If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
It does look a bit like special treatment.
If £10k each is the amount needed to bail out every council then the next government will have to find, um, £678 billion.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
Just had my Wessex Water half year bill - £935! Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
Even if it’s you they’ll probably give you the money back - worth asking. We had a leaking toilet and I stupidly hugely underestimated how much water was leaking and thus our bill. The water company wrote it all off very easily.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
Maybe. But they are living proof that either
1. Cut throat American capitalism does NOT produce better customer service (or cheaper tickets)
OR
2. Some kind of cartel is operating
I vote for 2. American airlines are just so shit I cannot see why a European or Asian competitor would not break in and steal the entire market, unless the present airlines are somehow protected from that competition
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
That is why I always refused to get a water meter.
I pay £23.49 per month, unmetered. It's a listed building, which might prevent the installation of meters. Up to the owners though - I just remain thankful.
Just had my Wessex Water half year bill - £935! Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
Even if it’s you they’ll probably give you the money back - worth asking. We had a leaking toilet and I stupidly hugely underestimated how much water was leaking and thus our bill. The water company wrote it all off very easily.
Thanks, yes I will try that.
We've checked the obvious - I fear it's something underground on the way into the house.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
Maybe. But they are living proof that either
1. Cut throat American capitalism does NOT produce better customer service (or cheaper tickets)
OR
2. Some kind of cartel is operating
I vote for 2. American airlines are just so shit I cannot see why a European or Asian competitor would not break in and steal the entire market, unless the present airlines are somehow protected from that competition
A UK airline can operate flights from paris to milan, for example, becuase we have those agreements with the EU. But a UK airline can't do New York to Chicago, unless the flight starts outside the US - then it can pick up some domestic passengers at New York - the fifth freedom.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
Maybe. But they are living proof that either
1. Cut throat American capitalism does NOT produce better customer service (or cheaper tickets)
OR
2. Some kind of cartel is operating
I vote for 2. American airlines are just so shit I cannot see why a European or Asian competitor would not break in and steal the entire market, unless the present airlines are somehow protected from that competition
American consumers have a very protectionist mindset. I'd imagine they'd be very resistant to a foreign entrant to the airline market for patriotic reasons.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
They have a startlingly puritanical attitude on transatlantic flights - for instance, United charge extra for alcohol ($10 for a mini bottle of wine), and only serve it after meal service has finished. And they always run out halfway through, so you'll get nothing at all if you're sitting near the back. And god forbid you ask for a second bottle - they'll look at you as if you've been personally responsible for drinking their entire stock dry.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
Maybe. But they are living proof that either
1. Cut throat American capitalism does NOT produce better customer service (or cheaper tickets)
OR
2. Some kind of cartel is operating
I vote for 2. American airlines are just so shit I cannot see why a European or Asian competitor would not break in and steal the entire market, unless the present airlines are somehow protected from that competition
A UK airline can operate flights from paris to milan, for example, becuase we have those agreements with the EU. But a UK airline can't do New York to Chicago, unless the flight starts outside the US - then it can pick up some domestic passengers at New York - the fifth freedom.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
19 councils "getting" £2.5 billion between them, either as permission to borrow, or to direct proceeds from selling things off to revenue spending;
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
Maybe. But they are living proof that either
1. Cut throat American capitalism does NOT produce better customer service (or cheaper tickets)
OR
2. Some kind of cartel is operating
I vote for 2. American airlines are just so shit I cannot see why a European or Asian competitor would not break in and steal the entire market, unless the present airlines are somehow protected from that competition
A UK airline can operate flights from paris to milan, for example, becuase we have those agreements with the EU. But a UK airline can't do New York to Chicago, unless the flight starts outside the US - then it can pick up some domestic passengers at New York - the fifth freedom.
So, a cartel
Yes, but it's reciprocal. We don't allow Southwest or Spirit to run Aberdeen to London flights. Though I suspect we would if the agreement could be made, mutually.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
19 councils "getting" £2.5 billion between them, either as permission to borrow, or to direct proceeds from selling things off to revenue spending;
Just had my Wessex Water half year bill - £935! Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
Came home from holiday a couple of years ago to a letter from Wessex water suggesting we’re going to get a higher bill than normal. It sure was - over a thousand pounds. Clearly a leak somewhere. Turned out to be under our house, sadly after the water entered the house (weird route upstairs then down under the kitchen floor, where the leak must have been). Had to re route the pipe (will be fully sorted shortly when the kitchen is refitted). Oddly never saw any dampness or any indication. Wessex were really good and waived the excess use, which they didn’t have to do.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
It's a very large hot potato as it includes the funding of social care for adults and vulnerable children so it'll be intriguing to say if either Conservative or Labour manifesto offer anything other than platitudes.
Council Tax is still based on 30 year old property valuations and there's no provision for higher value properties to pay anywhere near a proportional cost. Do we embrace Land Value taxation or some other form of property wealth tax or do we look at a substantial shif tin funds from central to local Government?
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
19 councils "getting" £2.5 billion between them, either as permission to borrow, or to direct proceeds from selling things off to revenue spending;
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
Woking is bankrupt. Not a good example.
I'd have thought it's an excellent example, as it went bankrupt under the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems were the very clear electoral beneficiaries.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
They have a startlingly puritanical attitude on transatlantic flights - for instance, United charge extra for alcohol ($10 for a mini bottle of wine), and only serve it after meal service has finished. And they always run out halfway through, so you'll get nothing at all if you're sitting near the back. And god forbid you ask for a second bottle - they'll look at you as if you've been personally responsible for drinking their entire stock dry.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
Honestly, Ryanair is better.
It's true. Amazingly enough
The cheapest European/Asian budget airlines are probably better than the mainstream US carriers
Plus all the flight attendants on US carriers are bitter old people in their 60s who think they should be doing a nicer job (or be retired) so they exude hostility and entitlement and basically throw a packet of peanuts in your face and scowl as they do it. like you are lucky to get a mini-pretzel
They are fucking dreadful. And don't get me on to the food. OMG
And the airports are brutally expensive. AND on top of all this flying internally in America is no longer cheap
You can fly around Europe or Asia for less than half the price
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
Didn't we tell you weeks ago to buy a laser printer?
Don't have room
Anyway I have solved it, I've worked out that if I spend half an hour crouching besides my printer with my laptop physically plugged into the printer mechanism, then I can easily get my wifi printer to print 5 sheets of A4 in about 70 minutes
Do you live in a telephone box or something? What do you mean you don't have room?. I have a very old laser printer and it is quite small. The one before that was diddy.
There are quite a few with a footprint not much larger than an inkjet.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
It's a very large hot potato as it includes the funding of social care for adults and vulnerable children so it'll be intriguing to say if either Conservative or Labour manifesto offer anything other than platitudes.
Council Tax is still based on 30 year old property valuations and there's no provision for higher value properties to pay anywhere near a proportional cost. Do we embrace Land Value taxation or some other form of property wealth tax or do we look at a substantial shif tin funds from central to local Government?
Our Pledge
1. To kick the can further down the road. 2. No increases in anything. 3. Apart from property prices and gains from unearned income. 4. Go f**k yourselves.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
Woking is bankrupt. Not a good example.
I'd have thought it's an excellent example, as it went bankrupt under the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems were the very clear electoral beneficiaries.
As forecast by our very own @Heathener at the time
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
They have a startlingly puritanical attitude on transatlantic flights - for instance, United charge extra for alcohol ($10 for a mini bottle of wine), and only serve it after meal service has finished. And they always run out halfway through, so you'll get nothing at all if you're sitting near the back. And god forbid you ask for a second bottle - they'll look at you as if you've been personally responsible for drinking their entire stock dry.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
Honestly, Ryanair is better.
It's true. Amazingly enough
The cheapest European/Asian budget airlines are probably better than the mainstream US carriers
Plus all the flight attendants on US carriers are bitter old people in their 60s who think they should be doing a nicer job (or be retired) so they exude hostility and entitlement and basically throw a packet of peanuts in your face and scowl as they do it. like you are lucky to get a mini-pretzel
They are fucking dreadful. And don't get me on to the food. OMG
And the airports are brutally expensive. AND on top of all this flying internally in America is no longer cheap
You can fly around Europe or Asia for less than half the price
Ha, I was going to mention the age thing but I'm clearly far too polite. I've been told it's because they put staff with the greatest seniority on their longest haul flights, but if that's the case why don't other country's airlines behave in the same way?
As you've noted, Air France do this right. Aperitif as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, wine choices that more or less pair with the meals on offer, digestif offered at the same time as they clear the meal away. Then another drink or two offered before you drift off to sleep... and at that point, who cares if they fly the occasional plane into the sea for no particular reason?
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
The invisibility of the LDs, lack of distinct policies and the mind numbing blandness of Starmer makes it very likely that there will be more Blue Wall gains for Labour than the LDs.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
It's absolutely shocking that a tiny piddling shire district with responsibility for next to nothing (i.e. all the expensive services are the responsibility of the county council) could be given a financial bailout of that scale. £765m is roughly £10k EACH for every adult living in Woking. And apparently the scale of the financial problems facing Woking Council exceed even that.
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
Do we expect similar bailouts for all the other skint councils, or is Woking special?
I think the Government is being forced to bail because Woking has absolutely no chance of ever restructuring and paying off debts of that size, given its tiny revenue base, and it has statutory obligations that it has to perform.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
It's a very large hot potato as it includes the funding of social care for adults and vulnerable children so it'll be intriguing to say if either Conservative or Labour manifesto offer anything other than platitudes.
Council Tax is still based on 30 year old property valuations and there's no provision for higher value properties to pay anywhere near a proportional cost. Do we embrace Land Value taxation or some other form of property wealth tax or do we look at a substantial shif tin funds from central to local Government?
Our Pledge
1. To kick the can further down the road. 2. No increases in anything. 3. Apart from property prices and gains from unearned income. 4. Go f**k yourselves.
Pretty much. There's not a cigarette paper to put between the blue and red Tories on any matter of real substance. This is because a critical mass of the electorate consists of ageing and elderly homeowners who don't want to pay for anything, and nearly all the politicians also belong to that class or expect to join it.
British politics is all about transferring whatever wealth is left in the economy upwards and that's it. The rest is an elaborate performance.
Rather puzzling to me that the LDs don't seem to have put much effort into Rochdale. There surely is a large, one would hope, not antisemite and not Brexit true believer seam that they could have very profitably mined.
The Rochdale seat was Liberal from 1970 to 1992 and 2001-2010 so they certainly have history there.
Post Brexit though and with Labour not in government yet they aren't going to have much hope in by elections in Labour seats and Galloway has taken the Gaza protest vote
I suspect the LDs looked at it and thought, are we going to spend our target seats money defending Rochdale in a few months time? And the answer was "No?"
Plus, few ideas for an overly literal Ed Davey victory stunt.
I still feel they are value, more 14s than 50s, at a narrow intersection where the Labour vote drops down and the Galloway vote edges up.
But, with money on, I would say that wouldn't I? DYOR.
Rochdale is one of those "plug" seats where the boundaries have tended to vary quite alot, and they are changing again for the next GE, so the seat has had a lot of new voters, over and above the also significant demographic changes. The Lib Dems are fighting a seat very different from the past, and the habit of voting Lib Dem has likely been lost.
Just had my Wessex Water half year bill - £935! Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
Came home from holiday a couple of years ago to a letter from Wessex water suggesting we’re going to get a higher bill than normal. It sure was - over a thousand pounds. Clearly a leak somewhere. Turned out to be under our house, sadly after the water entered the house (weird route upstairs then down under the kitchen floor, where the leak must have been). Had to re route the pipe (will be fully sorted shortly when the kitchen is refitted). Oddly never saw any dampness or any indication. Wessex were really good and waived the excess use, which they didn’t have to do.
I had a leaking hose tap some years ago and ever since I check my water meter reading and record it once a week
I also make sure my outside hose taps are turned off at the outside tap and not at the hose nosel
Rather puzzling to me that the LDs don't seem to have put much effort into Rochdale. There surely is a large, one would hope, not antisemite and not Brexit true believer seam that they could have very profitably mined.
The Rochdale seat was Liberal from 1970 to 1992 and 2001-2010 so they certainly have history there.
Post Brexit though and with Labour not in government yet they aren't going to have much hope in by elections in Labour seats and Galloway has taken the Gaza protest vote
I suspect the LDs looked at it and thought, are we going to spend our target seats money defending Rochdale in a few months time? And the answer was "No?"
Plus, few ideas for an overly literal Ed Davey victory stunt.
I still feel they are value, more 14s than 50s, at a narrow intersection where the Labour vote drops down and the Galloway vote edges up.
But, with money on, I would say that wouldn't I? DYOR.
Rochdale is one of those "plug" seats where the boundaries have tended to vary quite alot, and they are changing again for the next GE, so the seat has had a lot of new voters, over and above the also significant demographic changes. The Lib Dems are fighting a seat very different from the past, and the habit of voting Lib Dem has likely been lost.
A very good and often overlooked point. But. What is a "plug" seat? I haven't heard that term before.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
Woking is bankrupt. Not a good example.
Woking isn't working.
Perhaps Woking could insert "e" between "k" and "i" in order to obtain support & sustenance from The Blog?
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
Thames Water is a wonderful metaphor for the entire British economy, nay, all of British life. If Dickens were alive today, he’d he writing about them.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
They have a startlingly puritanical attitude on transatlantic flights - for instance, United charge extra for alcohol ($10 for a mini bottle of wine), and only serve it after meal service has finished. And they always run out halfway through, so you'll get nothing at all if you're sitting near the back. And god forbid you ask for a second bottle - they'll look at you as if you've been personally responsible for drinking their entire stock dry.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
Honestly, Ryanair is better.
It's true. Amazingly enough
The cheapest European/Asian budget airlines are probably better than the mainstream US carriers
Plus all the flight attendants on US carriers are bitter old people in their 60s who think they should be doing a nicer job (or be retired) so they exude hostility and entitlement and basically throw a packet of peanuts in your face and scowl as they do it. like you are lucky to get a mini-pretzel
They are fucking dreadful. And don't get me on to the food. OMG
And the airports are brutally expensive. AND on top of all this flying internally in America is no longer cheap
You can fly around Europe or Asia for less than half the price
Ha, I was going to mention the age thing but I'm clearly far too polite. I've been told it's because they put staff with the greatest seniority on their longest haul flights, but if that's the case why don't other country's airlines behave in the same way?
As you've noted, Air France do this right. Aperitif as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, wine choices that more or less pair with the meals on offer, digestif offered at the same time as they clear the meal away. Then another drink or two offered before you drift off to sleep... and at that point, who cares if they fly the occasional plane into the sea for no particular reason?
Air France are pretty good, BA can be good on a good day, Lufthansa are tolerable, likewise Swissair, KLM has a charm....
But really all the best airlines are the rich Arab airlines or East Asians (Singapore, Eva, etc)
Then come the European airlines mentioned, plus Qantas, Turkish, and a couple of others
Then the good budget airlines: Easyjet, Ryaniar. Nothing plush but do the job, and are better value than most
Way way down below this are the American airlines which are barely better than the richer national carriers in LatAm or Africa. Often remarkably bad
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
Because, unfortunately, if Thames Water goes down three pension funds will go down with it.
That's a pretty unpleasant reflection of the stupidity of the managers of certain pension funds, but it means the bastards have us over a barrel.
Equally, my essential point stands. We don't actually have an abundance of water in England in particular due to inadequate storage and chronic overuse. We're only ever two dry winters away from trouble. Metering is actually a fairly easy way of helping to address the latter, even if it's hardly a panacea.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
It feels like these utilities all need a giant shakeup of one sort or another every 25-30 years or so, otherwise they turn to shit (quite literally in Thames Water's case).
Water privatisation worked well in the 90s and raised a vast amount of capital to allow us to meet the Drinking Water Quality Directive. But they've been coasting for years, playing risky financial games which have now blown up in their face.
No public bailouts - if they go bust, let the government scoop up the remains and try some new system for the next 25 years. Maybe a lease or concession model, with short-term management contracts to tide us over until that's sorted out?
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
They have a startlingly puritanical attitude on transatlantic flights - for instance, United charge extra for alcohol ($10 for a mini bottle of wine), and only serve it after meal service has finished. And they always run out halfway through, so you'll get nothing at all if you're sitting near the back. And god forbid you ask for a second bottle - they'll look at you as if you've been personally responsible for drinking their entire stock dry.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
Honestly, Ryanair is better.
Plenty of vids on YouTube of drunken a-holes on airplanes.
NOT saying you are one of them, indeed willing to swear/affirm that you ain't.
So why not buy a few pre-flight mini-bottles at a convenient convenience store? Then if the airline is trying to dry out the bad alcoholics, no problemo for you. And IF you get your fill of booze in-flight, still have a couple of minis available in case of snakebite or other emergencies.
In interests of quasi-full disclosure, yours truly never imbibes on airplanes, just doesn't agree with me.
And have refrained from carbonated beverages, ever since it dawned on me (took years!) that Coca-cola, 7-up, etc. were root (ahem) reason why I was so frequently flatulent when flying.
So feel free to poo-pooh my in-put on grounds I'm toooooo much of a freaking freak on this topic, even by PB standards!
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
Thames Water is a wonderful metaphor for the entire British economy, nay, all of British life. If Dickens were alive today, he’d he writing about them.
Ilford's theoretically in the Thames Water catchment area, but the town's actual water supply is provided by Essex & Suffolk. Thames Water look after sewerage.
If you want to know the cost of years of Conservative mismanagement, there's part of it. Not much for the Woking residents who will face a 10% Council Tax rise in order for the Council to get the bailout or handout.
Will this help Jonathan Lord keep his seat or make no difference at all?
Jonathan Lord has been an MP since 2010, I discover. Has anybody heard of him, outside Woking (and maybe not even there)? Thought not. He has the thinnest Wiki entry for a long-standing MP I've ever looked at.
The LDs have selected Paul Forster, the Deputy Leader of the Council, to fight the seat again. He'll need help from tactical voting from Labour supporters but on current polling it has to be a possible LD gain.
Yes, I've just had a look at the 2019 result. LD could well win it - Labour has no chance, so the swing away from the Tories combined with Labour tactical voting could do the trick.
Not so fast:
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE Con -20% LD -6% Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS: Con 29% LD 25% Lab 33%
Those Blue Wall numbers are going to hide a very wide selection of outcomes.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Indeed.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
Woking is bankrupt. Not a good example.
Woking isn't working.
Perhaps Woking could insert "e" between "k" and "i" in order to obtain support & sustenance from The Blog?
It could become the playground of the wokerati. Statue-toppling in the town square every week. Pronoun lanyards provided at the gates.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
It feels like these utilities all need a giant shakeup of one sort or another every 25-30 years or so, otherwise they turn to shit (quite literally in Thames Water's case).
Water privatisation worked well in the 90s and raised a vast amount of capital to allow us to meet the Drinking Water Quality Directive. But they've been coasting for years, playing risky financial games which have now blown up in their face.
No public bailouts - if they go bust, let the government scoop up the remains and try some new system for the next 25 years. Maybe a lease or concession model, with short-term management contracts to tide us over until that's sorted out?
No bailouts under any circumstances.
If they're bankrupt, then that's their problem, nobody else's.
Do a shit job, get burnt. That's the free market. Their shareholders and creditors should carry full responsibility for their actions.
Let the firm go into bankruptcy and let another firm (public or private) buy the assets for pennies on the pound without the debts and the creditors get those pennies on the pound for bad investments they've made.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
But not in the same condition as they 'borrowed' it.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
But not in the same condition as they 'borrowed' it.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
So you're content to drink unfiltered, untreated urine?
I expect better quality than that, but if that's all you want to not pay for it . . .
Rather puzzling to me that the LDs don't seem to have put much effort into Rochdale. There surely is a large, one would hope, not antisemite and not Brexit true believer seam that they could have very profitably mined.
The Rochdale seat was Liberal from 1970 to 1992 and 2001-2010 so they certainly have history there.
Post Brexit though and with Labour not in government yet they aren't going to have much hope in by elections in Labour seats and Galloway has taken the Gaza protest vote
I suspect the LDs looked at it and thought, are we going to spend our target seats money defending Rochdale in a few months time? And the answer was "No?"
Plus, few ideas for an overly literal Ed Davey victory stunt.
I still feel they are value, more 14s than 50s, at a narrow intersection where the Labour vote drops down and the Galloway vote edges up.
But, with money on, I would say that wouldn't I? DYOR.
Rochdale is one of those "plug" seats where the boundaries have tended to vary quite alot, and they are changing again for the next GE, so the seat has had a lot of new voters, over and above the also significant demographic changes. The Lib Dems are fighting a seat very different from the past, and the habit of voting Lib Dem has likely been lost.
I'm working on the basis that the constituency sustained a 17.5% LD vote on current boundaries in the local elections, far higher than a lot of working Northern towns, and that this will hold up and add a smallish slice of the more centrist Labour vote in places like Milnrow.
So, my working assumption, different from many on here, is that LDs can quite readily access more than 20% of the vote on current boundaries, in an election where the winning line is likely to be sub-30%, so I do just see the possibility, even without a big campaign.
Just had my Wessex Water half year bill - £935! Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
Came home from holiday a couple of years ago to a letter from Wessex water suggesting we’re going to get a higher bill than normal. It sure was - over a thousand pounds. Clearly a leak somewhere. Turned out to be under our house, sadly after the water entered the house (weird route upstairs then down under the kitchen floor, where the leak must have been). Had to re route the pipe (will be fully sorted shortly when the kitchen is refitted). Oddly never saw any dampness or any indication. Wessex were really good and waived the excess use, which they didn’t have to do.
I had a leaking hose tap some years ago and ever since I check my water meter reading and record it once a week
I also make sure my outside hose taps are turned off at the outside tap and not at the hose nosel
It's not very easy to check your water meter regularly, at least it's not easy to check ours: we'd have to go out into the road, lift a cover for which we don;'t have the right tool and peer into a hole to a meter that is often underwater due, ironically, to a natural spring that exits there.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
So you're content to drink unfiltered, untreated urine?
I expect better quality than that, but if that's all you want to not pay for it . . .
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
So you're content to drink unfiltered, untreated urine?
I expect better quality than that, but if that's all you want to not pay for it . . .
Not sure sure IF this has been noted/discussed on PB, but last week's ruling by Alabama state supreme court that embryos are people too, has really got the snakes stirred up.
Specifically, Republican solons and their mouthpieces in Montgomery AND Washington, DC rushing to mitigate (to put it mildly) this ruling which shuts down (ditto) IVF clinics for women wanting to bear children despite fertility issues.
"The Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling on February 16 declaring that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. Several of the state’s IVF clinics have since paused services, and lawmakers, doctors, and patients are raising concerns about the far-ranging impacts of the ruling on health care, including reproductive technology."
One of the first off the bat was Alabama US Sen. "Coach" Tommy Tuberville (the thinking-man's Hershel Walker) the same guy who held up US military appointments for months (or was it years?) to burnish his own anti-abortion credentials.
Seems that while crazed Catholics mostly concur (at least in the breach) with the ruling, which concurs with current church doctrine, evangelical Protestants - much thicker on the ground in most of Alabama - are split on the issue.
Besides GOPers legislators & congresspeople falling over themselves trying to square this circle, the real potential political impact for 2024 appear to be, further making the Democratic case that the Republican Party is a standing menace to reproductive freedom of choice - NOT just abortion, but birth control, in either direction.
IF this is unpopular in Alabama, just imagine how it poorly it's playing in Peoria.
Not sure sure IF this has been noted/discussed on PB, but last week's ruling by Alabama state supreme court that embryos are people too, has really got the snakes stirred up.
Specifically, Republican solons and their mouthpieces in Montgomery AND Washington, DC rushing to mitigate (to put it mildly) this ruling which shuts down (ditto) IVF clinics for women wanting to bear children despite fertility issues.
"The Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling on February 16 declaring that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. Several of the state’s IVF clinics have since paused services, and lawmakers, doctors, and patients are raising concerns about the far-ranging impacts of the ruling on health care, including reproductive technology."
One of the first off the bat was Alabama US Sen. "Coach" Tommy Tuberville (the thinking-man's Hershel Walker) the same guy who held up US military appointments for months (or was it years?) to burnish his own anti-abortion credentials.
Seems that while crazed Catholics mostly concur (at least in the breach) with the ruling, which concurs with current church doctrine, evangelical Protestants - much thicker on the ground in most of Alabama - are split on the issue.
Besides GOPers legislators & congresspeople falling over themselves trying to square this circle, the real potential political impact for 2024 appear to be, further making the Democratic case that the Republican Party is a standing menace to reproductive freedom of choice - NOT just abortion, but birth control, in either direction.
IF this is unpopular in Alabama, just imagine how it poorly it's playing in Peoria.
'solons'?
(Also, I have to confess I'd never heard of Peoria. Then again, most Americans I meet have never heard of Dorset.)
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
But that infrastructure is limited in capacity. Why shouldn't people who consume more pay a higher proportion of the cost?
If we're being accurate, they are borrowing it and returning it immediately, as are we all.
So you're content to drink unfiltered, untreated urine?
I expect better quality than that, but if that's all you want to not pay for it . . .
Just had my Wessex Water half year bill - £935! Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
Came home from holiday a couple of years ago to a letter from Wessex water suggesting we’re going to get a higher bill than normal. It sure was - over a thousand pounds. Clearly a leak somewhere. Turned out to be under our house, sadly after the water entered the house (weird route upstairs then down under the kitchen floor, where the leak must have been). Had to re route the pipe (will be fully sorted shortly when the kitchen is refitted). Oddly never saw any dampness or any indication. Wessex were really good and waived the excess use, which they didn’t have to do.
I had a leaking hose tap some years ago and ever since I check my water meter reading and record it once a week
I also make sure my outside hose taps are turned off at the outside tap and not at the hose nosel
It's not very easy to check your water meter regularly, at least it's not easy to check ours: we'd have to go out into the road, lift a cover for which we don;'t have the right tool and peer into a hole to a meter that is often underwater due, ironically, to a natural spring that exits there.
I do lift the street cover just with a screwdriver and use a torch when necessary to read the meter
Not sure sure IF this has been noted/discussed on PB, but last week's ruling by Alabama state supreme court that embryos are people too, has really got the snakes stirred up.
Specifically, Republican solons and their mouthpieces in Montgomery AND Washington, DC rushing to mitigate (to put it mildly) this ruling which shuts down (ditto) IVF clinics for women wanting to bear children despite fertility issues.
"The Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling on February 16 declaring that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. Several of the state’s IVF clinics have since paused services, and lawmakers, doctors, and patients are raising concerns about the far-ranging impacts of the ruling on health care, including reproductive technology."
One of the first off the bat was Alabama US Sen. "Coach" Tommy Tuberville (the thinking-man's Hershel Walker) the same guy who held up US military appointments for months (or was it years?) to burnish his own anti-abortion credentials.
Seems that while crazed Catholics mostly concur (at least in the breach) with the ruling, which concurs with current church doctrine, evangelical Protestants - much thicker on the ground in most of Alabama - are split on the issue.
Besides GOPers legislators & congresspeople falling over themselves trying to square this circle, the real potential political impact for 2024 appear to be, further making the Democratic case that the Republican Party is a standing menace to reproductive freedom of choice - NOT just abortion, but birth control, in either direction.
IF this is unpopular in Alabama, just imagine how it poorly it's playing in Peoria.
'solons'?
(Also, I have to confess I'd never heard of Peoria. Then again, most Americans I meet have never heard of Dorset.)
Will it play in Peoria? Is the equivalent of what the man on the Clapham omnibus might think.
(BA are often annoying, but they do deliver you reasonably reliably)
Are you paying? And is it west coast or east?
Sorry @carnforth - missed this. Yes, I'm paying and east coast.
I vote Virgin, but it is marginal, in Economy
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Perhaps americans fly so often they consider it a bus - witness US airlines' attitute to overbooking - so they don't expect any more.
They have a startlingly puritanical attitude on transatlantic flights - for instance, United charge extra for alcohol ($10 for a mini bottle of wine), and only serve it after meal service has finished. And they always run out halfway through, so you'll get nothing at all if you're sitting near the back. And god forbid you ask for a second bottle - they'll look at you as if you've been personally responsible for drinking their entire stock dry.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
Honestly, Ryanair is better.
It's true. Amazingly enough
The cheapest European/Asian budget airlines are probably better than the mainstream US carriers
Plus all the flight attendants on US carriers are bitter old people in their 60s who think they should be doing a nicer job (or be retired) so they exude hostility and entitlement and basically throw a packet of peanuts in your face and scowl as they do it. like you are lucky to get a mini-pretzel
They are fucking dreadful. And don't get me on to the food. OMG
And the airports are brutally expensive. AND on top of all this flying internally in America is no longer cheap
You can fly around Europe or Asia for less than half the price
Ha, I was going to mention the age thing but I'm clearly far too polite. I've been told it's because they put staff with the greatest seniority on their longest haul flights, but if that's the case why don't other country's airlines behave in the same way?
As you've noted, Air France do this right. Aperitif as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, wine choices that more or less pair with the meals on offer, digestif offered at the same time as they clear the meal away. Then another drink or two offered before you drift off to sleep... and at that point, who cares if they fly the occasional plane into the sea for no particular reason?
Air France are pretty good, BA can be good on a good day, Lufthansa are tolerable, likewise Swissair, KLM has a charm....
But really all the best airlines are the rich Arab airlines or East Asians (Singapore, Eva, etc)
Then come the European airlines mentioned, plus Qantas, Turkish, and a couple of others
Then the good budget airlines: Easyjet, Ryaniar. Nothing plush but do the job, and are better value than most
Way way down below this are the American airlines which are barely better than the richer national carriers in LatAm or Africa. Often remarkably bad
I fly a lot to and from Finland (2.5 hours) and just view this question in terms of just getting from A to B. I did conclude though that it is worth paying for better seats if you want to work on a laptop during the flight as I do, but you can do that on Ryanair and it is quite reasonably priced.
My favourite airline is actually air baltic, very comfortable, brand new planes, comfortable seats, high quality airline (government owned), they put an effort in to the food and service, Riga is a very good transit airport. they actually chill the beer that they sell, the cans are large (440ml).
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
Labour should pledge to renationalise the chiselling privateer twats; let Sunak defend them (if he is so inclined).
Not sure sure IF this has been noted/discussed on PB, but last week's ruling by Alabama state supreme court that embryos are people too, has really got the snakes stirred up.
Specifically, Republican solons and their mouthpieces in Montgomery AND Washington, DC rushing to mitigate (to put it mildly) this ruling which shuts down (ditto) IVF clinics for women wanting to bear children despite fertility issues.
"The Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling on February 16 declaring that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. Several of the state’s IVF clinics have since paused services, and lawmakers, doctors, and patients are raising concerns about the far-ranging impacts of the ruling on health care, including reproductive technology."
One of the first off the bat was Alabama US Sen. "Coach" Tommy Tuberville (the thinking-man's Hershel Walker) the same guy who held up US military appointments for months (or was it years?) to burnish his own anti-abortion credentials.
Seems that while crazed Catholics mostly concur (at least in the breach) with the ruling, which concurs with current church doctrine, evangelical Protestants - much thicker on the ground in most of Alabama - are split on the issue.
Besides GOPers legislators & congresspeople falling over themselves trying to square this circle, the real potential political impact for 2024 appear to be, further making the Democratic case that the Republican Party is a standing menace to reproductive freedom of choice - NOT just abortion, but birth control, in either direction.
IF this is unpopular in Alabama, just imagine how it poorly it's playing in Peoria.
'solons'?
(Also, I have to confess I'd never heard of Peoria. Then again, most Americans I meet have never heard of Dorset.)
Will it play in Peoria? Is the equivalent of what the man on the Clapham omnibus might think.
Our usage has gone from 63 m3 (2022/23) to 225 m3 this winter.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
It's despicable that water is metered anywhere in the UK.
Is it? Paying for what you use seems reasonable.
We should pay our share of the infrastructure costs for getting the water to us. The water itself should not be metered - it is a natural resource that we are blessed with an immense abundance of, and it should be used and enjoyed.
If you want to drink untreated rainwater then put a bucket in your garden and drink from that.
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
It’s barely 15 months ago following a hot summer and a dry autumn that there was a real worry some areas might run critically short of water.
How quickly we forget.
And at the first sign of warm weather the water companies will be panic flapping and declaring hosepipe bans again. To illustrate the necessity of hiking bills to "invest in infrastructure," which is code for robbing the consumer and shipping all the loot to Dubai, whilst leaving the decrepit, leaky water system to go on collapsing as before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
Labour should pledge to renationalise the chiselling privateer twats; let Sunak defend them (if he is so inclined).
Let them go bust first and renationalise them for a £1.
Comments
What on earth were the Conservatives running the council up to?
https://app.suno.ai/song/91270dcb-ef95-45f7-b6d2-acc5c3bb8a12
Whatever you do, avoid American airlines of any kind. They are abysmal
They are so bad it is a mystery. They get away with customer service, in the USA, which would cause riots in Europe or East Asia
Latest Redfield and Wilton Blue Wall Voting intention 11th Feb
Change in voting share in Blue Wall seats compared to 2019 GE
Con -20%
LD -6%
Lab +17%
Woking is one of the R&W "Blue Wall" seats
Result of that swing applied to Woking using UNS:
Con 29%
LD 25%
Lab 33%
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-blue-wall-voting-intention-11-february-2024/
If £10k each is the amount needed to bail out every council then the next government will have to find, um, £678 billion.
Eff all chance of that happening.
If Labour is the challengers, then the LD vote is likely to all but disappear. If the LDs are seen as the challengers, their vote is likely to hold up pretty well.
Think we might have a leak somewhere :-( Just hoping it's at the meter then I can blame them.
That's just sensible.
In the long run there will need to be complete reform of local authority finance, before most of the councils in the land go tits up, but the Tories doubtless view bequeathing that (extremely expensive) hot potato to Labour as one of the compensations of going into Opposition.
Massively cheaper than paying for what you use, paying for train subsidies and paying billions to other crap like we do currently.
1. Cut throat American capitalism does NOT produce better customer service (or cheaper tickets)
OR
2. Some kind of cartel is operating
I vote for 2. American airlines are just so shit I cannot see why a European or Asian competitor would not break in and steal the entire market, unless the present airlines are somehow protected from that competition
We've checked the obvious - I fear it's something underground on the way into the house.
https://www.icao.int/pages/freedomsair.aspx
A UK airline can operate flights from paris to milan, for example, becuase we have those agreements with the EU. But a UK airline can't do New York to Chicago, unless the flight starts outside the US - then it can pick up some domestic passengers at New York - the fifth freedom.
They fly creaky old planes, too - they only got rid of their ancient 747s with 1980s inflight entertainment about five years ago.
Honestly, Ryanair is better.
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/29/english-councils-bailout-agreements-capitalisation-directions
That clanging sound you can hear is 19 cans being kicked to after the General Election.
Assuming we do have a leak, there would be no incentive for us to get it fixed if we weren't metered.
You need to bear in mind though that in different circumstances the LDs would be seen as the clear challengers to the Conservatives in about 2/3rds of the R&W seats, and Labour in only about 1/3rds.
So with so many of these seats being potentially fertile territory for the LDs, it should be concerning to them that in the Blue Wall seats their aggregate share of vote has according to R&W gone backwards in from the 27% they got in 2019 in not just this one poll but every one of the 27 Blue Wall polls so far conducted by R&W.
So it's now a lot less obvious in many of those seats that the LDs should be seen as the challengers. In some the LDs still very clearly (e.g. Cheltenham). In some Labour are (e.g. Reading West). And then there are a lot more that are now more indeterminate in terms of tactical voting, of which I would count Woking as one.
Wessex were really good and waived the excess use, which they didn’t have to do.
Council Tax is still based on 30 year old property valuations and there's no provision for higher value properties to pay anywhere near a proportional cost. Do we embrace Land Value taxation or some other form of property wealth tax or do we look at a substantial shif tin funds from central to local Government?
If you want filtered and treated water then that costs money and the user should pay for what they use.
The cheapest European/Asian budget airlines are probably better than the mainstream US carriers
Plus all the flight attendants on US carriers are bitter old people in their 60s who think they should be doing a nicer job (or be retired) so they exude hostility and entitlement and basically throw a packet of peanuts in your face and scowl as they do it. like you are lucky to get a mini-pretzel
They are fucking dreadful. And don't get me on to the food. OMG
And the airports are brutally expensive. AND on top of all this flying internally in America is no longer cheap
You can fly around Europe or Asia for less than half the price
1. To kick the can further down the road.
2. No increases in anything.
3. Apart from property prices and gains from unearned income.
4. Go f**k yourselves.
Vote shares with changes in 2019 result in brackets
Lab 49% (+11%)
Con 25% (-22%)
Reform 14% (+7%)
LD 6% (+1%)
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-red-wall-voting-intention-25-february-2024/
As you've noted, Air France do this right. Aperitif as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, wine choices that more or less pair with the meals on offer, digestif offered at the same time as they clear the meal away. Then another drink or two offered before you drift off to sleep... and at that point, who cares if they fly the occasional plane into the sea for no particular reason?
How quickly we forget.
British politics is all about transferring whatever wealth is left in the economy upwards and that's it. The rest is an elaborate performance.
I also make sure my outside hose taps are turned off at the outside tap and not at the hose nosel
But. What is a "plug" seat? I haven't heard that term before.
Apparently the latest wheeze from the shysters at Thames Water is a demand to allow bills to be hiked by 40%, fines for pumping shit into the rivers to be cut to almost nothing AND a right to carry on paying out dividends, in exchange for the privilege of further "investment." What should be done is that the shareholders should be told to fuck off and the company allowed to go bankrupt and renationalised for nothing. What will actually happen is that they'll be given everything that they want so that the useless politicians can continue to deflect blame onto the water company rather than this disaster being the direct responsibility of our utterly hopeless and worthless Government and Parliament.
They all just want to play at being in office and enjoy the titles and the salaries, whilst doing nothing of any value. It's just a game for them.
If Dickens were alive today, he’d he writing about them.
But really all the best airlines are the rich Arab airlines or East Asians (Singapore, Eva, etc)
Then come the European airlines mentioned, plus Qantas, Turkish, and a couple of others
Then the good budget airlines: Easyjet, Ryaniar. Nothing plush but do the job, and are better value than most
Way way down below this are the American airlines which are barely better than the richer national carriers in LatAm or Africa. Often remarkably bad
That's a pretty unpleasant reflection of the stupidity of the managers of certain pension funds, but it means the bastards have us over a barrel.
Equally, my essential point stands. We don't actually have an abundance of water in England in particular due to inadequate storage and chronic overuse. We're only ever two dry winters away from trouble. Metering is actually a fairly easy way of helping to address the latter, even if it's hardly a panacea.
Water privatisation worked well in the 90s and raised a vast amount of capital to allow us to meet the Drinking Water Quality Directive. But they've been coasting for years, playing risky financial games which have now blown up in their face.
No public bailouts - if they go bust, let the government scoop up the remains and try some new system for the next 25 years. Maybe a lease or concession model, with short-term management contracts to tide us over until that's sorted out?
NOT saying you are one of them, indeed willing to swear/affirm that you ain't.
So why not buy a few pre-flight mini-bottles at a convenient convenience store? Then if the airline is trying to dry out the bad alcoholics, no problemo for you. And IF you get your fill of booze in-flight, still have a couple of minis available in case of snakebite or other emergencies.
In interests of quasi-full disclosure, yours truly never imbibes on airplanes, just doesn't agree with me.
And have refrained from carbonated beverages, ever since it dawned on me (took years!) that Coca-cola, 7-up, etc. were root (ahem) reason why I was so frequently flatulent when flying.
So feel free to poo-pooh my in-put on grounds I'm toooooo much of a freaking freak on this topic, even by PB standards!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLDSr1nnZSA
If they're bankrupt, then that's their problem, nobody else's.
Do a shit job, get burnt. That's the free market. Their shareholders and creditors should carry full responsibility for their actions.
Let the firm go into bankruptcy and let another firm (public or private) buy the assets for pennies on the pound without the debts and the creditors get those pennies on the pound for bad investments they've made.
Windows actually comes with a programme that will di what you want (but you have to dig a little): Photos Legacy.
Follow the instructions here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/what-is-photos-legacy-61255007-a189-4a02-8193-6ba18e5f96d3
You can create and insert title slides, clip videos, stitch clips together, add soundtracks, etc.
I expect better quality than that, but if that's all you want to not pay for it . . .
So, my working assumption, different from many on here, is that LDs can quite readily access more than 20% of the vote on current boundaries, in an election where the winning line is likely to be sub-30%, so I do just see the possibility, even without a big campaign.
Well soon know if I'm wide of the mark.
Specifically, Republican solons and their mouthpieces in Montgomery AND Washington, DC rushing to mitigate (to put it mildly) this ruling which shuts down (ditto) IVF clinics for women wanting to bear children despite fertility issues.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/the-alabama-supreme-courts-ruling-on-frozen-embryos
"The Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling on February 16 declaring that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. Several of the state’s IVF clinics have since paused services, and lawmakers, doctors, and patients are raising concerns about the far-ranging impacts of the ruling on health care, including reproductive technology."
One of the first off the bat was Alabama US Sen. "Coach" Tommy Tuberville (the thinking-man's Hershel Walker) the same guy who held up US military appointments for months (or was it years?) to burnish his own anti-abortion credentials.
Seems that while crazed Catholics mostly concur (at least in the breach) with the ruling, which concurs with current church doctrine, evangelical Protestants - much thicker on the ground in most of Alabama - are split on the issue.
Besides GOPers legislators & congresspeople falling over themselves trying to square this circle, the real potential political impact for 2024 appear to be, further making the Democratic case that the Republican Party is a standing menace to reproductive freedom of choice - NOT just abortion, but birth control, in either direction.
IF this is unpopular in Alabama, just imagine how it poorly it's playing in Peoria.
(Or some time in October/November)
(Also, I have to confess I'd never heard of Peoria. Then again, most Americans I meet have never heard of Dorset.)
Is the equivalent of what the man on the Clapham omnibus might think.
Raynergate kicking in.
Etc.
Etc.
My favourite airline is actually air baltic, very comfortable, brand new planes, comfortable seats, high quality airline (government owned), they put an effort in to the food and service, Riga is a very good transit airport. they actually chill the beer that they sell, the cans are large (440ml).
I'm not!
Enjoy it 👍