Two thirds of CON members don’t think there’s a climate emergency – politicalbetting.com
New panel of Conservative Party members:40% oppose the NetZero target; another 40% oppose writing it into law.33% think global warming is not driven by human activity; a further 12% think it isn't real.66% think there is not a climate emergency.https://t.co/xi02Vr3eK1
Comments
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Bluntly, because they will be dead by then.7
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Slowly, inexorably, the British Conservative party morphs into the US Republican party.9
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This is a voodoo poll, right? Not something done properly, just representative of Con Home readers (
) who are also Con members (
) who can be bothered to express an opinion? 0 -
A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.2 -
I was talking to a member deep in the selection process in a winnable seat - one applicant is really majoring on climate change, another is focusing on aid for victims of scandals (Post Office, Hillsborough, etc.). She's leaning to the first as she thinks that, with NHS and cost of living, that will be the key theme in the election. But I wonder if it is (I'm not sure that victims will be either, sadly). People who agree it's happening and important are already not voting Tory, whereas for cost of living the position is less clear-cut, so perhaps we should be focusing on that?
Conversely, Sunak seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy to fight the looking wall of Tory abstentions - "we might lose but let's motivate the remaining supporters to actually vote".3 -
"Climate change orthodoxy".
Is that a bit like Liz Truss' economic orthodoxy?0 -
Is that based on 1997, which was largely Tories not turning up?NickPalmer said:I was talking to a member deep in the selection process in a winnable seat - one applicant is really majoring on climate change, another is focusing on aid for victims of scandals (Post Office, Hillsborough, etc.). She's leaning to the first as she thinks that, with NHS and cost of living, that will be the key theme in the election. But I wonder if it is (I'm not sure that victims will be either, sadly). People who agree it's happening and important are already not voting Tory, whereas for cost of living the position is less clear-cut, so perhaps we should be focusing on that?
Conversely, Sunak seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy to fight the looking wall of Tory abstentions - "we might lose but let's motivate the remaining supporters to actually vote".0 -
fpt for @Miklosvar coz it took me ages to type
One of the most terrifying things I have done these last few years is visit this place in Arizona
https://titanmissilemuseum.org/
I mentioned it at the time on PB. It is - I think - the only place in the world you can see a big-ass city-busting ICBM in its actual silo. Ready to go. You can also visit the green room (green for soothing) where the missile controllers would flick the switch. The woman guide talks you through the process, and the exact moment when the command from the president would become legally then practically irreversible
Once the telephone calls were received from the president, and the codes verified, launch would then officially begin and could not legally be reversed. in practise another few minutes would pass and then the keys would be turned and communication stopped and from then on the missiles were gonna fire whatever. From codes to launch would be 5-10 excruciating yet inexorable minutes
It was accepted that these minutes would be psychological torture for the operators - the urge NOT to go through the process of destroying the world would be intense - so they were carefully selected for intelligence, mental health, loyalty, coolness
My whole visit was rendered near-intolerable by the fact it happened at the height of Putin's Ukraine nuke scare and everyone in the guided group was hyper aware of this. Yet the guide had her set Noughties spiel and she said "now we have nuclear peace treaties and this can never happen, thank God" and everyone laughed, bitterly and nervously2 -
So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.3 -
Climate change is happening, it is going to continue to happen because no country is actually going to actually do enough about it. We should all just learn to accept that. People on the whole are not going to put on the hairshirts necessary.
Therefore we either take steps to mitigate it or we just ignore it0 -
It's a weird disconnect, all those Tories obsessing over inheritance tax so they can leave even more of their filthy lucre to the fruit of their loins while being selfishly unconcerned about the hellscape that said fruits will have to inhablt.Pro_Rata said:Bluntly, because they will be dead by then.
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Sunak might well have seen the polling and focus group data and conclude, on the final paragraph, that he doesn't have a choice.NickPalmer said:I was talking to a member deep in the selection process in a winnable seat - one applicant is really majoring on climate change, another is focusing on aid for victims of scandals (Post Office, Hillsborough, etc.). She's leaning to the first as she thinks that, with NHS and cost of living, that will be the key theme in the election. But I wonder if it is (I'm not sure that victims will be either, sadly). People who agree it's happening and important are already not voting Tory, whereas for cost of living the position is less clear-cut, so perhaps we should be focusing on that?
Conversely, Sunak seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy to fight the looking wall of Tory abstentions - "we might lose but let's motivate the remaining supporters to actually vote".
He has to ensure the Conservative Party survives to fight another day. That's his job, as well as being PM now.0 -
FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.0 -
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.0 -
Utterly loaded question. I think climate change is a massive and pressing problem. If I thought it was an emergency I would vow (for instance) never to get on a plane again except to save life, because that's what emergency actually means.2
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Nigel Farage for PM.
I've just received a letter from the bank. It has withdrawn my overdraft!!!1 -
Quite. Per Blackadder, We have survived the Great War, 1914-1917.Leon said:fpt for @Miklosvar coz it took me ages to type
One of the most terrifying things I have done these last few years is visit this place in Arizona
https://titanmissilemuseum.org/
I mentioned it at the time on PB. It is - I think - the only place in the world you can see a big-ass city-busting ICBM in its actual silo. Ready to go. You can also visit the green room (green for soothing) where the missile controllers would flick the switch. The woman guide talks you through the process, and the exact moment when the command from the president would become legally then practically irreversible
Once the telephone calls were received from the president, and the codes verified, launch would then officially begin and could not legally be reversed. in practise another few minutes would pass and then the keys would be turned and communication stopped and from then on the missiles were gonna fire whatever. From codes to launch would be 5-10 excruciating yet inexorable minutes
It was accepted that these minutes would be psychological torture for the operators - the urge NOT to go through the process of destroying the world would be intense - so they were carefully selected for intelligence, mental health, loyalty, coolness
My whole visit was rendered near-intolerable by the fact it happened at the height of Putin's Ukraine nuke scare and everyone in the guided group was hyper aware of this. Yet the guide had her set Noughties spiel and she said "now we have nuclear peace treaties and this can never happen, thank God" and everyone laughed, bitterly and nervously
1 -
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it0 -
Yes. It's also a rather good question what 40% of what the pound will be in those circumstances is even worth obsessing about.Theuniondivvie said:
It's a weird disconnect, all those Tories obsessing over inheritance tax so they can leave even more of their filthy lucre to the fruit of their loins while being selfishly unconcerned about the hellscape that said fruits will have to inhablt.Pro_Rata said:Bluntly, because they will be dead by then.
But externalities. Not their problem. Because other people's problem. And they wanna win election now!!1 -
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.1 -
That's because there isn't one. 'Emergency' and 'Crisis' are tools Governments and NGOs use to get people to do things that they don't want to do.2
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You have causality the wrong way round. The refusal of large parts of the right to accept the reality of anthropogenic climate change isn't a consequence of allowing the issue to be captured by the left; it's the reason why the issue was captured by the left!Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.6 -
My dad had that happen to him a few weeks ago. Not that he ever uses it, but he was a bit perplexed as it was completely out of the blue.DecrepiterJohnL said:Nigel Farage for PM.
I've just received a letter from the bank. It has withdrawn my overdraft!!!1 -
Does he praise Carboniferous coal forests for doing their thing to prevent it, albeit only temporarily as we see now?Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.0 -
And why the water warming at present is so worrying.TimS said:
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.1 -
On the tram versus bus debate, trams are better than buses when one, or preferably both of these conditions hold:
1 Congested city centres mean traffic is funnelled down one or two streets
2 Most of the track can be off road
Edinburgh matches the first condition. There are only two drivable streets east/west through the city centre and three north/south.1 -
So who's to blame for that, the red faced fulminators so busy blowing their tops over LGBT etc flags and veganism that they've allowed the issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, or the activist Left?Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.
*takes wild guess*1 -
Yes, I entirely believe climate change is real and largely man made. And I also recognise that British governments over the last 30 years have made massive stridesin addressing British contributions to it - even though, alone, there is the square root of fuck all we can do about it. But it largely seems to be used by the left as a stick to beat right wing people with. The point isn't to actually do anything, it's to divide the world into goodies and baddies.Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.3 -
Casino is also muddling climate change and the ozone layer. Mrs T sorted the latter. She briefly espoused the former but did not persist.Theuniondivvie said:
So who's to blame for that, the red faced fulminators so busy blowing their tops over LGBT etc flags and veganism that they've allowed the issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, or the activist Left?Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.
*takes wild guess*0 -
If a customer never uses it, the bank makes zero profit from it. Regardless they have to review suitability periodically which would have some time cost when manual checks are needed. So as data allows companies to forget the big picture and focus on micro details like this instead, decisions like that become more common place.tlg86 said:
My dad had that happen to him a few weeks ago. Not that he ever uses it, but he was a bit perplexed as it was completely out of the blue.DecrepiterJohnL said:Nigel Farage for PM.
I've just received a letter from the bank. It has withdrawn my overdraft!!!0 -
Vaguely related to the topic: HS2 is making Britain an international laughing stock
“It’s finally official: HS2 is ‘unachievable’, according to the UK’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority. That doesn’t mean the project isn’t still happening, or that it won’t cost us billions, it just means that years – decades, probably – ahead of its launch we know it isn’t going to deliver what we need from it.
The Treasury strikes again! Wrecking the UK with its obsession with short term costs.
What’s worse is that we’re going to learn all of the wrong lessons from its failure. Already the people who have reliably ensured HS2 wouldn’t work are saying that the overspends and reduced expectations show what they said all along – we should never have started it, we didn’t need it, local rail improvements were the way to go, and so on.”0 -
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.4 -
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.0 -
O/T
South Korea 5.3
Germany 1.82
Draw 3.7
South Korea are leading 1-0 after 22 mins.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/football/fifa-women-s-world-cup/south-korea-w-v-germany-w-betting-325168611 -
Given the Uxbridge by election Tory hold on an anti ULEZ ticket and the recent poll showing 67% of Tory voters back new oil and gas licenses in the North sea as do UK voters overall by 42% to 27% whatever Extinction rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Greenpeace think it is unsurprising Sunak is rowing back from too much anti car and anti fossil fuels action.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/31/aac1f/1
Whoever replaces him as Tory leader will likely be just as pro car and net zero ambivalent. Labour voters however are much more pro action on climate change as are LDs, by 47% to 24% Labour voters think the government was wrong to issue new oil and gas licenses as do LD voters by 38% to 32%.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/31/aac1f/1
Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan also remains as pro ULEZ expansion as ever whatever Uxbridge voters thought0 -
I said "many habitual Tory voters" so the apparent fact that you in particular don't mind a softly-spoken leader if he has a "determination to defend the national interest" is neither here nor there. Personally I have never felt a need for any kind of leader to tell me what to do, but those who do feel such a need prefer one who projects strength. That should actually be stating the obvious but I guess it isn't.Luckyguy1983 said:
Fatuous codswallop, based on a complete failure on your part to understand the motivations of those you disagree with. The Tory membership would have liked Kemi Badenoch, who (if you haven't noticed) is less white than Sunak.Peck said:"I’ve been trying to pin it down but there is something lacking in his approach and how it comes out on TV."
He's softly spoken and he doesn't come across as strong. Many gumbies whichever of Britain's castes they belong to prefer a strong leader who they can imagine sorting everyone out, giving 'em what for, and doing things like travelling all the way to "Europe" and telling foreigners where to get off. That's one of the prime minister's problems.
There's also the fact that many habitual Tory voters think they've voted Tory all their lives and they're f*cked if they'll continue if the guy the Tories give them as prime minister isn't white.
50-50 Penny Mordaunt, Union Jack-face, Order of the Loud Voice and True Confidence, takes over before the election?
As a Tory supporter and sometime voter, I don't particularly want the leader to be rude, and give us 'Up yours Delors' moments - that was what Cameron and Osborne tried to do 'I won't pay this bill', 'I won't have Juncker' before inevitably caving. What I do want is a quiet determination to defend the national interest, which Rishi has patently failed to do in his negotiations on the Windsor Framework. He can be as softly spoken as he likes, as long as what he's saying is OK.
I am aware of Kemi Badenoch's skin colour, yes. She won't be elected party leader except perhaps as a stopgap in the extremely unlikely event that the Tories go into opposition, when it won't matter much who does the job. If a new leader is chosen before the election it will be a white person because everyone who can actually notice stuff is aware of the fact that most Tory voters and potential Tory voters are racist thickos.
As for the party's members, look how they chose the crazy nutter Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak when they had a chance to have a vote. It's rarely a good idea to let a nutter be your leader (they can break stuff - as Truss did, and fast too), but that can't have been what was uppermost in those elderly racist Ian Smith-admirers' "minds".
0 -
'Emergency' isn't something that has a scientific definition.1
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FPT
Oddly enough I know about this place because about a year ago there was a strike on some of the trains in London and I couldn't get to Brentwood where I was staying. The only train operating near where I wanted to go was the Central Line, so I went to Epping, and had to get a taxi to Brentwood costing £40. The taxi driver mentioned the bunker on the journey. Haven't actually visited it yet though.Leon said:
I know what you mean. For 3-4 years I used to take my eldest kid on mad roadtrips out of London, picnic ready on the backseat kind of thing (with all necessary condiments!) and.... we'd just see what we found. We could end up looking at a celebrated church in Suffolk or a weird half-demolished stately home in Beds or (briefly) examining the tedious town centre of Guldford. The whole idea was to be spontaneous. One day we happened upon this:FF43 said:
Crich Tramway Museum sounds like one of those gloriously eccentric places, which must be an absolute jewel, even though you have had no previous interest in tramways and have no idea where Crich is.Leon said:
More interesting than the Crich Tramway Museum??JosiasJessop said:
I love the Derbyshire Dales; I feel like explored most of it on foot over the decades, and deeply associate with it.TimS said:
By the way the Derby dales continue to fascinate. It’s an area I’ve not visited for decades, and strikes me as an English version of la France profonde.TimS said:According to the tramway museum in Crich, which I had the pleasure to visit yesterday:
I think this hereby concludes our transport discussion.
Everything is at least a couple of decades behind here. The shop fronts, the decor, the cuisine (yesterday I had steak pie, peas and beans with gravy for lunch then “tapas” for dinner which was like some 1980s imagined idea of tapas). The dark wooded valleys and dark sandstone towns, all feeling a little bit “Auvergne”.
The little Massif Central of England.
But I've never been to Crich tramway museum, oddly enough. Probably a case of it being both too near to visit, and there being other things that interested me more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvedon_Hatch_Secret_Nuclear_Bunker
No words can really capture the magnificent eccentricity of this place. It is simultaneously cringe yet compelling, naff yet amazing. It really was our big UK nuclear bunker - clearly run on an NHS style shoestring - where the PM would be spirited if it all Kicked Off. They have a terrible waxwork of Margaret Thatcher hiding under a dingy blanket in one room. That just about sums it up
Go!0 -
Ken Livingstone combined both. Boris delegated most of the work, which fits with your suggestion.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.0 -
"Buy Russian gas!"Luckyguy1983 said:That's because there isn't one. 'Emergency' and 'Crisis' are tools Governments and NGOs use to get people to do things that they don't want to do.
0 -
I had a colleague who was in the Territorial version of the Observer Corps in the 70’s. On being called his duty was to go to what was felt to be a safe place to ‘observe’.Miklosvar said:
Quite. Per Blackadder, We have survived the Great War, 1914-1917.Leon said:fpt for @Miklosvar coz it took me ages to type
One of the most terrifying things I have done these last few years is visit this place in Arizona
https://titanmissilemuseum.org/
I mentioned it at the time on PB. It is - I think - the only place in the world you can see a big-ass city-busting ICBM in its actual silo. Ready to go. You can also visit the green room (green for soothing) where the missile controllers would flick the switch. The woman guide talks you through the process, and the exact moment when the command from the president would become legally then practically irreversible
Once the telephone calls were received from the president, and the codes verified, launch would then officially begin and could not legally be reversed. in practise another few minutes would pass and then the keys would be turned and communication stopped and from then on the missiles were gonna fire whatever. From codes to launch would be 5-10 excruciating yet inexorable minutes
It was accepted that these minutes would be psychological torture for the operators - the urge NOT to go through the process of destroying the world would be intense - so they were carefully selected for intelligence, mental health, loyalty, coolness
My whole visit was rendered near-intolerable by the fact it happened at the height of Putin's Ukraine nuke scare and everyone in the guided group was hyper aware of this. Yet the guide had her set Noughties spiel and she said "now we have nuclear peace treaties and this can never happen, thank God" and everyone laughed, bitterly and nervously
However he was to leave his wife and children.
I couldn’t have done it!1 -
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.1 -
Also ...Andy_JS said:FPT
Oddly enough I know about this place because about a year ago there was a strike on some of the trains in London and I couldn't get to Brentwood where I was staying. The only train operating near where I wanted to go was the Central Line, so I went to Epping, and had to get a taxi to Brentwood costing £40. The taxi driver mentioned the bunker on the journey. Haven't actually visited it yet though.Leon said:
I know what you mean. For 3-4 years I used to take my eldest kid on mad roadtrips out of London, picnic ready on the backseat kind of thing (with all necessary condiments!) and.... we'd just see what we found. We could end up looking at a celebrated church in Suffolk or a weird half-demolished stately home in Beds or (briefly) examining the tedious town centre of Guldford. The whole idea was to be spontaneous. One day we happened upon this:FF43 said:
Crich Tramway Museum sounds like one of those gloriously eccentric places, which must be an absolute jewel, even though you have had no previous interest in tramways and have no idea where Crich is.Leon said:
More interesting than the Crich Tramway Museum??JosiasJessop said:
I love the Derbyshire Dales; I feel like explored most of it on foot over the decades, and deeply associate with it.TimS said:
By the way the Derby dales continue to fascinate. It’s an area I’ve not visited for decades, and strikes me as an English version of la France profonde.TimS said:According to the tramway museum in Crich, which I had the pleasure to visit yesterday:
I think this hereby concludes our transport discussion.
Everything is at least a couple of decades behind here. The shop fronts, the decor, the cuisine (yesterday I had steak pie, peas and beans with gravy for lunch then “tapas” for dinner which was like some 1980s imagined idea of tapas). The dark wooded valleys and dark sandstone towns, all feeling a little bit “Auvergne”.
The little Massif Central of England.
But I've never been to Crich tramway museum, oddly enough. Probably a case of it being both too near to visit, and there being other things that interested me more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvedon_Hatch_Secret_Nuclear_Bunker
No words can really capture the magnificent eccentricity of this place. It is simultaneously cringe yet compelling, naff yet amazing. It really was our big UK nuclear bunker - clearly run on an NHS style shoestring - where the PM would be spirited if it all Kicked Off. They have a terrible waxwork of Margaret Thatcher hiding under a dingy blanket in one room. That just about sums it up
Go!
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/york-cold-war-bunker/
https://secretbunker.co.uk/
Haven't seen either yet, though. Also this dfiscussion is makng me wonder where I put my copy of 'Under the City Streets' (both editions, including the earlyu one that caused the row).0 -
It's worrying if even a third don't believe something patently true.Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.
The issue wasn't captured by the activist Left: it was deserted by the Right. The Cameron-era consensus was dropped by the Tories.2 -
Unless there are some unknown things about Paul Scully, very weird he didn't even make the shortlist. I think he would have had a decent chance.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.0 -
There were ROC bunkers dotted all over the UK to observe the functioning of the various nuclear devices. One nearish to my house, now earthed over by the farmer to deter thanatotourism.OldKingCole said:
I had a colleague who was in the Territorial version of the Observer Corps in the 70’s. On being called his duty was to go to what was felt to be a safe place to ‘observe’.Miklosvar said:
Quite. Per Blackadder, We have survived the Great War, 1914-1917.Leon said:fpt for @Miklosvar coz it took me ages to type
One of the most terrifying things I have done these last few years is visit this place in Arizona
https://titanmissilemuseum.org/
I mentioned it at the time on PB. It is - I think - the only place in the world you can see a big-ass city-busting ICBM in its actual silo. Ready to go. You can also visit the green room (green for soothing) where the missile controllers would flick the switch. The woman guide talks you through the process, and the exact moment when the command from the president would become legally then practically irreversible
Once the telephone calls were received from the president, and the codes verified, launch would then officially begin and could not legally be reversed. in practise another few minutes would pass and then the keys would be turned and communication stopped and from then on the missiles were gonna fire whatever. From codes to launch would be 5-10 excruciating yet inexorable minutes
It was accepted that these minutes would be psychological torture for the operators - the urge NOT to go through the process of destroying the world would be intense - so they were carefully selected for intelligence, mental health, loyalty, coolness
My whole visit was rendered near-intolerable by the fact it happened at the height of Putin's Ukraine nuke scare and everyone in the guided group was hyper aware of this. Yet the guide had her set Noughties spiel and she said "now we have nuclear peace treaties and this can never happen, thank God" and everyone laughed, bitterly and nervously
However he was to leave his wife and children.
I couldn’t have done it!
Edit: including some sites which encourage visitors./
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Observer_Corps_monitoring_post0 -
As I predicted (although it wasn't exactly hard)
"Post-Brexit import checks on food delayed again"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-663942350 -
80% still believe climate change is happening so it hardly full of deniers.
The term climate emergency is meaningless. It is like "climate crisis" and "global boiling", just a hysterical term to, as Luckyguy says, get people on board with doing stuff that inconveniences them,
I am fully on board with the need to do something, I do believe climate change is not solely down to mans activity but is largely down to it, do I see it as an "Emergency", not really. Hardly makes me a denier.3 -
You know the Mayor can hire people to assist in areas where he/she isn't that strong?noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.0 -
In other "climate catastrophe" news the Chinese are accused of not playing ball.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/china-hits-back-at-allegations-of-obstruction-during-g20-climate-talks/ar-AA1eH3fG?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=2561c52a0a6e472ea951737354ae840b&ei=460 -
The maths education problem. This one is about scale.TimS said:
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.
Had a chap the other day, who was end timing it about satellites renewing the atmosphere. 15K tons of meteors enters the atmosphere....
Another one is "Why can't we use old watermills to power the country?" - not realising that most watermills had about the same power as a moped.0 -
I think Net-Zero has one too many syllables
Net-Zee would roll off the tongue better
On a related note, The Lionesses is a really shit nickname for a team; it's FAR too long0 -
Yes, although how shallow is the heating? I assume it doesn't extend through the whole water column. If it does then we really are in the doo-doo.Carnyx said:
And why the water warming at present is so worrying.TimS said:
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.
I assume this must be due to the sulphur ban on ships unless this is 'catastrophe theory' in action.1 -
But there aren't many Tory voters these days. Appealing to them won't win you a general election (or a London mayoral one). The Con-to-Lab swing in Uxbridge wasn't enough to get a Labour MP elected, but would see Sunak out of No. 10 if repeated nationally. Sunak needs to reach former Tory voters.HYUFD said:Given the Uxbridge by election Tory hold on an anti ULEZ ticket and the recent poll showing 67% of Tory voters back new oil and gas licenses in the North sea as do UK voters overall by 42% to 27% whatever Extinction rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Greenpeace think it is unsurprising Sunak is rowing back from too much anti car and anti fossil fuels action.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/31/aac1f/1
Whoever replaces him as Tory leader will likely be just as pro car and net zero ambivalent. Labour voters however are much more pro action on climate change as are LDs, by 47% to 24% Labour voters think the government was wrong to issue new oil and gas licenses as do LD voters by 38% to 32%.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/31/aac1f/1
Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan also remains as pro ULEZ expansion as ever whatever Uxbridge voters thought0 -
4 local by-elections today: Dudley (Lab defence), East Sussex (Con), Norfolk (Con), Reading (Lab).1
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Once went to Leicester to see the beam engines there. Massive steam things, much more powerful than your average watermill. They had a modern [edit] IC engine, relatively little thing just sitting on the floor. It had the same power output!Malmesbury said:
The maths education problem. This one is about scale.TimS said:
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.
Had a chap the other day, who was end timing it about satellites renewing the atmosphere. 15K tons of meteors enters the atmosphere....
Another one is "Why can't we use old watermills to power the country?" - not realising that most watermills had about the same power as a moped.
TBF there is real value in hydro on a small scale out in the country with high-gradient rivers available.0 -
The Observer Corp used to stand on rooftops and hilltops to look for aircraft. During the Cold War they were tasked with looking for Nuclear explosions and fallout.OldKingCole said:I had a colleague who was in the Territorial version of the Observer Corps in the 70’s. On being called his duty was to go to what was felt to be a safe place to ‘observe’.
However he was to leave his wife and children.
I couldn’t have done it!
Obviously you don't want to do that on a rooftop, you want to do it from an underground bunker.
1500 were built in the 1950s, and half of them were still operational until 1991
I know this because i just found out one of them was half a mile from my house0 -
I very much doubt that any official Conservative could win in London in 2024; the national tide is just in the wrong place. A Business-Friendly Independent (who the Conservatives don't quite endorse out loud), maybe. But that comes back to the question- who?noneoftheabove said:
Unless there are some unknown things about Paul Scully, very weird he didn't even make the shortlist. I think he would have had a decent chance.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.
But offering Susan Hall as a candidate is pretty much taking the mickey.0 -
The Tory Government published a new version of the National Risk Register this morning.Taz said:80% still believe climate change is happening so it hardly full of deniers.
The term climate emergency is meaningless. It is like "climate crisis" and "global boiling", just a hysterical term to, as Luckyguy says, get people on board with doing stuff that inconveniences them,
I am fully on board with the need to do something, I do believe climate change is not solely down to mans activity but is largely down to it, do I see it as an "Emergency", not really. Hardly makes me a denier.
Climate Change makes an appearance.0 -
Sure, they inevitably won't carry the same authority though.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
You know the Mayor can hire people to assist in areas where he/she isn't that strong?noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.0 -
The theory with Johnson is always that he can delegate to capable minions and do the "fun" stuff.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.
The problem with that is that Johnson didn't want to play that game. He didn't just want to be the fun figurehead - he wanted to exercise power. So he did get involved but wasn't very good at it - he got bored easily, changed his mind depending on who he was talking to, colleagues couldn't rely on what he told them and so on.0 -
Mrs Thatcher would be disgusted.1
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Oh it’s ConHome, moving on.0
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I think you're right; despite her dropping the matter, it is much more salient now, in a way that the ozone hole was for her.TheScreamingEagles said:Mrs Thatcher would be disgusted.
0 -
What does that say about the Conservatives that Khan, who you say requires a clothes peg on the nose to vote for, keeps beating them?Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.0 -
Gosh, where to even start with this shite.Peck said:
I said "many habitual Tory voters" so the apparent fact that you in particular don't mind a softly-spoken leader if he has a "determination to defend the national interest" is neither here nor there. Personally I have never felt a need for any kind of leader to tell me what to do, but those who do feel such a need prefer one who projects strength. That should actually be stating the obvious but I guess it isn't.Luckyguy1983 said:
Fatuous codswallop, based on a complete failure on your part to understand the motivations of those you disagree with. The Tory membership would have liked Kemi Badenoch, who (if you haven't noticed) is less white than Sunak.Peck said:"I’ve been trying to pin it down but there is something lacking in his approach and how it comes out on TV."
He's softly spoken and he doesn't come across as strong. Many gumbies whichever of Britain's castes they belong to prefer a strong leader who they can imagine sorting everyone out, giving 'em what for, and doing things like travelling all the way to "Europe" and telling foreigners where to get off. That's one of the prime minister's problems.
There's also the fact that many habitual Tory voters think they've voted Tory all their lives and they're f*cked if they'll continue if the guy the Tories give them as prime minister isn't white.
50-50 Penny Mordaunt, Union Jack-face, Order of the Loud Voice and True Confidence, takes over before the election?
As a Tory supporter and sometime voter, I don't particularly want the leader to be rude, and give us 'Up yours Delors' moments - that was what Cameron and Osborne tried to do 'I won't pay this bill', 'I won't have Juncker' before inevitably caving. What I do want is a quiet determination to defend the national interest, which Rishi has patently failed to do in his negotiations on the Windsor Framework. He can be as softly spoken as he likes, as long as what he's saying is OK.
I am aware of Kemi Badenoch's skin colour, yes. She won't be elected party leader except perhaps as a stopgap in the extremely unlikely event that the Tories go into opposition, when it won't matter much who does the job. If a new leader is chosen before the election it will be a white person because everyone who can actually notice stuff is aware of the fact that most Tory voters and potential Tory voters are racist thickos.
As for the party's members, look how they chose the crazy nutter Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak when they had a chance to have a vote. It's rarely a good idea to let a nutter be your leader (they can break stuff - as Truss did, and fast too), but that can't have been what was uppermost in those elderly racist Ian Smith-admirers' "minds".0 -
The national picture is less relevant in London than elsewhere, partly because London is simply very different but mostly because incumbancy is an issue for Labour here and not for the rest of the country.Stuartinromford said:
I very much doubt that any official Conservative could win in London in 2024; the national tide is just in the wrong place. A Business-Friendly Independent (who the Conservatives don't quite endorse out loud), maybe. But that comes back to the question- who?noneoftheabove said:
Unless there are some unknown things about Paul Scully, very weird he didn't even make the shortlist. I think he would have had a decent chance.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.
But offering Susan Hall as a candidate is pretty much taking the mickey.0 -
Lord Sugar might have won as an IndependentStuartinromford said:
I very much doubt that any official Conservative could win in London in 2024; the national tide is just in the wrong place. A Business-Friendly Independent (who the Conservatives don't quite endorse out loud), maybe. But that comes back to the question- who?noneoftheabove said:
Unless there are some unknown things about Paul Scully, very weird he didn't even make the shortlist. I think he would have had a decent chance.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.
But offering Susan Hall as a candidate is pretty much taking the mickey.0 -
The figures were for 2019 Tory voters and as the poll also showed voters as a whole back more licenses for oil and gas in the North Sea and as Uxbridge showed in outer London ULEZ is unpopularbondegezou said:
But there aren't many Tory voters these days. Appealing to them won't win you a general election (or a London mayoral one). The Con-to-Lab swing in Uxbridge wasn't enough to get a Labour MP elected, but would see Sunak out of No. 10 if repeated nationally. Sunak needs to reach former Tory voters.HYUFD said:Given the Uxbridge by election Tory hold on an anti ULEZ ticket and the recent poll showing 67% of Tory voters back new oil and gas licenses in the North sea as do UK voters overall by 42% to 27% whatever Extinction rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Greenpeace think it is unsurprising Sunak is rowing back from too much anti car and anti fossil fuels action.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/31/aac1f/1
Whoever replaces him as Tory leader will likely be just as pro car and net zero ambivalent. Labour voters however are much more pro action on climate change as are LDs, by 47% to 24% Labour voters think the government was wrong to issue new oil and gas licenses as do LD voters by 38% to 32%.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/31/aac1f/1
Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan also remains as pro ULEZ expansion as ever whatever Uxbridge voters thought0 -
There was one sold here for a surprisingly small amount. Wish I'd bought it now...Scott_xP said:
The Observer Corp used to stand on rooftops and hilltops to look for aircraft. During the Cold War they were tasked with looking for Nuclear explosions and fallout.OldKingCole said:I had a colleague who was in the Territorial version of the Observer Corps in the 70’s. On being called his duty was to go to what was felt to be a safe place to ‘observe’.
However he was to leave his wife and children.
I couldn’t have done it!
Obviously you don't want to do that on a rooftop, you want to do it from an underground bunker.
1500 were built in the 1950s, and half of them were still operational until 1991
I know this because i just found out one of them was half a mile from my house
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4353464/Underground-Cold-War-bunker-market-25k.html
The new owner doesn't _appear_ to have done anything with it, other than plant a few fruit trees in the surrounding paddock.
I thought it was most likely to end up as a cannabis farm.1 -
Where’s the Londoner Andy Street?Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
There must be one somewhere, a successful and well-known London businessperson willing to stand against an unpopular mayor. My first thought would be someone like Charlie Mullins, if he’s not enjoying his money too much, then I realised that he’s now 70 so probably wouldn’t want to do it.0 -
It depends how effectively you delegate. If you're clear that Fred speaks with your voice when he tells officials to do something in this area, then he has very significant authority. Your trouble comes if officials and others believe he doesn't, and that a wedge can be driven between you and Fred.noneoftheabove said:
Sure, they inevitably won't carry the same authority though.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
You know the Mayor can hire people to assist in areas where he/she isn't that strong?noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.0 -
NickPalmer said:
I was talking to a member deep in the selection process in a winnable seat - one applicant is really majoring on climate change, another is focusing on aid for victims of scandals (Post Office, Hillsborough, etc.). She's leaning to the first as she thinks that, with NHS and cost of living, that will be the key theme in the election. But I wonder if it is (I'm not sure that victims will be either, sadly). People who agree it's happening and important are already not voting Tory, whereas for cost of living the position is less clear-cut, so perhaps we should be focusing on that?
Conversely, Sunak seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy to fight the looking wall of Tory abstentions - "we might lose but let's motivate the remaining supporters to actually vote".
What we're seeing here is how the right blames the left for their own foolishness.Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.
The Tories have been in power for the last decade - how and why is "the activist left" setting their agenda ?3 -
Multiply the Titanic by Brexit by the Scotch parliament building by DRS by the groundnut scheme
Square the result
Square the result again
The number you have arrived at is invisible next to the clusterfuck that the no new ICE cars by 2030 plan is going to be. Buy a diesel truck, a 20,000 litre diesel storage tank, and a shotgun for the defence of both.0 -
FPT @Casino_Royale
A sensible question! Here's my answerCasino_Royale said:We need to stop asking about what more we are going to tax and starting asking about how we are going to expand the tax base.
Mass immigration is a lazy, and self-defeating, answer...
For nearly 50 years we've been insisting that tax is bad, but reluctant to cut spending to match the tax take, and have been making up the difference by debt. We have run out of road on this approach and need to change
To accomplish that we need to move from taxing mobile things (people, income) to taxing static things (wealth, buildings). You can lie about your income, you can emigrate to another country, but you can't take your house with you. You can tax, and prevent from leaving the country, large manifestations of wealth like houses, land and cars(?). I can't prove if person X is rich or poor, but I can find Emirates Stadium and tax it.
So my plan is- Gradually reduce income tax
- Gradually increase wealth tax
- Keep it neutral to ensure popular support
- Once established, match spending to income and pay off debt.
PS: This guy Gary Stevenson has got it right
https://www.youtube.com/@garyseconomics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViY-zI3b5JQ2 - Gradually reduce income tax
-
Some years back, was staying in an old Château, in Normandy.Carnyx said:
Once went to Leicester to see the beam engines there. Massive steam things, much more powerful than your average watermill. They had a modern [edit] IC engine, relatively little thing just sitting on the floor. It had the same power output!Malmesbury said:
The maths education problem. This one is about scale.TimS said:
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.
Had a chap the other day, who was end timing it about satellites renewing the atmosphere. 15K tons of meteors enters the atmosphere....
Another one is "Why can't we use old watermills to power the country?" - not realising that most watermills had about the same power as a moped.
TBF there is real value in hydro on a small scale out in the country with high-gradient rivers available.
The chap who owned it was tearing his hair out about bills. especially heating. My relative who's in the building business was there.
He pointed out that
1) Run a few kms of weighted plastic pipe round and round the ornamental lake as the external source for heat pump setup.
2) There was the remains of an old Pelton wheel turbine on the inlet stream to the lake. From the size of it, it could power the heat pump (and probably a bit more).
Completely free heating - just capital cost and maintenance.4 -
Before we worked out that half of the Earth's internal heat was generated by radioactive decay, Lord Kelvin conclusively demonstrated the planet could only be a few thousand years old.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
0 -
You are allowed a hybrid, so just put a big battery in and drive the car with the starter motor for 5 seconds.Miklosvar said:Multiply the Titanic by Brexit by the Scotch parliament building by DRS by the groundnut scheme
Square the result
Square the result again
The number you have arrived at is invisible next to the clusterfuck that the no new ICE cars by 2030 plan is going to be. Buy a diesel truck, a 20,000 litre diesel storage tank, and a shotgun for the defence of both.
I think this is pretty much what Skoda have done with their new Octavia, so presumably you will be allowed one until 2035.0 -
The experts aren't always right. They said Covid-19 almost certainly hadn't come from a Chinese lab in 2020.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/scientists-exactly-zero-evidence-covid-19-came-lab0 -
Yes but he was a physicist not a geologist!Nigelb said:
Before we worked out that half of the Earth's internal heat was generated by radioactive decay, Lord Kelvin conclusively demonstrated the planet could only be a few thousand years old.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.1 -
The movie version of a leader who does everything doesn't work in the real world.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
It depends how effectively you delegate. If you're clear that Fred speaks with your voice when he tells officials to do something in this area, then he has very significant authority. Your trouble comes if officials and others believe he doesn't, and that a wedge can be driven between you and Fred.noneoftheabove said:
Sure, they inevitably won't carry the same authority though.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
You know the Mayor can hire people to assist in areas where he/she isn't that strong?noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
You have to delegate. That is part of the art of leadership.
Read the Mythical Man Month.0 -
Indeed. Didn't he also do a calculation of the age of the sun without knowing about nuclear reactions?Nigelb said:
Before we worked out that half of the Earth's internal heat was generated by radioactive decay, Lord Kelvin conclusively demonstrated the planet could only be a few thousand years old.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.0 -
Mullins is a very different businessman to Street. He's an entrepreneur who has built up a successful business, which is impressive... but it's a business a tiny fraction of the size of John Lewis (which has a turnover at least 50 times that of Pimlico).Sandpit said:
Where’s the Londoner Andy Street?Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
There must be one somewhere, a successful and well-known London businessperson willing to stand against an unpopular mayor. My first thought would be someone like Charlie Mullins, if he’s not enjoying his money too much, then I realised that he’s now 70 so probably wouldn’t want to do it.
Street came in and managed a big business very effectively, achieving good growth and profits. It's also impressive but not that similar - it's very different from being an entrepreneur like Mullins.
In terms of a major elected mayoralty, I have to say the skill set of Street is a better fit, and I suspect Mullins would find it hugely frustrating. You're needing to manage a large bureaucracy and a lot of characters with different objectives, and I think running John Lewis is much more relevant to that.1 -
TBF, they are a symptom of the internal heat of the earth, without which we would indeed be pretty chilly.TimS said:
The underwater volcano fallacy is a specific one that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of decades. People actually believe the heat emitted from subsea volcanism warms the sea enough to account for warming. Not that CO2 from volcanism changes atmospheric chemistry.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.
What it really highlights is how difficult it is for us to get our heads round the massive thermal capacity of water compared with air, and the sheet vastness of the oceans. Some simple maths shows just how minuscule the basic thermal effect would be even if subsea volcanism were to increase 100-fold and the oceans were much shallower. But you can see the superficial appeal because people see kettles boiling and think “eureka”. Oddly enough much harder for people to imagine land volcanoes heating the air directly even though the thermal capacity of air is orders of magnitude lower.
But good point about heat capacity - heat transfer between ocean and atmosphere (and the energy transfers involved in the phase change between water and glacial ice) greatly complicate climate modelling.0 -
Cameron, May and even Boris were pro action on climate change, pro net zero and Boris put forward the petrol cars ban.Nigelb said:NickPalmer said:I was talking to a member deep in the selection process in a winnable seat - one applicant is really majoring on climate change, another is focusing on aid for victims of scandals (Post Office, Hillsborough, etc.). She's leaning to the first as she thinks that, with NHS and cost of living, that will be the key theme in the election. But I wonder if it is (I'm not sure that victims will be either, sadly). People who agree it's happening and important are already not voting Tory, whereas for cost of living the position is less clear-cut, so perhaps we should be focusing on that?
Conversely, Sunak seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy to fight the looking wall of Tory abstentions - "we might lose but let's motivate the remaining supporters to actually vote".
What we're seeing here is how the right blames the left for their own foolishness.Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.
The Tories have been in power for the last decade - how and why is "the activist left" setting their agenda ?
However the left via Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have overreached and Sunak has seen an opportunity post Uxbridge and is now pushing a more pro motorist and pro oil and gas agenda0 -
Besides,Sandpit said:
Where’s the Londoner Andy Street?Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
There must be one somewhere, a successful and well-known London businessperson willing to stand against an unpopular mayor. My first thought would be someone like Charlie Mullins, if he’s not enjoying his money too much, then I realised that he’s now 70 so probably wouldn’t want to do it.
Pimlico Plumbers donated £22,735 to the Conservative Party in 2015, and Mullins donated more than £48,000, in the two years to July 2017. He was a business adviser to David Cameron and George Osborne, and has been a vocal critic of Brexit.
In January 2018, Mullins announced that he would no longer be a Conservative Party donor, and declared his candidacy as an independent at the 2021 London mayoral election (which had been scheduled for 2020, before being postponed) but Mullins did not appear on the ballot paper. In March 2018, Mullins said he would financially support the Liberal Democrats to support their campaign to prevent Brexit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Mullins
If a party chooses to chase retired homeowners, that's a valid choice and overall an electorally sound one. But it has consequences.1 -
Yes - the results were part of the stack of evidence that suggested Something Else Was Needed to explain the world around us.Flatlander said:
Indeed. Didn't he also do a calculation of the age of the sun without knowing about nuclear reactions?Nigelb said:
Before we worked out that half of the Earth's internal heat was generated by radioactive decay, Lord Kelvin conclusively demonstrated the planet could only be a few thousand years old.Flatlander said:
Technically that's not untrue. It is just that we have anthropogenic change on top.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
Without those volcanoes, we'd still have a Snowball Earth.1 -
The word on the street is that Scully was excluded as part of CCHQ rigging the selection for Daniel Korski, a Cameron SpAd, who then got caught up in groping allegations and withdrew. The trouble with producing a skewed shortlist is that if the only strong candidate pulls out, you are left with, well, Susan Hall in this case.noneoftheabove said:
Unless there are some unknown things about Paul Scully, very weird he didn't even make the shortlist. I think he would have had a decent chance.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/11/minister-for-london-paul-scully-fails-to-make-tory-shortlist-to-run-for-city-mayor0 -
FPT - Those contributors here who are in the habit of calling Rishi Sunak "little" or otherwise referencing his shorter than average height should ask whether they ever did the same for, say, Ariel Sharon, whose height was the same. Or for Winston Churchill, who was shorter. I'm guessing no. What they are really deriding about Sunak is the fact that he doesn't come across as butch.
I doubt Sunak will be remembered as actually having done anything of any importance, but insofar as he doesn't seem to be vacuous or a bullshitter you gotta admit he seems superior in his level of skill in prime ministerial office to his three Tory predecessors.1 -
That's rubbish, since (for a start) PHEVs will continue to be manufactured.Miklosvar said:Multiply the Titanic by Brexit by the Scotch parliament building by DRS by the groundnut scheme
Square the result
Square the result again
The number you have arrived at is invisible next to the clusterfuck that the no new ICE cars by 2030 plan is going to be. Buy a diesel truck, a 20,000 litre diesel storage tank, and a shotgun for the defence of both.0 -
While Corbyn actually said he wanted to reopen coal mines....HYUFD said:
Cameron, May and even Boris were pro action on climate change, pro net zero and Boris put forward the petrol cars ban.Nigelb said:NickPalmer said:I was talking to a member deep in the selection process in a winnable seat - one applicant is really majoring on climate change, another is focusing on aid for victims of scandals (Post Office, Hillsborough, etc.). She's leaning to the first as she thinks that, with NHS and cost of living, that will be the key theme in the election. But I wonder if it is (I'm not sure that victims will be either, sadly). People who agree it's happening and important are already not voting Tory, whereas for cost of living the position is less clear-cut, so perhaps we should be focusing on that?
Conversely, Sunak seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy to fight the looking wall of Tory abstentions - "we might lose but let's motivate the remaining supporters to actually vote".
What we're seeing here is how the right blames the left for their own foolishness.Casino_Royale said:So over 2/3rd of Conservative members do believe climate change is caused by humans and almost 90% think it's real?
Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world to its dangers. Decades ago. Because she understood the science. All Conservatives revere her and should understand that. But she was practical too.
What we're seeing here is the consequences of allowing this issue to be entirely captured by the activist Left, which fuels polarisation.
The Tories have been in power for the last decade - how and why is "the activist left" setting their agenda ?
However the left via Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have overreached and Sunak has seen an opportunity post Uxbridge and is now pushing a more pro motorist and pro oil and gas agenda0 -
More good news for Rishi.
Interest rates up again.0 -
Interest rates up quarter a percent0
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Excellent news for savers.Alanbrooke said:Interest rates op quarter a percent
We’ve been persecuted for too long whilst mortgage holders have had it easy for the last 15 years.1 -
If democracy requires control of the flow of information received by voters, is it really democracy?Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.0 -
The confusing thing is that social media doesn't sound a million miles different from the early days of printing, with all sorts of mad things being printed, the same disregard for fact and the preference for what was slanderous and exciting, and democracy was born from that tumult.Gardenwalker said:A very sane father of a friend of mine, former Labour Party member, and (now retired) self-made entrepreneur, now believes that global warming is caused by underwater volcanoes.
Social media is a cancer on our democracy.
So why is it different with social media now?0 -
Yes, I have only just realised what a complete scam they are. A PHEV range rover has 1.5x the diesel capacity of my actual diesel pickup. And goes about 300 yards on electric.Nigelb said:
That's rubbish, since (for a start) PHEVs will continue to be manufactured.Miklosvar said:Multiply the Titanic by Brexit by the Scotch parliament building by DRS by the groundnut scheme
Square the result
Square the result again
The number you have arrived at is invisible next to the clusterfuck that the no new ICE cars by 2030 plan is going to be. Buy a diesel truck, a 20,000 litre diesel storage tank, and a shotgun for the defence of both.
0 -
...
It is, once again though, Sunak's wet faction fixing it up for their guy (don't mention the groping allegations), then that falling through with the inevitable outcome. It's the leadership election all over again - Sunak's team used his early favourite status to contribute votes and knock everyone except the weakest candidate out; then the Tory membership wisely saw that he was even shitter than Truss and voted for her. We got Truss because of Sunak. We got Susan Hall because of Sunak.noneoftheabove said:
Unless there are some unknown things about Paul Scully, very weird he didn't even make the shortlist. I think he would have had a decent chance.Stuartinromford said:
The theory of Boris's mayorality was that Boris could do the cheerleading and appoint capable minions to do the admin for him. How much that worked is a question for the history books. Quite a bit of what came out of Boris's mind was sizzle-without-sausage which no minion could make work, no matter how capable.noneoftheabove said:
MoL is a weird job. Ideally you need a mix of Boris and a really good administrator, which ain't going to happen. Split the role in two somehow with a Cheerleader for London and an Administrator for London.NickPalmer said:
Like all generalisations that doesn't quite hold - I know several people, not all regularly Labour, who like him. The usual reason given is "a serious guy who has a positive agenda, unlike Boris". All of them strongly disapprove of Starmer's attempt to push him, and want him to say "sod off, Keir, I'm running London and we need clean air".Leon said:
I've yet to meet an actual Sadiq Khan VOTER - as in someone who openly and avowedly says "Oh yes I'm voting for him". Most people say Meh, what a boring jerk. The full-on haters really hate him. A small minority say "Oh well he';s not great but I might have to"Casino_Royale said:FPT - I've yet to meet anyone who respects Sadiq Khan.
I know a couple of New Labour SPADs who laughed out loud when I mentioned his name, and a few people in business who'd met him who said he was completely barking.
I think even the people who vote for him do so with clothes pegs on their nose.
Yet he's apparently coasting to victory again
I am sure I live in something of an ethnic bubble, more white than most of London, but that bubble is politically diverse from UKIP Brexiteers to plenty of lefties (of all classes)
I cannot find an enthusiastic Khan voter. He is eminently beatable and it is pathetic that the Tories have not found anyone to do it
Anecdata, I know. I think there is a structural problem - the Mayoral office is mostly motivational rather than policy-focused, so you really need a bit of rah-rah-London-is-great stuff, which isn't Sadiq's style. But he'll still beat the Tory candidate by a country mile.
Sadiq, on the other hand, is boring. And whilst we need more boring overall, you can have too much of a good thing in one place.
But the impossible question is- who is this paragon who wants the job of London Mayor and is capable of winning it? I don't see anyone who wants it on the centre-left, or is capable of winning it from the centre-right. And the Conservatives have trapped themselves shouting to themselves in Zone 6.
So Sadiq, who is the word "meh" given human flesh, keeps on going.
The Tory Party has a settled pro-Britain view, and a settled views on the desirability of low taxes and a small state. The wets need to stop hijacking the Tory party, and go and start a new party to get a mandate for the policies they espouse, and see how many people flock to their cause. I understand the name 'Change UK' may be available.1 -
TheScreamingEagles said:
Excellent news for savers.Alanbrooke said:Interest rates op quarter a percent
We’ve been persecuted for too long whilst mortgage holders have had it easy for the last 15 years.
What chance do you think the banks will pass this on to savers ?0
