Making An Offer They Cannot Refuse? – politicalbetting.com

Leon said:

Why is France so boring

It's interesting how it's changed since the 80s/90s. Clive James's Postcard from Paris (1988) makes it seem like one of the most interesting places in the world.

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

TheScreamingEagles said:

From a member of the Chancellor’s economic advisory council




https://x.com/benchu_/status/1704425366297682082?s=46

The Chancellor has an economic advisory council? Wow.

Foxy said:

SandyRentool said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

It's a low offer but many cannot afford to fight for a better offer, or even to wait for one.

"Take it or leave it" summarises this government all over. No attempt at being reasonable or open. Same goes for the governments refusal to negotiate with the BMA and other health unions.

I expect that Tory backbenchers will have similar expressions to this bunch of NHS staff when he next appears.

Rishi "son-in-law of an Indian oligarch" Sunak.

No conflict of interest in Sunak's dealings with Modi. None whatsoever.

And with India in the frame for bumping off that Canadian Sikh, there may be some Sikh reaction here to Sunak chumming up with Modi.

Well there is in our house. But then Wor Lass already thought that Sunak and Modi were a pair of twats anyway.

I'll have to see if my Tory-voting brother in law turns against them.

Malmesbury said:

a

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

No, I believe they should have good access to public transport.

We make a tonne of various rural -> rural location journeys. For instance yesterday we had to make a journey through Sheepwash lane on the outskirts of Tickhill yesterday with our toddler. Don't worry I wasn't doing any more than 5 MPH . It's somewhere public transport is never ever going to go.

What is interesting is the inability to understand that due to the low frequency of journeys between various locations, public transport doesn't make sense for those locations.

A bus every tens minutes from every village to every possible destination would simply fill the countryside with empty buses.

In the age of the EV, the pollution argument collapses.

Blame the number line.

There's been some research into human cognition that suggests our instinctive understanding of numbers and quantities is logarithmic. We intuitively understand doubling rather than linear counting.

In school this is drummed out of kids with the number line, with counting and simple addition and subtraction. So it means that as adults we all have difficulties in comprehending large changes of several orders of magnitude.

The population density of Greater London is 5,596 people per square kilometre.
The population density of my local area is 20 people per square kilometre.

That's a difference of two and a half orders of magnitude. That isn't just a bit more difficult to provide public transport, it's effectively impossible to provide the same level of public transport.

no messing from simon clarke mp.

reversing climate action a profound mistake.

Carnyx said:

FPT

NerysHughes said:

Carnyx said:

NerysHughes said:

Taz said:

Dura_Ace said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Anabobazina said:

Eabhal said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

rottenborough said:

Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
1h
Lots of Whitehall blindsided tonight on the car element of the net zero package, and the timing.

Not least the UK delegation in New York for the climate events at UNGA

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704224035821715651

Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.

As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.

The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?

2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier

Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.

This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.

williamglenn said:

rottenborough said:

Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
19m
is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?

This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.

Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.

The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.

Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.

What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.

Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).

A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍

That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.

Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.

It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.

Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.

This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.

Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.

But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.

I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.

The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.

Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.

In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)

Schools,museums and other public building are the ideal location for an EV charging point as you will need something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle.

LAs are certainly spending fortunees advertising their green credentials and then not doing anything about it.

Thanks - interesting thought. It would fit into the commercial activities of the average museum. Bookshop, cafe, room hire, so the budgetary setup and sales desk will be there. But schools, perhaps not so much.

There's also the point that (re Nerys's 'something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle') that there are EVs out now that will get to 80% charge within 18 minutes
(e.g. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-02/cars-on-hyundai-s-electric-platform-can-charge-80-in-18-minutes - there are more recent videos etc showing this actually in action)
The assumption would be that by 2030 that charging time will be reduced further. There's a big need for infrastructure roll out and it does make sense to pop it in places that people go anyway, such as supermarkets, car parks, but by the time that all you can buy is an EV then it's likely that a top-up at a dedicated charging station* is going to take a comparable time to putting fuel in an ICEV.

Now, there will be second hand EVs with longer charging times at that point, but there will also be plenty of second hand ICEVs too, so people can choose - those without home charging might stick with ICEVs longer as a long-charge EV without home charging may not be viable, depending on use and existing patterns of visits to locations with chargers with long enough duration to make that convenient.

*will be interesting to see whether these will exist, given the other options. But given that petrol stations are all, pretty much, convenience shop hosts anyway, I'd guess they probably will, perhaps in smaller numbers.

Leon said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Boring boring boring. Stupid Citroens

“Le taxicab”

Baguettes

Wankers

One person's boring is another person's relaxing.

But it is quite dull. After four decades of constant travel I’ve finally realised. France is boring

This may partly be me. I am reminded of the Italian saying: “show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man that is tired of fucking her”

France is undeniably beautiful. But I’ve been here so often I’ve seen everything and now I’m “tired of fucking her”. Especially as the food has gone to shit: it really is remarkably bad now. In ten days I’ve had three memorable meals - memorable for being disgusting. The rest were all deeply mediocre. I had one pleasant dinner

But it isn’t just that, either. There’s something else. Is it because the French are quite humourless? Could be. I shall ponder on the train to Toulouse

France isn't somewhere to go, it is somewhere to go with someone.

If it, the country, is the focus then I can perfectly imagine that it pales after constant revisiting. If you are taking someone there, however, and the country itself is a venue for the main event which is to be with that person, then it is beyond compare.

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Boring boring boring. Stupid Citroens

“Le taxicab”

Baguettes

Wankers

One person's boring is another person's relaxing.

But it is quite dull. After four decades of constant travel I’ve finally realised. France is boring

This may partly be me. I am reminded of the Italian saying: “show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man that is tired of fucking her”

France is undeniably beautiful. But I’ve been here so often I’ve seen everything and now I’m “tired of fucking her”. Especially as the food has gone to shit: it really is remarkably bad now. In ten days I’ve had three memorable meals - memorable for being disgusting. The rest were all deeply mediocre. I had one pleasant dinner

But it isn’t just that, either. There’s something else. Is it because the French are quite humourless? Could be. I shall ponder on the train to Toulouse

France isn't somewhere to go, it is somewhere to go with someone.

If it, the country, is the focus then I can perfectly imagine that it pales after constant revisiting. If you are taking someone there, however, and the country itself is a venue for the main event which is to be with that person, then it is beyond compare.

No, that’s Italy. Far superior in every way

Leon said:

Actually I think that spectator writer nailed it in this article...

"French food is the worst in the world: The country’s restaurants have become museums", by Sean Thomas, 15 September 2023, from the Spectator website, see Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/yYrVq

Leon said:

Actually I think that spectator writer nailed it in this article about “shite French food” - France is a museum country with a museum language and now museum food in the museum cafe

As in a museum, everything is beautifully preserved (French town centres are in a notably better state than British town centres). But preserved in an enervating stasis

Museum France or Theme Park Britain.

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Is car ownership an inalienable right? A tool that has existed barely 100 years? Like, I can understand that the idea of the individual car was appealing at some point in history, but as an experiment I think it is a complete failure. It has completely warped how we view all infrastructure - housing, shopping, work, school; all wrapped around the individual driver. They are always going to be extractive - whether it's oil or lithium, the resources to make new cars are exhaustible. Active measures were taken to destroy the infrastructure we already had in part to create car dependency - why was it not authoritarian when those were destroyed?

People look at a world that has been designed with the car in mind and say "wait a minute, if you got rid of cars, life would be shit". Yes - because of the choice to revolve everything around cars. Invest in a world without cars, and it can be positive.

A cargo ship has suffered an incident in the Danube, allegedly within Romanian waters. It may have hit a mine.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

...France is...only 22 miles away. It's...a slightly tidier version of Britain with good trains...

[Fills out forms for French residency]

148grss said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Is car ownership an inalienable right? A tool that has existed barely 100 years? Like, I can understand that the idea of the individual car was appealing at some point in history, but as an experiment I think it is a complete failure. It has completely warped how we view all infrastructure - housing, shopping, work, school; all wrapped around the individual driver. They are always going to be extractive - whether it's oil or lithium, the resources to make new cars are exhaustible. Active measures were taken to destroy the infrastructure we already had in part to create car dependency - why was it not authoritarian when those were destroyed?

People look at a world that has been designed with the car in mind and say "wait a minute, if you got rid of cars, life would be shit". Yes - because of the choice to revolve everything around cars. Invest in a world without cars, and it can be positive.

Over the course of centuries, humankind has grown ever more prosperous and free. We will continue to do that, despite the odd stutter introduced by those who don't value freedom or prosperity, and want to shut it off for everyone.

TOPPING said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

There is a difference between making the alternative un-rubbish and making eg rural, or semi-rural ( @148grss) public transport equivalent to that in London.

It's comparing apples and chalk.

I think that infrastructure should be designed such that a bus stop is never more than a 10 minute walk away, you shouldn't have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus, and that local amenities (shops, doctors, schools, hospitals, libraries etc) should all be accessible by bus. I also absolutely hate the anti homeless design of bus stops with slanted benches or irregular armrests that also make it massively uncomfortable for people who need to sit whilst waiting.

Selebian said:

Carnyx said:

FPT

NerysHughes said:

Carnyx said:

NerysHughes said:

Taz said:

Dura_Ace said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Anabobazina said:

Eabhal said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

rottenborough said:

Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
1h
Lots of Whitehall blindsided tonight on the car element of the net zero package, and the timing.

Not least the UK delegation in New York for the climate events at UNGA

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704224035821715651

Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.

As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.

The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?

2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier

Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.

This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.

williamglenn said:

rottenborough said:

Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
19m
is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?

This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.

Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.

The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.

Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.

What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.

Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).

A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍

That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.

Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.

It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.

Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.

This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.

Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.

But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.

I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.

The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.

Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.

In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)

Schools,museums and other public building are the ideal location for an EV charging point as you will need something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle.

LAs are certainly spending fortunees advertising their green credentials and then not doing anything about it.

Thanks - interesting thought. It would fit into the commercial activities of the average museum. Bookshop, cafe, room hire, so the budgetary setup and sales desk will be there. But schools, perhaps not so much.

There's also the point that (re Nerys's 'something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle') that there are EVs out now that will get to 80% charge within 18 minutes
(e.g. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-02/cars-on-hyundai-s-electric-platform-can-charge-80-in-18-minutes - there are more recent videos etc showing this actually in action)
The assumption would be that by 2030 that charging time will be reduced further. There's a big need for infrastructure roll out and it does make sense to pop it in places that people go anyway, such as supermarkets, car parks, but by the time that all you can buy is an EV then it's likely that a top-up at a dedicated charging station* is going to take a comparable time to putting fuel in an ICEV.

Now, there will be second hand EVs with longer charging times at that point, but there will also be plenty of second hand ICEVs too, so people can choose - those without home charging might stick with ICEVs longer as a long-charge EV without home charging may not be viable, depending on use and existing patterns of visits to locations with chargers with long enough duration to make that convenient.

*will be interesting to see whether these will exist, given the other options. But given that petrol stations are all, pretty much, convenience shop hosts anyway, I'd guess they probably will, perhaps in smaller numbers.

There are 3 kinds of charging.

One is basically plugging it into the equivalent of a wall socket - take a whole day to charge a serious amount.

There is charging from a specialist unit, still compatible with a domestic electricity supply. It would take hours to completely

The last is "Supercharging" - charging as fast as possible. Your filling station replacement - requires serious infrastructure.

Providing the first costs very little. Providing the second costs thousands. The last is really only sensible as as a pump replacement.

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

Leon said:

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Boring boring boring. Stupid Citroens

“Le taxicab”

Baguettes

Wankers

One person's boring is another person's relaxing.

But it is quite dull. After four decades of constant travel I’ve finally realised. France is boring

This may partly be me. I am reminded of the Italian saying: “show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man that is tired of fucking her”

France is undeniably beautiful. But I’ve been here so often I’ve seen everything and now I’m “tired of fucking her”. Especially as the food has gone to shit: it really is remarkably bad now. In ten days I’ve had three memorable meals - memorable for being disgusting. The rest were all deeply mediocre. I had one pleasant dinner

But it isn’t just that, either. There’s something else. Is it because the French are quite humourless? Could be. I shall ponder on the train to Toulouse

France isn't somewhere to go, it is somewhere to go with someone.

If it, the country, is the focus then I can perfectly imagine that it pales after constant revisiting. If you are taking someone there, however, and the country itself is a venue for the main event which is to be with that person, then it is beyond compare.

No, that’s Italy. Far superior in every way

Disagree. If you're with your squeeze passing the eg Trevi Fountain or in Umbria you are looking intently at the Tech Fountain or Umbria.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Leon said:

Actually I think that spectator writer nailed it in this article about “shite French food” - France is a museum country with a museum language and now museum food in the museum cafe

As in a museum, everything is beautifully preserved (French town centres are in a notably better state than British town centres). But preserved in an enervating stasis

Of course France is boring, it's only 22 miles away. It's like a slightly tidier version of Britain with good trains but full of people driving on the wrong side of the road and saying things you can't understand. And the beer is all crap. I've never seen the appeal of the place personally. Even Germany is more interesting.

My wife, when aged 15, went on a school-organised pen-friend trip to France and was assaulted by her pen-friend’s father.
She’s never really wanted to go to France since, 60+ years ago. We have been a couple of times since retiring though!

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

I'm 6ft 4 with long legs - can public transport be a nuisance for that, yes, but most things are.

I think the point about making public transport unrubbish is the key. True freedom would be the freedom to pick between well functioning public transport or a car. We don't have the first in this country, so people are forced into the second. Indeed - the first was purposefully dismantled in many places in favour of the second.

TOPPING said:

148grss said:

TOPPING said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

There is a difference between making the alternative un-rubbish and making eg rural, or semi-rural ( @148grss) public transport equivalent to that in London.

It's comparing apples and chalk.

I think that infrastructure should be designed such that a bus stop is never more than a 10 minute walk away, you shouldn't have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus, and that local amenities (shops, doctors, schools, hospitals, libraries etc) should all be accessible by bus. I also absolutely hate the anti homeless design of bus stops with slanted benches or irregular armrests that also make it massively uncomfortable for people who need to sit whilst waiting.

So four buses an hour everywhere in the country? Why not an owl also.

We currently have 2.5 cars as an average for every new built house in the country. Which is also ridiculous. I'm not denying that my view is utopian - but people ignore the dystopic world created by the car.

Has this been reported here yet?

Mid Beds latest polling by Survation. Con 29%, Lab 29%, LD 22%, RUK 7%, Mackey 6%, Others 6%.

https://www.survation.com/mid-bedfordshire-by-election-update/

viewcode said:

Leon said:

Actually I think that spectator writer nailed it in this article...

"French food is the worst in the world: The country’s restaurants have become museums", by Sean Thomas, 15 September 2023, from the Spectator website, see Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/yYrVq

For some unaccountable reason my partner bought the Spectator at the airport before our trip to Berlin. What a rag, designed solely to batter/massage the reactionary clitoris. The recurrence of Rod Liddle wasn't even the worst thing about it.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

nico679 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Looks bloody awful to me, not to mention that Sunak only got the job because he *did* stand up to Liz Truss. It's a mindless pastiche of Tony Blair's swipe at John Major. But can any PBers comment on that rather odd necklace Liz Truss is wearing?

Connecting Sunak to Truss is good politics regardless of the truth .

Is it though? I'm not sure most voters have a view on Liz Truss, Daily Star readers aside. She was in and out in 49 days most of which was taken up with changing monarchs.

The view is she was a disaster . Clearly Sunak thinks this is a vote winner otherwise he wouldn’t do the u-turn . Whether it is time will tell .

Wulfrun_Phil said:

Has this been reported here yet?

Mid Beds latest polling by Survation. Con 29%, Lab 29%, LD 22%, RUK 7%, Mackey 6%, Others 6%.

https://www.survation.com/mid-bedfordshire-by-election-update/

Yes, on Saturday.

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Is car ownership an inalienable right? A tool that has existed barely 100 years? Like, I can understand that the idea of the individual car was appealing at some point in history, but as an experiment I think it is a complete failure. It has completely warped how we view all infrastructure - housing, shopping, work, school; all wrapped around the individual driver. They are always going to be extractive - whether it's oil or lithium, the resources to make new cars are exhaustible. Active measures were taken to destroy the infrastructure we already had in part to create car dependency - why was it not authoritarian when those were destroyed?

People look at a world that has been designed with the car in mind and say "wait a minute, if you got rid of cars, life would be shit". Yes - because of the choice to revolve everything around cars. Invest in a world without cars, and it can be positive.

Over the course of centuries, humankind has grown ever more prosperous and free. We will continue to do that, despite the odd stutter introduced by those who don't value freedom or prosperity, and want to shut it off for everyone.

It is a Ponzi Scheme. And we are realising this, slowly but surely.

Theuniondivvie said:

viewcode said:

Leon said:

Actually I think that spectator writer nailed it in this article...

"French food is the worst in the world: The country’s restaurants have become museums", by Sean Thomas, 15 September 2023, from the Spectator website, see Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/yYrVq

For some unaccountable reason my partner bought the Spectator at the airport before our trip to Berlin. What a rag, designed solely to batter/massage the reactionary clitoris. The recurrence of Rod Liddle wasn't even the worst thing about it.

Quite brilliant . The phrase “ reactionary clitoris “ should go down in the annals of PB history .

Sandpit said:

It looks like a ceasefire has been agreed between Azerbaijan and Armenia, after the Azeris quickly gained substantial territory in the disputed area.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/20/azerbaijan-armenia-conflict-live-nagorno-karabakh-latest/

My guess would be someone's had a word in Azerbaijan's ear about not messing up the Russia/Ukraine aggressors evil narrative.

nico679 said:

Theuniondivvie said:

viewcode said:

Leon said:

Actually I think that spectator writer nailed it in this article...

"French food is the worst in the world: The country’s restaurants have become museums", by Sean Thomas, 15 September 2023, from the Spectator website, see Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/yYrVq

For some unaccountable reason my partner bought the Spectator at the airport before our trip to Berlin. What a rag, designed solely to batter/massage the reactionary clitoris. The recurrence of Rod Liddle wasn't even the worst thing about it.

Quite brilliant . The phrase “ reactionary clitoris “ should go down in the annals of PB history .

Almost good enough to get published in The Spectator, the oldest and arguably most prestigious weekly magazine in the world. But not quite

Selebian said:

OldKingCole said:

I often wonder why buses appear to have to be quite so big. I’m sure minibuses or similar would be perfectly adequate on many rural and suburban routes.

There are/were* smaller buses on rural routes round here, half standard bus size rather than transit-type things though. I guess the issue is about people getting on/off - your standard minibus doesn't enable that quite as easily as your standard bus - i.e. you may have to flip seats around - and they have height restrictions which require passengers having decent balance and flexibility.

*but many of these have not resumed after the Covid pandemic

Where my parents live, in a rural town, there’s an hourly ‘hopper’ bus that runs around I think once an hour during the day, going to the extremities and villages, bringing people to the town centre, doctors’ surgery etc. It’s funded by the town council and mostly serves pensioners. The drivers are all local volunteers, who these days need training and CRB checks etc. From memory it’s a Sprinter van modified to accommodate a wheelchair. The council also makes some money back by having it licenced as a minicab, doing private bookings in the evenings.

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

Absolutely for towns and cities - public transport, walking and cycling are the priorities. But in the sticks? It would be crazy to adopt an "if we create it they will come" approach as we'd have a lot of empty buses.

I live in New Pitsligo. We have a handful of buses to Fraserburgh a day, and a single one to Banff - with none at all at the weekend. The big bus routes come from Aberdeen - to Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Macduff & Banff etc. There just aren't enough people in villages away from these routes to justify running them. If anything the "dial-a-bus" taxi makes more sense.

For my kids it would be brilliant if the Aberdeen - Fraserburgh route was diverted to run through New Pitsligo. But its 10 extra miles and likely 15 added minutes...

I mean, why shouldn't people in the sticks have the option for public transport? If buses aren't feasible then smaller local railways. Cars are not the only way to do this. I stayed in Devon with a partner years ago in the sticks - the nearest shop was a 30 minute walk away and you had to drive as no bus went near it often enough. I don't think that's acceptable.

So what are the economics of a bus being there to transport you from your place to the shop - and then back again? What are the environmental considerations?

I am pro bus and pro public transport. Stridently so in urban areas. But what you are proposing just isn't possible or frankly sane for a number of reasons.

MattW said:

viewcode said:

New video dropped, this time from William Spaniel. He has a theory about Ukraine tactics: basically that given the failure of an all-out offensive earlier in the year, Ukraine has switched to attritional warfare.

In this theory Ukraine is not really counterattacking. Instead it is making many pinprick assaults with the sole aim of drawing the defenders out and killing them.

Problem is, that approach only works if we assume Russia cannot provide reinforcements, and that assumption is facially ridiculous. But (and here's the gamble) Spaniel reckons that given the electoral calendar - Putin is standing again in March 2024 and inaugurated in May 2024 - there won't be another Russian mobilisation until Summer 2024.

So there y'go. Ukraine has a plan, at least in Spaniel's head. I'm dubious it'll work, but what do I know? The video is below and DYOR

"Ukraine's Alternate Win Condition: Inside the Gamble on the War of Attrition", 19 Sep 2023, William Spaniel, YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lebWSl49R0c

I struggle with a serious commentator called William Spaniel.

I keep expecting Rowlf the Dog from the Muppets.

Naomi Wolf, Liam Fox, Gary Hart, Jane Roe, Fawn Hall, Eric Heifer, Chris Grayling...

...and Nicola Sturgeon

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

Absolutely for towns and cities - public transport, walking and cycling are the priorities. But in the sticks? It would be crazy to adopt an "if we create it they will come" approach as we'd have a lot of empty buses.

I live in New Pitsligo. We have a handful of buses to Fraserburgh a day, and a single one to Banff - with none at all at the weekend. The big bus routes come from Aberdeen - to Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Macduff & Banff etc. There just aren't enough people in villages away from these routes to justify running them. If anything the "dial-a-bus" taxi makes more sense.

For my kids it would be brilliant if the Aberdeen - Fraserburgh route was diverted to run through New Pitsligo. But its 10 extra miles and likely 15 added minutes...

I mean, why shouldn't people in the sticks have the option for public transport? If buses aren't feasible then smaller local railways. Cars are not the only way to do this. I stayed in Devon with a partner years ago in the sticks - the nearest shop was a 30 minute walk away and you had to drive as no bus went near it often enough. I don't think that's acceptable.

So what are the economics of a bus being there to transport you from your place to the shop - and then back again? What are the environmental considerations?

I am pro bus and pro public transport. Stridently so in urban areas. But what you are proposing just isn't possible or frankly sane for a number of reasons.

I'm pretty relaxed about a lack of public transport in rural areas. Motoring taxation should be set up to help that 20% of the population out (replace with congestion charging, for example).

It's the 80% in urban areas that we should focus on, and the low density of our housing stock in those areas that make public transport less efficient. The spamming of detached houses with two parking spots and a garage needs to end, from both a congestion and housing supply point of view.

Andy_JS said:

https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/the-great-god-zil

Interesting read, thank you.

SandyRentool said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Is car ownership an inalienable right? A tool that has existed barely 100 years? Like, I can understand that the idea of the individual car was appealing at some point in history, but as an experiment I think it is a complete failure. It has completely warped how we view all infrastructure - housing, shopping, work, school; all wrapped around the individual driver. They are always going to be extractive - whether it's oil or lithium, the resources to make new cars are exhaustible. Active measures were taken to destroy the infrastructure we already had in part to create car dependency - why was it not authoritarian when those were destroyed?

People look at a world that has been designed with the car in mind and say "wait a minute, if you got rid of cars, life would be shit". Yes - because of the choice to revolve everything around cars. Invest in a world without cars, and it can be positive.

Over the course of centuries, humankind has grown ever more prosperous and free. We will continue to do that, despite the odd stutter introduced by those who don't value freedom or prosperity, and want to shut it off for everyone.

It is a Ponzi Scheme. And we are realising this, slowly but surely.

Bollocks. We will keep moving forward, and by the time we're at capacity here, there will be other planets.

Ok, in my vehicular scouring of FB marketplace, this is the most egregious listing yet.

'I need to sell asap!'

Yeah, just like the other 30+ radically underpriced cars on his profile.

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

Absolutely for towns and cities - public transport, walking and cycling are the priorities. But in the sticks? It would be crazy to adopt an "if we create it they will come" approach as we'd have a lot of empty buses.

I live in New Pitsligo. We have a handful of buses to Fraserburgh a day, and a single one to Banff - with none at all at the weekend. The big bus routes come from Aberdeen - to Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Macduff & Banff etc. There just aren't enough people in villages away from these routes to justify running them. If anything the "dial-a-bus" taxi makes more sense.

For my kids it would be brilliant if the Aberdeen - Fraserburgh route was diverted to run through New Pitsligo. But its 10 extra miles and likely 15 added minutes...

I mean, why shouldn't people in the sticks have the option for public transport? If buses aren't feasible then smaller local railways. Cars are not the only way to do this. I stayed in Devon with a partner years ago in the sticks - the nearest shop was a 30 minute walk away and you had to drive as no bus went near it often enough. I don't think that's acceptable.

So what are the economics of a bus being there to transport you from your place to the shop - and then back again? What are the environmental considerations?

I am pro bus and pro public transport. Stridently so in urban areas. But what you are proposing just isn't possible or frankly sane for a number of reasons.

I would rather a plan for infrastructure that prioritises public transport and maybe "over delivers" based on need, rather than one that basically allows public transport to fall apart and massively under delivers.

148grss said:

TOPPING said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

There is a difference between making the alternative un-rubbish and making eg rural, or semi-rural ( @148grss) public transport equivalent to that in London.

It's comparing apples and chalk.

I think that infrastructure should be designed such that a bus stop is never more than a 10 minute walk away, you shouldn't have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus, and that local amenities (shops, doctors, schools, hospitals, libraries etc) should all be accessible by bus. I also absolutely hate the anti homeless design of bus stops with slanted benches or irregular armrests that also make it massively uncomfortable for people who need to sit whilst waiting.

Do you have any idea how much that would cost? The number of bus drivers it would require?

Stocky said:

I'd quite like an electric car.

To buy a small one (for example a Fiat 500 electric) I would need £26k to £34k. Plus - I think - £1,500 for a home charger inc installation.

Or I could by a small petrol (e.g. the excellent Hyundai i10) for £15k+.

So I'm not buying an electric car.

People keep saying the EV prices are going to fall. My question is do those pushing EVs really want them to?

I mean, if EVs stay eyewatering costly then this will price many out of the market when petrols become banned. Maybe this is part of the anti-car agenda? Maybe I'm cynical?

If they really expect EVs to come down to the price of an equivalent petrol then great I will buy one as soon as this happens but the government shouldn't ban petrols until this happens.

I bought my Renault Zoe for £12k. Home charger £800.

TimS said:

Stocky said:

I'd quite like an electric car.

To buy a small one (for example a Fiat 500 electric) I would need £26k to £34k. Plus - I think - £1,500 for a home charger inc installation.

Or I could by a small petrol (e.g. the excellent Hyundai i10) for £15k+.

So I'm not buying an electric car.

People keep saying the EV prices are going to fall. My question is do those pushing EVs really want them to?

I mean, if EVs stay eyewatering costly then this will price many out of the market when petrols become banned. Maybe this is part of the anti-car agenda? Maybe I'm cynical?

If they really expect EVs to come down to the price of an equivalent petrol then great I will buy one as soon as this happens but the government shouldn't ban petrols until this happens.

I bought my Renault Zoe for £12k. Home charger £800.

Brand new?

According to Renault, prices brand new start at £30k! You can buy an equiv petrol for almost half that.

https://offers.renault.co.uk/cars/zoe/personal-contract-purchase?offer=1196

Malmesbury said:

There is charging from a specialist unit, still compatible with a domestic electricity supply. It would take hours to completely

The last is "Supercharging" - charging as fast as possible. Your filling station replacement - requires serious infrastructure.

I installed two of these in our house:

https://www.ctek.com/uk/ev-charging/chargestorm-connected-2

That is all the charger any domestic user would ever need but they were about two grand each. They do add quite a bit to the value of your house though. Not that I can ever sell this house because I've done so much mad shit without planning permission.

nico679 said:

Going by the YouGov live poll so far Sunaks u-turn won’t harm the Tories and could help them .

The u-turn currently evenly split .

A strong majority of voters do though support the 2050 net zero target .

The Tories are being totally disingenuous on this. They can't just keep kicking the can down the road, and then expecting everything to magically happen in the late 2040s so that net zero is achieved.

There is a reason we have 5-yearly carbon budgets - we should be on a pathway to Net Zero. Instead, Sunak wants to sit on a bench, take off his boots, have a snooze, and then scoff his sandwiches and flask of tea. And then wonder why he hasn't reached the campsite by nightfall.

Eabhal said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

Absolutely for towns and cities - public transport, walking and cycling are the priorities. But in the sticks? It would be crazy to adopt an "if we create it they will come" approach as we'd have a lot of empty buses.

I live in New Pitsligo. We have a handful of buses to Fraserburgh a day, and a single one to Banff - with none at all at the weekend. The big bus routes come from Aberdeen - to Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Macduff & Banff etc. There just aren't enough people in villages away from these routes to justify running them. If anything the "dial-a-bus" taxi makes more sense.

For my kids it would be brilliant if the Aberdeen - Fraserburgh route was diverted to run through New Pitsligo. But its 10 extra miles and likely 15 added minutes...

I mean, why shouldn't people in the sticks have the option for public transport? If buses aren't feasible then smaller local railways. Cars are not the only way to do this. I stayed in Devon with a partner years ago in the sticks - the nearest shop was a 30 minute walk away and you had to drive as no bus went near it often enough. I don't think that's acceptable.

So what are the economics of a bus being there to transport you from your place to the shop - and then back again? What are the environmental considerations?

I am pro bus and pro public transport. Stridently so in urban areas. But what you are proposing just isn't possible or frankly sane for a number of reasons.

I'm pretty relaxed about a lack of public transport in rural areas. Motoring taxation should be set up to help that 20% of the population out (replace with congestion charging, for example).

It's the 80% in urban areas that we should focus on, and the low density of our housing stock in those areas that make public transport less efficient. The spamming of detached houses with two parking spots and a garage needs to end, from both a congestion and housing supply point of view.

IMO that is problematic for a number of reasons.

- Many people *cannot* have a driving license, eg for medical reasons.
- Just under 30% of adults do not have a driving license.
- 40% of disabled people do not have a full driving license.
- Lack of public transport incentivises people (especially elderly) to deceive the DVLA when eg eyesight deteriorates to keep a driving license. That results in deaths and injuries on our roads. I looked into that a couple of weeks ago, and whilst comprehensive data is not collected (eg sight testing of drivers involved in KSI accidents is not routine) media reports of short sighted drivers (eg can only read a number plate at 5-10m or less) mowing people down are not uncommon.

I'd suggest that it is not really OK to decide that all these millions of people should be forced to live in urban settings.

A village does not need a bus service every 10 minutes - it needs one frequent enough and with long enough hours, for people who need public transport to get where they need to go, and have time to do what they need to have done when they are there.

eg Two buses a day out and back to the local town which only allow an hour there is not enough.

I'd say it's about the need to give sufficient options / choices, and a degree of subsidy is reasonable. Part of that is making life without a motor vehicle a viable choice, which is where teh need for social and political change comes in.

rottenborough said:

"Sunak to hold emergency cabinet meeting to discuss new net zero plan"

Guardian blog


WTF? Sunak has lost the plot totally.

We are talking about 2030 or 2035 - why is there a need for an emergency extra Cabinet.

Scraping the bottom out of the barrel, and down into the next layer of barrels.

viewcode said:

MattW said:

viewcode said:

New video dropped, this time from William Spaniel. He has a theory about Ukraine tactics: basically that given the failure of an all-out offensive earlier in the year, Ukraine has switched to attritional warfare.

In this theory Ukraine is not really counterattacking. Instead it is making many pinprick assaults with the sole aim of drawing the defenders out and killing them.

Problem is, that approach only works if we assume Russia cannot provide reinforcements, and that assumption is facially ridiculous. But (and here's the gamble) Spaniel reckons that given the electoral calendar - Putin is standing again in March 2024 and inaugurated in May 2024 - there won't be another Russian mobilisation until Summer 2024.

So there y'go. Ukraine has a plan, at least in Spaniel's head. I'm dubious it'll work, but what do I know? The video is below and DYOR

"Ukraine's Alternate Win Condition: Inside the Gamble on the War of Attrition", 19 Sep 2023, William Spaniel, YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lebWSl49R0c

I struggle with a serious commentator called William Spaniel.

I keep expecting Rowlf the Dog from the Muppets.

Naomi Wolf, Liam Fox, Gary Hart, Jane Roe, Fawn Hall, Eric Heifer, Chris Grayling...

...and Nicola Sturgeon

Not to forget... Ben Pointer!

Stocky said:

I'd quite like an electric car.

To buy a small one (for example a Fiat 500 electric) I would need £26k to £34k. Plus - I think - £1,500 for a home charger inc installation.

Or I could by a small petrol (e.g. the excellent Hyundai i10) for £15k+.

So I'm not buying an electric car.

People keep saying the EV prices are going to fall. My question is do those pushing EVs really want them to?

I mean, if EVs stay eyewatering costly then this will price many out of the market when petrols become banned. Maybe this is part of the anti-car agenda? Maybe I'm cynical?

If they really expect EVs to come down to the price of an equivalent petrol then great I will buy one as soon as this happens but the government shouldn't ban petrols until this happens.

Two markets: the west, which is going EV at a huge pace, and the rest, where ICE will still be on offer for ages.

The problem with small EVs currently is that they are designed and built by legacy car makers who need to fit vehicles to what they have. An example being the Peugeot e208. Built on a platform designed for ICE and EV which means an engine under the bonnet and all the ancially gubbins such as a fuel tank and exhaust.

So the EV 208 is a compromise, having to create a motor-invertor stack to be assembled like an engine and dropped into the engine bay. More parts, crap packaging, expensive manufacturing. So it costs more.

An EV doesn't need any of that. Motor or motors on the axle or in the wheel hubs, move the invertor and other electronics and you have few parts packaged neatly. More space, less parts, less assembly. Lower cost.

But if you are Stellantis, and make a bomb from servicing and repair, why build something that is low cost that makes you no money ongoing? So we need to wait for China to accelerate more cars like the MG4 and Ora Cat.

Happily, chunks of the rest (of the world) will be sold old tech ICEs for a while, and many of those drive on the left. Unless we accelerate our EV adoption we will be stuck driving round in cars more aimed at 2nd and 3rd world consumers.

Andy_JS said:

Maybe we ought to start charging for use of motorways, given that only a small percentage of people actually use them.

Road pricing is coming anyway. The govt will need to replace the taxes and duties from fuel somehow.

OldKingCole said:

I often wonder why buses appear to have to be quite so big. I’m sure minibuses or similar would be perfectly adequate on many rural and suburban routes.

The wages of the bus driver should, in theory, be split between the passengers. Larger bus, more passengers, lower fare.

Perhaps you can make the economics of buses work with buses that don't carry 80 passengers, but there comes a point where if you say, "a smaller bus would make more sense for this route," then you are really saying, "buses don't make sense for this route."

Taz said:

Andy_JS said:

Maybe we ought to start charging for use of motorways, given that only a small percentage of people actually use them.

Road pricing is coming anyway. The govt will need to replace the taxes and duties from fuel somehow.

Very good point.

Selebian said:

OldKingCole said:

Selebian said:

Malmesbury said:

Selebian said:

Carnyx said:

FPT

NerysHughes said:

Carnyx said:

NerysHughes said:

Taz said:

Dura_Ace said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Anabobazina said:

Eabhal said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

rottenborough said:

Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
1h
Lots of Whitehall blindsided tonight on the car element of the net zero package, and the timing.

Not least the UK delegation in New York for the climate events at UNGA

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704224035821715651

Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.

As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.

The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?

2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier

Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.

This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.

williamglenn said:

rottenborough said:

Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
19m
is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?

This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.

Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.

The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.

Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.

What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.

Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).

A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍

That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.

Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.

It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.

Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.

This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.

Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.

But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.

I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.

The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.

Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.

In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)

Schools,museums and other public building are the ideal location for an EV charging point as you will need something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle.

LAs are certainly spending fortunees advertising their green credentials and then not doing anything about it.

Thanks - interesting thought. It would fit into the commercial activities of the average museum. Bookshop, cafe, room hire, so the budgetary setup and sales desk will be there. But schools, perhaps not so much.

There's also the point that (re Nerys's 'something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle') that there are EVs out now that will get to 80% charge within 18 minutes
(e.g. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-02/cars-on-hyundai-s-electric-platform-can-charge-80-in-18-minutes - there are more recent videos etc showing this actually in action)
The assumption would be that by 2030 that charging time will be reduced further. There's a big need for infrastructure roll out and it does make sense to pop it in places that people go anyway, such as supermarkets, car parks, but by the time that all you can buy is an EV then it's likely that a top-up at a dedicated charging station* is going to take a comparable time to putting fuel in an ICEV.

Now, there will be second hand EVs with longer charging times at that point, but there will also be plenty of second hand ICEVs too, so people can choose - those without home charging might stick with ICEVs longer as a long-charge EV without home charging may not be viable, depending on use and existing patterns of visits to locations with chargers with long enough duration to make that convenient.

*will be interesting to see whether these will exist, given the other options. But given that petrol stations are all, pretty much, convenience shop hosts anyway, I'd guess they probably will, perhaps in smaller numbers.

There are 3 kinds of charging.

One is basically plugging it into the equivalent of a wall socket - take a whole day to charge a serious amount.

There is charging from a specialist unit, still compatible with a domestic electricity supply. It would take hours to completely

The last is "Supercharging" - charging as fast as possible. Your filling station replacement - requires serious infrastructure.

Providing the first costs very little. Providing the second costs thousands. The last is really only sensible as as a pump replacement.

Sure. Pump replacement is the viable setting for these, mostly. And petrol stations will not survive without implementing them - the convenience store is not going to hold people for the time taken for the middle rank chargers, nor do they have the space to allow sufficient throughput to make it viable.

So, fast chargers at major sites such as motorway service stations. Probably also at existing filling stations, but it's not impossible that there's a more viable alternative in e.g. supermarkets, work places, other car parks, on street etc. Will be interesting to see how that plays out.

ETA: the possible 'more viable alternative' being the slower, easily implemented on existing supplies, chargers

Just South of Braintree, on the A130, is a service station dedicated to charging EV’s. It’s got quite a few charging points, plus two or three convenience type shops and, IIRC, a lounge where one can wait while one’s vehicle charges.
The company says they’re going to open more but I’ve seen no reports of any.

Interesting - I know the road well and travel it several times each year. Hadn't noticed that site. Off to google maps now!

Quite a few motorway locations are becoming hubs. Ferrybridge has a dozen Tesla superchargers and now a dozen riffraff brands chargers.