s just churlish, falling short of the standards to which any long-serving PB’er should aspire….

CarlottaVance said:

Sturgeon’s SNAFU leading BBC News @ 6

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

CarlottaVance said:

Lead on STV news:

ICYMI - Exclusive -STV News has learned double rapist Adam Graham, who was sent to Cornton Vale prison after identifying as a woman, attended a beauty course at a Ayrshire College while awaiting trial for the attacks - taking classes alongside young girls.

https://twitter.com/gordonchree/status/1618675169509130242

TimS said:

Omnium said:

I can't and I don't think ever I will get to grips with 'blah blah woman did whatever, when she was a man'. I don't even think I want to.

There's not the slightest chance that this ridiculousness is going to continue. You're just what you are, and you can behave in any way you choose entirely independently of that.

On the other hand you’re also not going to eliminate people wanting to be addressed as and treated as something other than their birth gender. So a sensible way forward that minimises harm to both trans people and biological women is going to have to come at some point.

We’ve managed to arrive - after a few decades admittedly - at reasonable ways of balancing sexual freedom on the one hand and safeguarding of vulnerable people (mainly women faced with male predation) on the other. So it should hopefully be possible to achieve the same on trans issues.

Richard_Tyndall said:

Nigelb said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Cookie said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

FPT

eek said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Nigelb said:

Sandpit said:

FF43 said:

kinabalu said:

Driver said:

Dura_Ace said:

Driver said:

.

Mexicanpete said:

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

nico679 said:

Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .

I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !

This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well

I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works

As shown on TV last night

Yep. I can see the polls and I can see the trend. We are possibly heading for Rejoin if the Rejoiners play it cleverly

That said the Remainers have shown crass ineptitude and boorish arrogance in the past, and if they allow people like you to be heard, gloating, sniping and bitterly exulting, they will badly miss the window of opportunity

We left. We were told leaving the EU would be beneficial to the nation. Shouldn't the Leavers who told us to suck up our defeat in 2016 be cracking on with making Brexit work?

Everybody should.

Brexit's fucked. Lost cause. It's like one of those doddery, blind 19 year old Labradors that people can't bear to have euthanised because they loved its younger self so very much. So they persist with cocktails of drugs and 2 grand vet bills while kidding themselves they see signs of improvement as they clean up yet more liquid shit.

Nope. Brexit is a part of history, a given fact, an axiom. What we do from here is for everyone to decide. Everyone does want to make the country better than it is at the moment, right?

"Brexit was a mistake. An act of self-harm based on a delusional outdated view of Britain and the world. What do you have to say for yourself, Leavers?"

"It happened."

This is about where we are with the debate, I think.

This debate should be over. The Brexit facts are these:

• We have left
  
• We have little prospect of joining any time soon, including "best of both worlds" arrangements such as the Single Market
  
• Brexit causes friction, reduces opportunities and influence, and makes us poorer
  

The debate should be how we deal with this, eg

1. Brexit reduces our tax base. Should we raise taxes to maintain public services or accept these will be degraded?
   
2. Should we join EU initiatives such as Galileo as second-class participants, but these initiatives might be useful to us?
   
3. Do we dynamically re-align our regs with EU equivalents to stay in line with changes made by the EU?
   
4. Do we agree a more liberal visa regime with the EU to partially allow citizens and enterprises to go about their business?
   

etc

All of which boils down to “How do we manage the decline?” rather than “How do we take advantage of the opportunity?”.

So long as government keeps looking to answer the first question, the decline is inevitable.

So what's your alternative list of opportunities ?

*Ditch HS2, or bring the current work to some sort of reasonable conclusion - perhaps build a garden city at the end of it that we were planning to build anyway.

What has HS2 got to do with the EU - it's core infrastructure that has been sold inappropriately since the very first announcement.

HS2 (in it's initial enterity) is core infrastructure to allow more trains to / from London and Birmingham while allowing increased capacity for slower local services on the old lines.

And given you started with a completely irrelevant hobbyhorse topic - I doubt you've given the other ideas any thought either.

Regarding the origins and the inexplicable ability of this project to radically increase its costs whilst never getting shitcanned, you may find the following blogpost from back in 2015 (when this was a slightly less expensive white elephant) interesting:

http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2015-088-hs2-controlled-by-eu-not-our-gov/

Excerpt:

Increase of Finance, Loss of Sovereignty

At the time the TENs were outlined in the Treaty of Rome, the original Trans-European Network Member States were not obliged to upgrade or complete existing infrastructure. But this changed when such obligations were included in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

In 2011 the European Commission put forward two more proposals which significantly overhauled the operation of TEN-T. The first moved the programme from a voluntary to a compulsory basis (i.e. Member States would be forced to introduce transport network changes specified in an EU Regulation). For this, the UK Government estimates it would cost between £64 and £137 billion. The second proposal was for a Connecting Europe Facility to put the budget for TEN-T on a multi-year footing and this would obviously see a significant increase to the budget.

As for the merits of the project itself, I'd be interested to read a single cost-benefit analysis where it returns more than its current projected cost.

It would appear to be you who needs to give these issues more thought, not me. Like most extreme remainers, you aren't prepared to contemplate the fact that the EU has always worked via national Governments implementing its agenda (and obliging the EU by helpfully absorbing any flak), because it doesn't fit with your narrative about complaining right wing Tories 'blaming the EU for everything', which along with 'The Sun' is your main way of dismissing the loss of the referendum. The truth is that whilst some complained, UK Governments of all colours have swiftly and quietly implemented EU directives and memoranda disguised as their own reforms.

What is now apparent is that the same people see the fact that we've actually left the EU as no impediment to continuing exactly the same practise.

This is the most recent full Strategic Outline Business Case, which shows benefits exceeding costs.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-crewe-to-manchester-update-on-the-strategic-outline-business-case
You may have your own views on whether you believe this. But these analyses do exist.

Importantly, though, it should be noted that the benefits captured by the SOBC are pretty limited. Little attempt is made to monetise the two most important benefits, i.e. increased capacity on the existing railway (which you can either use to run more trains or you can capture as increased reliability), and almost no attempt made to quantify land value uplifts via LUTI models (since treasury, and therefore DfT, don't accept them).

Funnily enough, combining the two topics of the EU and High Speed Rail, one of the arguments against HSR comes from a study commissioned by the EU itself back in the early 2000s looking at High Speed rail in France. It found that, contrary to the claims, although there was a very slight increase in GDP which could be attributed to the new rail network, it had exactly the reverse effect that had been touted for it - namely that rather than increasing investment in the regions, it actually sucked investment out of the regions and into Paris.

Which is precisely the argument of those who advocated a new Liverpool-Hull line instead.

Indeed. Cross country, intra region rail improvements/new projects would do far more good in my opinion.

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

Luckyguy1983 said:

TimS said:

Omnium said:

I can't and I don't think ever I will get to grips with 'blah blah woman did whatever, when she was a man'. I don't even think I want to.

There's not the slightest chance that this ridiculousness is going to continue. You're just what you are, and you can behave in any way you choose entirely independently of that.

On the other hand you’re also not going to eliminate people wanting to be addressed as and treated as something other than their birth gender. So a sensible way forward that minimises harm to both trans people and biological women is going to have to come at some point.

We’ve managed to arrive - after a few decades admittedly - at reasonable ways of balancing sexual freedom on the one hand and safeguarding of vulnerable people (mainly women faced with male predation) on the other. So it should hopefully be possible to achieve the same on trans issues.

Sadly, the unpleasant conflict seems to be rather the point.

It seems blindingly obvious to me that someone should be entitled to legal recognition as their new gender when they've undergone reassignment surgery and not before. Whilst they are on their way, they should be allowed as much privacy and courtesy as can be afforded, but whilst you're a man physically, you're a man legally. You can't become a Quantity Surveyor or a Nurse just by getting a notion in your head, so why should you become a woman or a man?

Taz said:

One for @Leon

Buzzfeed to use AI to generate content not writers.

See below for the 10 reasons why.

Number 9 will shock you.

https://twitter.com/grdecter/status/1618667445614694403?s=61&t=bkWsvKM4tiAzNtUGLiVb_A

Stuartinromford said:

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

Difficulty with that was that Team Leave persuaded themselves, and enough of the country, that those things would continue to happen without a political superstructure to manage them.

I don't know whose theory it is, but I read it somewhere and it seems convincing.

Some people see cooperation as like ships sailing across an ocean. You don't need much infrastructure, just individual will. Others see it like travelling on land- you need a road to be maintained, but then it's easy.

That seems to explain a lot, including the idea that Britain would really be emotionally happier transplanted to somewhere in the Pacific.

Gardenwalker said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Nigelb said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Cookie said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

FPT

eek said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Nigelb said:

Sandpit said:

FF43 said:

kinabalu said:

Driver said:

Dura_Ace said:

Driver said:

.

Mexicanpete said:

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

nico679 said:

Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .

I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !

This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well

I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works

As shown on TV last night

Yep. I can see the polls and I can see the trend. We are possibly heading for Rejoin if the Rejoiners play it cleverly

That said the Remainers have shown crass ineptitude and boorish arrogance in the past, and if they allow people like you to be heard, gloating, sniping and bitterly exulting, they will badly miss the window of opportunity

We left. We were told leaving the EU would be beneficial to the nation. Shouldn't the Leavers who told us to suck up our defeat in 2016 be cracking on with making Brexit work?

Everybody should.

Brexit's fucked. Lost cause. It's like one of those doddery, blind 19 year old Labradors that people can't bear to have euthanised because they loved its younger self so very much. So they persist with cocktails of drugs and 2 grand vet bills while kidding themselves they see signs of improvement as they clean up yet more liquid shit.

Nope. Brexit is a part of history, a given fact, an axiom. What we do from here is for everyone to decide. Everyone does want to make the country better than it is at the moment, right?

"Brexit was a mistake. An act of self-harm based on a delusional outdated view of Britain and the world. What do you have to say for yourself, Leavers?"

"It happened."

This is about where we are with the debate, I think.

This debate should be over. The Brexit facts are these:

• We have left
  
• We have little prospect of joining any time soon, including "best of both worlds" arrangements such as the Single Market
  
• Brexit causes friction, reduces opportunities and influence, and makes us poorer
  

The debate should be how we deal with this, eg

1. Brexit reduces our tax base. Should we raise taxes to maintain public services or accept these will be degraded?
   
2. Should we join EU initiatives such as Galileo as second-class participants, but these initiatives might be useful to us?
   
3. Do we dynamically re-align our regs with EU equivalents to stay in line with changes made by the EU?
   
4. Do we agree a more liberal visa regime with the EU to partially allow citizens and enterprises to go about their business?
   

etc

All of which boils down to “How do we manage the decline?” rather than “How do we take advantage of the opportunity?”.

So long as government keeps looking to answer the first question, the decline is inevitable.

So what's your alternative list of opportunities ?

*Ditch HS2, or bring the current work to some sort of reasonable conclusion - perhaps build a garden city at the end of it that we were planning to build anyway.

What has HS2 got to do with the EU - it's core infrastructure that has been sold inappropriately since the very first announcement.

HS2 (in it's initial enterity) is core infrastructure to allow more trains to / from London and Birmingham while allowing increased capacity for slower local services on the old lines.

And given you started with a completely irrelevant hobbyhorse topic - I doubt you've given the other ideas any thought either.

Regarding the origins and the inexplicable ability of this project to radically increase its costs whilst never getting shitcanned, you may find the following blogpost from back in 2015 (when this was a slightly less expensive white elephant) interesting:

http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2015-088-hs2-controlled-by-eu-not-our-gov/

Excerpt:

Increase of Finance, Loss of Sovereignty

At the time the TENs were outlined in the Treaty of Rome, the original Trans-European Network Member States were not obliged to upgrade or complete existing infrastructure. But this changed when such obligations were included in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

In 2011 the European Commission put forward two more proposals which significantly overhauled the operation of TEN-T. The first moved the programme from a voluntary to a compulsory basis (i.e. Member States would be forced to introduce transport network changes specified in an EU Regulation). For this, the UK Government estimates it would cost between £64 and £137 billion. The second proposal was for a Connecting Europe Facility to put the budget for TEN-T on a multi-year footing and this would obviously see a significant increase to the budget.

As for the merits of the project itself, I'd be interested to read a single cost-benefit analysis where it returns more than its current projected cost.

It would appear to be you who needs to give these issues more thought, not me. Like most extreme remainers, you aren't prepared to contemplate the fact that the EU has always worked via national Governments implementing its agenda (and obliging the EU by helpfully absorbing any flak), because it doesn't fit with your narrative about complaining right wing Tories 'blaming the EU for everything', which along with 'The Sun' is your main way of dismissing the loss of the referendum. The truth is that whilst some complained, UK Governments of all colours have swiftly and quietly implemented EU directives and memoranda disguised as their own reforms.

What is now apparent is that the same people see the fact that we've actually left the EU as no impediment to continuing exactly the same practise.

This is the most recent full Strategic Outline Business Case, which shows benefits exceeding costs.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-crewe-to-manchester-update-on-the-strategic-outline-business-case
You may have your own views on whether you believe this. But these analyses do exist.

Importantly, though, it should be noted that the benefits captured by the SOBC are pretty limited. Little attempt is made to monetise the two most important benefits, i.e. increased capacity on the existing railway (which you can either use to run more trains or you can capture as increased reliability), and almost no attempt made to quantify land value uplifts via LUTI models (since treasury, and therefore DfT, don't accept them).

Funnily enough, combining the two topics of the EU and High Speed Rail, one of the arguments against HSR comes from a study commissioned by the EU itself back in the early 2000s looking at High Speed rail in France. It found that, contrary to the claims, although there was a very slight increase in GDP which could be attributed to the new rail network, it had exactly the reverse effect that had been touted for it - namely that rather than increasing investment in the regions, it actually sucked investment out of the regions and into Paris.

Which is precisely the argument of those who advocated a new Liverpool-Hull line instead.

Indeed. Cross country, intra region rail improvements/new projects would do far more good in my opinion.

The primary need is for ambitious and growing mass metro networks in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds/Bradford. Their systems are pathetic compared with European counterparts.

Secondarily, the great northern cluster of Liverpool to Hull needs a high speed connection, and a second one that connects that to the loop that goes from Sheffield to Nottingham/Derby to Birmingham and back to Liverpool and Manchester.

As you note, there is no “regional” business case for HS2. The business case is about overall network capacity which probably ultimately benefits London first.

Stuartinromford said:

Gardenwalker said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Nigelb said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Cookie said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

FPT

eek said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Nigelb said:

Sandpit said:

FF43 said:

kinabalu said:

Driver said:

Dura_Ace said:

Driver said:

.

Mexicanpete said:

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

nico679 said:

Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .

I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !

This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well

I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works

As shown on TV last night

Yep. I can see the polls and I can see the trend. We are possibly heading for Rejoin if the Rejoiners play it cleverly

That said the Remainers have shown crass ineptitude and boorish arrogance in the past, and if they allow people like you to be heard, gloating, sniping and bitterly exulting, they will badly miss the window of opportunity

We left. We were told leaving the EU would be beneficial to the nation. Shouldn't the Leavers who told us to suck up our defeat in 2016 be cracking on with making Brexit work?

Everybody should.

Brexit's fucked. Lost cause. It's like one of those doddery, blind 19 year old Labradors that people can't bear to have euthanised because they loved its younger self so very much. So they persist with cocktails of drugs and 2 grand vet bills while kidding themselves they see signs of improvement as they clean up yet more liquid shit.

Nope. Brexit is a part of history, a given fact, an axiom. What we do from here is for everyone to decide. Everyone does want to make the country better than it is at the moment, right?

"Brexit was a mistake. An act of self-harm based on a delusional outdated view of Britain and the world. What do you have to say for yourself, Leavers?"

"It happened."

This is about where we are with the debate, I think.

This debate should be over. The Brexit facts are these:

• We have left
  
• We have little prospect of joining any time soon, including "best of both worlds" arrangements such as the Single Market
  
• Brexit causes friction, reduces opportunities and influence, and makes us poorer
  

The debate should be how we deal with this, eg

1. Brexit reduces our tax base. Should we raise taxes to maintain public services or accept these will be degraded?
   
2. Should we join EU initiatives such as Galileo as second-class participants, but these initiatives might be useful to us?
   
3. Do we dynamically re-align our regs with EU equivalents to stay in line with changes made by the EU?
   
4. Do we agree a more liberal visa regime with the EU to partially allow citizens and enterprises to go about their business?
   

etc

All of which boils down to “How do we manage the decline?” rather than “How do we take advantage of the opportunity?”.

So long as government keeps looking to answer the first question, the decline is inevitable.

So what's your alternative list of opportunities ?

*Ditch HS2, or bring the current work to some sort of reasonable conclusion - perhaps build a garden city at the end of it that we were planning to build anyway.

What has HS2 got to do with the EU - it's core infrastructure that has been sold inappropriately since the very first announcement.

HS2 (in it's initial enterity) is core infrastructure to allow more trains to / from London and Birmingham while allowing increased capacity for slower local services on the old lines.

And given you started with a completely irrelevant hobbyhorse topic - I doubt you've given the other ideas any thought either.

Regarding the origins and the inexplicable ability of this project to radically increase its costs whilst never getting shitcanned, you may find the following blogpost from back in 2015 (when this was a slightly less expensive white elephant) interesting:

http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2015-088-hs2-controlled-by-eu-not-our-gov/

Excerpt:

Increase of Finance, Loss of Sovereignty

At the time the TENs were outlined in the Treaty of Rome, the original Trans-European Network Member States were not obliged to upgrade or complete existing infrastructure. But this changed when such obligations were included in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

In 2011 the European Commission put forward two more proposals which significantly overhauled the operation of TEN-T. The first moved the programme from a voluntary to a compulsory basis (i.e. Member States would be forced to introduce transport network changes specified in an EU Regulation). For this, the UK Government estimates it would cost between £64 and £137 billion. The second proposal was for a Connecting Europe Facility to put the budget for TEN-T on a multi-year footing and this would obviously see a significant increase to the budget.

As for the merits of the project itself, I'd be interested to read a single cost-benefit analysis where it returns more than its current projected cost.

It would appear to be you who needs to give these issues more thought, not me. Like most extreme remainers, you aren't prepared to contemplate the fact that the EU has always worked via national Governments implementing its agenda (and obliging the EU by helpfully absorbing any flak), because it doesn't fit with your narrative about complaining right wing Tories 'blaming the EU for everything', which along with 'The Sun' is your main way of dismissing the loss of the referendum. The truth is that whilst some complained, UK Governments of all colours have swiftly and quietly implemented EU directives and memoranda disguised as their own reforms.

What is now apparent is that the same people see the fact that we've actually left the EU as no impediment to continuing exactly the same practise.

This is the most recent full Strategic Outline Business Case, which shows benefits exceeding costs.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-crewe-to-manchester-update-on-the-strategic-outline-business-case
You may have your own views on whether you believe this. But these analyses do exist.

Importantly, though, it should be noted that the benefits captured by the SOBC are pretty limited. Little attempt is made to monetise the two most important benefits, i.e. increased capacity on the existing railway (which you can either use to run more trains or you can capture as increased reliability), and almost no attempt made to quantify land value uplifts via LUTI models (since treasury, and therefore DfT, don't accept them).

Funnily enough, combining the two topics of the EU and High Speed Rail, one of the arguments against HSR comes from a study commissioned by the EU itself back in the early 2000s looking at High Speed rail in France. It found that, contrary to the claims, although there was a very slight increase in GDP which could be attributed to the new rail network, it had exactly the reverse effect that had been touted for it - namely that rather than increasing investment in the regions, it actually sucked investment out of the regions and into Paris.

Which is precisely the argument of those who advocated a new Liverpool-Hull line instead.

Indeed. Cross country, intra region rail improvements/new projects would do far more good in my opinion.

The primary need is for ambitious and growing mass metro networks in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds/Bradford. Their systems are pathetic compared with European counterparts.

Secondarily, the great northern cluster of Liverpool to Hull needs a high speed connection, and a second one that connects that to the loop that goes from Sheffield to Nottingham/Derby to Birmingham and back to Liverpool and Manchester.

As you note, there is no “regional” business case for HS2. The business case is about overall network capacity which probably ultimately benefits London first.

The big win from HS2 is being able to convert London to MK / Bedford / Cambridge + Peterborough into high capacity regional suburban networks by taking the long distance trains away. But that's a tough sell. Which highlights two things, I reckon:

1 There is a lot more public sector infrastructure investment that makes sense that we ought to be doing. I didn't comment when some of our more commercial friends were taking about getting new work computers yesterday, because my response would have been intemperate. But if you consider the rubbish IT in schools and hospitals, and the TPA rants when they buy decent equipment, it's not hard to see why we're so inefficient in the public sector.

2 Trying to get this stuff supported by voters is hard. We'd rather have stuff that benefits us now than things that benefit our children more. It's a problem, and I don't know how to fix it.

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

The U.S. is planning to send Ukraine the Abrams main battle tank in its more advanced M1A2 configuration, rather than the older A1 version that the military has in storage, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations - Politico
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1618656055353016322

They’ll have fun, against the WWII-era T-34s the enemy is proudly showing off today. 80-year-old tanks.

I think it’s fair to say, that the Russians are now struggling to field any more tanks, and that whatever the West can supply to Ukraine is going to make a massive difference in short order.

That depends. The skills and resources on the critical path aren’t the crews that will be fighting in them, but the guys who’ll be servicing and maintaining and repairing them. Those modern tanks are mightily complicated, and very hungry for spare parts.

Definitely agree. Tank warfare, done properly, is a huge logistical operation.

Not done properly, like the Russians last February, it results in expensive pieces of equipment being abandoned because they have no fuel or ammo, or they can’t be repaired in the field.

1) the Russians aren’t going to use a T34 - they haven’t resorted to the rusting T-55s they have. Yet.
2) The Ukrainians have been running a range of tanks since the start of the war. Given what we know of loses and successes, they are ahead of the Russians. Adaptability seems to be a forte of their military.

To be clear, the T34 Twitter thing was supposed to be a joke.
For now.

The Laotian T34 s are for parades and movies, a bit like the BoB flight, it seems.

Gardenwalker said:

StuartDickson said:

Gardenwalker said:

Stuartinromford said:

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

Difficulty with that was that Team Leave persuaded themselves, and enough of the country, that those things would continue to happen without a political superstructure to manage them.

I don't know whose theory it is, but I read it somewhere and it seems convincing.

Some people see cooperation as like ships sailing across an ocean. You don't need much infrastructure, just individual will. Others see it like travelling on land- you need a road to be maintained, but then it's easy.

That seems to explain a lot, including the idea that Britain would really be emotionally happier transplanted to somewhere in the Pacific.

Your last point is kind of revealing.
Britain doesn’t see itself as a European power.
I’m not sure about Pacific, maybe Atlantic power is more accurate.

Europe is - to the great majority - just a place to go on holiday.

Of course this mental model is itself a hangover from Empire, but Brexiters get very, very angry when this is mentioned.

All countries have delusions. This is one of Britain’s.

Britain is not a country.

Feel free to write a green-inked letter to the UN, then.

boulay said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

The U.S. is planning to send Ukraine the Abrams main battle tank in its more advanced M1A2 configuration, rather than the older A1 version that the military has in storage, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations - Politico
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1618656055353016322

They’ll have fun, against the WWII-era T-34s the enemy is proudly showing off today. 80-year-old tanks.

I think it’s fair to say, that the Russians are now struggling to field any more tanks, and that whatever the West can supply to Ukraine is going to make a massive difference in short order.

That depends. The skills and resources on the critical path aren’t the crews that will be fighting in them, but the guys who’ll be servicing and maintaining and repairing them. Those modern tanks are mightily complicated, and very hungry for spare parts.

Definitely agree. Tank warfare, done properly, is a huge logistical operation.

Not done properly, like the Russians last February, it results in expensive pieces of equipment being abandoned because they have no fuel or ammo, or they can’t be repaired in the field.

1) the Russians aren’t going to use a T34 - they haven’t resorted to the rusting T-55s they have. Yet.
2) The Ukrainians have been running a range of tanks since the start of the war. Given what we know of loses and successes, they are ahead of the Russians. Adaptability seems to be a forte of their military.

To be clear, the T34 Twitter thing was supposed to be a joke.
For now.

The Laotian T34 s are for parades and movies, a bit like the BoB flight, it seems.

Old tanks are probably quite useful to stick on street corners in Russia to ensure the more agitated parts of the populace behave and thus free up less terrible equipment for where it’s needed.

Tiananmen Square didn’t need the highest tech tanks, just ones that could squash people and had machine guns. So the message is maybe, we’ve got plenty of kit so don’t get any ideas.

Gardenwalker said:

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

They should have got Michael Palin and John Cleese to do a “What has the EU ever done for us?”

Although Cleese has gone full-gammon these days.

Nigelb said:

Fun article for our PB historians.

The Most Important City in the History of Music Isn't What You Think It Is
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-most-important-city-in-the-history

Gardenwalker said:

Stuartinromford said:

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

Difficulty with that was that Team Leave persuaded themselves, and enough of the country, that those things would continue to happen without a political superstructure to manage them.

I don't know whose theory it is, but I read it somewhere and it seems convincing.

Some people see cooperation as like ships sailing across an ocean. You don't need much infrastructure, just individual will. Others see it like travelling on land- you need a road to be maintained, but then it's easy.

That seems to explain a lot, including the idea that Britain would really be emotionally happier transplanted to somewhere in the Pacific.

Your last point is kind of revealing.
Britain doesn’t see itself as a European power.
I’m not sure about Pacific, maybe Atlantic power is more accurate.

Europe is - to the great majority - just a place to go on holiday.

Of course this mental model is itself a hangover from Empire, but Brexiters get very, very angry when this is mentioned.

All countries have delusions. This is one of Britain’s.

CarlottaVance said:

Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs

https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1618581083989377025

Of course, under Scottish Prison Guidelines since 2014they still could be….and who is politically responsible for those guidelines?

Selebian said:

CarlottaVance said:

Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity"
That house of cards just utterly collapsed

https://twitter.com/jebadoo2/status/1618591781410729989

Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?

(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)

IanB2 said:

ChatGPT getting coverage on R4, live. Entered some essays into an exam but so far getting poor marks…

HYUFD said:

Gardenwalker said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gardenwalker said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Nigelb said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Cookie said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

FPT

eek said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Nigelb said:

Sandpit said:

FF43 said:

kinabalu said:

Driver said:

Dura_Ace said:

Driver said:

.

Mexicanpete said:

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

nico679 said:

Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .

I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !

This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well

I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works

As shown on TV last night

Yep. I can see the polls and I can see the trend. We are possibly heading for Rejoin if the Rejoiners play it cleverly

That said the Remainers have shown crass ineptitude and boorish arrogance in the past, and if they allow people like you to be heard, gloating, sniping and bitterly exulting, they will badly miss the window of opportunity

We left. We were told leaving the EU would be beneficial to the nation. Shouldn't the Leavers who told us to suck up our defeat in 2016 be cracking on with making Brexit work?

Everybody should.

Brexit's fucked. Lost cause. It's like one of those doddery, blind 19 year old Labradors that people can't bear to have euthanised because they loved its younger self so very much. So they persist with cocktails of drugs and 2 grand vet bills while kidding themselves they see signs of improvement as they clean up yet more liquid shit.

Nope. Brexit is a part of history, a given fact, an axiom. What we do from here is for everyone to decide. Everyone does want to make the country better than it is at the moment, right?

"Brexit was a mistake. An act of self-harm based on a delusional outdated view of Britain and the world. What do you have to say for yourself, Leavers?"

"It happened."

This is about where we are with the debate, I think.

This debate should be over. The Brexit facts are these:

• We have left
  
• We have little prospect of joining any time soon, including "best of both worlds" arrangements such as the Single Market
  
• Brexit causes friction, reduces opportunities and influence, and makes us poorer
  

The debate should be how we deal with this, eg

1. Brexit reduces our tax base. Should we raise taxes to maintain public services or accept these will be degraded?
   
2. Should we join EU initiatives such as Galileo as second-class participants, but these initiatives might be useful to us?
   
3. Do we dynamically re-align our regs with EU equivalents to stay in line with changes made by the EU?
   
4. Do we agree a more liberal visa regime with the EU to partially allow citizens and enterprises to go about their business?
   

etc

All of which boils down to “How do we manage the decline?” rather than “How do we take advantage of the opportunity?”.

So long as government keeps looking to answer the first question, the decline is inevitable.

So what's your alternative list of opportunities ?

*Ditch HS2, or bring the current work to some sort of reasonable conclusion - perhaps build a garden city at the end of it that we were planning to build anyway.

What has HS2 got to do with the EU - it's core infrastructure that has been sold inappropriately since the very first announcement.

HS2 (in it's initial enterity) is core infrastructure to allow more trains to / from London and Birmingham while allowing increased capacity for slower local services on the old lines.

And given you started with a completely irrelevant hobbyhorse topic - I doubt you've given the other ideas any thought either.

Regarding the origins and the inexplicable ability of this project to radically increase its costs whilst never getting shitcanned, you may find the following blogpost from back in 2015 (when this was a slightly less expensive white elephant) interesting:

http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2015-088-hs2-controlled-by-eu-not-our-gov/

Excerpt:

Increase of Finance, Loss of Sovereignty

At the time the TENs were outlined in the Treaty of Rome, the original Trans-European Network Member States were not obliged to upgrade or complete existing infrastructure. But this changed when such obligations were included in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

In 2011 the European Commission put forward two more proposals which significantly overhauled the operation of TEN-T. The first moved the programme from a voluntary to a compulsory basis (i.e. Member States would be forced to introduce transport network changes specified in an EU Regulation). For this, the UK Government estimates it would cost between £64 and £137 billion. The second proposal was for a Connecting Europe Facility to put the budget for TEN-T on a multi-year footing and this would obviously see a significant increase to the budget.

As for the merits of the project itself, I'd be interested to read a single cost-benefit analysis where it returns more than its current projected cost.

It would appear to be you who needs to give these issues more thought, not me. Like most extreme remainers, you aren't prepared to contemplate the fact that the EU has always worked via national Governments implementing its agenda (and obliging the EU by helpfully absorbing any flak), because it doesn't fit with your narrative about complaining right wing Tories 'blaming the EU for everything', which along with 'The Sun' is your main way of dismissing the loss of the referendum. The truth is that whilst some complained, UK Governments of all colours have swiftly and quietly implemented EU directives and memoranda disguised as their own reforms.

What is now apparent is that the same people see the fact that we've actually left the EU as no impediment to continuing exactly the same practise.

This is the most recent full Strategic Outline Business Case, which shows benefits exceeding costs.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-crewe-to-manchester-update-on-the-strategic-outline-business-case
You may have your own views on whether you believe this. But these analyses do exist.

Importantly, though, it should be noted that the benefits captured by the SOBC are pretty limited. Little attempt is made to monetise the two most important benefits, i.e. increased capacity on the existing railway (which you can either use to run more trains or you can capture as increased reliability), and almost no attempt made to quantify land value uplifts via LUTI models (since treasury, and therefore DfT, don't accept them).

Funnily enough, combining the two topics of the EU and High Speed Rail, one of the arguments against HSR comes from a study commissioned by the EU itself back in the early 2000s looking at High Speed rail in France. It found that, contrary to the claims, although there was a very slight increase in GDP which could be attributed to the new rail network, it had exactly the reverse effect that had been touted for it - namely that rather than increasing investment in the regions, it actually sucked investment out of the regions and into Paris.

Which is precisely the argument of those who advocated a new Liverpool-Hull line instead.

Indeed. Cross country, intra region rail improvements/new projects would do far more good in my opinion.

The primary need is for ambitious and growing mass metro networks in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds/Bradford. Their systems are pathetic compared with European counterparts.

Secondarily, the great northern cluster of Liverpool to Hull needs a high speed connection, and a second one that connects that to the loop that goes from Sheffield to Nottingham/Derby to Birmingham and back to Liverpool and Manchester.

As you note, there is no “regional” business case for HS2. The business case is about overall network capacity which probably ultimately benefits London first.

The big win from HS2 is being able to convert London to MK / Bedford / Cambridge + Peterborough into high capacity regional suburban networks by taking the long distance trains away. But that's a tough sell. Which highlights two things, I reckon:

1 There is a lot more public sector infrastructure investment that makes sense that we ought to be doing. I didn't comment when some of our more commercial friends were taking about getting new work computers yesterday, because my response would have been intemperate. But if you consider the rubbish IT in schools and hospitals, and the TPA rants when they buy decent equipment, it's not hard to see why we're so inefficient in the public sector.

2 Trying to get this stuff supported by voters is hard. We'd rather have stuff that benefits us now than things that benefit our children more. It's a problem, and I don't know how to fix it.

On (2), the problem is compounded today by the fact that the voting population is so much older than it used to be. No political leader has been able to tell hard truths to that generation since I don’t know when, and the current government draws its dwindling support entirely from that group.

Even Keir doesn’t think he can win without persuading at least some of them over, and by persuading I mean avoiding certain realities.

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:

Gardenwalker said:

Stuartinromford said:

Roger said:

Driver said:

Mexicanpete said:

Gardenwalker said:

I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.

As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.

No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.

The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.

Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".

And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.

They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.

They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnIwu5aM7g

Difficulty with that was that Team Leave persuaded themselves, and enough of the country, that those things would continue to happen without a political superstructure to manage them.

I don't know whose theory it is, but I read it somewhere and it seems convincing.

Some people see cooperation as like ships sailing across an ocean. You don't need much infrastructure, just individual will. Others see it like travelling on land- you need a road to be maintained, but then it's easy.

That seems to explain a lot, including the idea that Britain would really be emotionally happier transplanted to somewhere in the Pacific.

Your last point is kind of revealing.
Britain doesn’t see itself as a European power.
I’m not sure about Pacific, maybe Atlantic power is more accurate.

Europe is - to the great majority - just a place to go on holiday.

Of course this mental model is itself a hangover from Empire, but Brexiters get very, very angry when this is mentioned.

All countries have delusions. This is one of Britain’s.

Britain is not a country.

Quite right. Allowing the Brexiters to use the term means they don't need to worry about the Schroedinger's statelet that is NI - is it in Europe or out of it?

Cyclefree said:

CarlottaVance said:

Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs

https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1618581083989377025

Of course, under Scottish Prison Guidelines since 2014they still could be….and who is politically responsible for those guidelines?

Selebian said:

CarlottaVance said:

Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity"
That house of cards just utterly collapsed

https://twitter.com/jebadoo2/status/1618591781410729989

Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?

(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)

I am afraid that neither Yvette Cooper nor Ms Sturgeon understand the consequences of the current law, the Haldane judgment or what the GRR Bill will mean. This case exemplifies all the issues which equality lawyers and others have been raising. It is understandable that Cooper does not want to make Labour seem like a party on the side of rapists and Sturgeon wants to avoid bad publicity. But this case has blown all the arguments for the GRR Bill - in its current form - straight out of the water.

As for the arguments that risk assessment by the prison service will solve all the issues, that doesn't work either for some pretty obvious reasons.

I will do a separate post explaining why because there is so much misunderstanding of what the law actually says.

(If you're very lucky - 🤭 - I may even do it as a header.)

pigeon said:

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Is Sean anything like any of the characters he plays, in real life?

tlg86 said:

solarflare said:

pigeon said:

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.

It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.

Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.

I get that there are some tricky areas around this stuff, but that rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons seems quite an easy conclusion to come to.

tlg86 said:

solarflare said:

pigeon said:

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.

It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.

Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.

I get that there are some tricky areas around this stuff, but that rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons seems quite an easy conclusion to come to.

Phil said:

pigeon said:

Cyclefree said:

CarlottaVance said:

Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs

https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1618581083989377025

Of course, under Scottish Prison Guidelines since 2014they still could be….and who is politically responsible for those guidelines?

Selebian said:

CarlottaVance said:

Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity"
That house of cards just utterly collapsed

https://twitter.com/jebadoo2/status/1618591781410729989

Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?

(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)

I am afraid that neither Yvette Cooper nor Ms Sturgeon understand the consequences of the current law, the Haldane judgment or what the GRR Bill will mean. This case exemplifies all the issues which equality lawyers and others have been raising. It is understandable that Cooper does not want to make Labour seem like a party on the side of rapists and Sturgeon wants to avoid bad publicity. But this case has blown all the arguments for the GRR Bill - in its current form - straight out of the water.

As for the arguments that risk assessment by the prison service will solve all the issues, that doesn't work either for some pretty obvious reasons.

I will do a separate post explaining why because there is so much misunderstanding of what the law actually says.

(If you're very lucky - 🤭 - I may even do it as a header.)

Would I be right in thinking that, the moment the pretendy rapist woman in this case gets his hands on some kind of official gender recognition document, he can simply use human rights legislation to force the Scottish authorities to put him in a women's jail? You'll know the ins and outs both of what existing gender recognition legislation, and the proposed Scottish reforms, imply than I do: if the law insists that this man is now a woman then, presumably, he cannot continue to be held in a men's prison?

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

The Home Office has just issued updated guidance on this: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-on-changes-to-transgender-prisoner-policy-framework

Previously I believe the answer was that someone with a GRC would by default be housed in the women’s estate, but that a risk assessment would be applied that would see them sent elsewhere if they were deemed a risk to women - notably anyone convicted them or previously of sexual offenses would fall under this category IIRC.

The previous guidance is here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/863610/transgender-pf.pdf

Presumably an updated version will be forthcoming.

solarflare said:

tlg86 said:

solarflare said:

pigeon said:

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.

It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.

Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.

I get that there are some tricky areas around this stuff, but that rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons seems quite an easy conclusion to come to.

No argument from me there. But that's a reason for improving the safeguarding (which was the clearest failing of the debate and votes in the Scottish parliament), not a reason to bin the whole thing for people who want to legitimately make use of it.

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

solarflare said:

pigeon said:

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.

It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.

Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.

I get that there are some tricky areas around this stuff, but that rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons seems quite an easy conclusion to come to.

You could say the same about rapists being in men's prisons too.

Where the offence was against another man? Perhaps solitary confinement would be appropriate. Where it was against a woman? General population.

But let me ask you. Do you think it's appropriate to stick a rapist - one that has not been castrated - in a women's prison?

HYUFD said:

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

tlg86 said:

solarflare said:

tlg86 said:

solarflare said:

pigeon said:

Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?

This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.

It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.

Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.

I get that there are some tricky areas around this stuff, but that rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons seems quite an easy conclusion to come to.

No argument from me there. But that's a reason for improving the safeguarding (which was the clearest failing of the debate and votes in the Scottish parliament), not a reason to bin the whole thing for people who want to legitimately make use of it.

Didn't the SNP block an amendment about this sort of thing?

HYUFD said:

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however

Many people don’t have wealthy parents.

I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however

Many people don’t have wealthy parents.

I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.

He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

Richard_Tyndall said:

pigeon said:

Gardenwalker said:

HYUFD said:

The median age of the average voter is now about 50 of course

The median potential voter or the median voting voter?

The latter. I occasionally reference the following research undertaken after the 2017 GE:

https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/

Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:

In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.

The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.

This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.

Hang on. Most of that wealth you are talking about came about entirely outside of the expectations of the Governments of the last 30 or 40 years - indeed to some extent in spite of their efforts or at least only indirectly from them screwing up. If anything has gone wrong it is the growth in the size of the state and Government spending so blaming the pensioners for something that has been entirely out of their hands and creating this artificial conflict between young and old simply because it suits your own bigoted ideas is utter bollocks.

And as someone has pointed out, that wealth then gets transferred to the young (who again I should point out will very soon be old) when the current crop of pensioners die.

Rather than looking avariciously at an income source to prop up your broken system maybe you should look at fixing the system instead.