It is bollox Taz, the Tories broke us and were minimally assisted by the SNP. Highest GDP in UK apart from London, no bankrupt councils unliek england, methinks they dost protest too much.
I am astonished by how many of the parties are not running a full slate of candidates. Back in the day in Stafford and Cannock - before they became Tory strongholds - we always put up a full slate. We operated on the basis that if people got out of the habit of voting for us in the locals, they may not do so when the General Election came around.
Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor will explore his queerness, says RTD: ‘We’re not delivering a neutered Doctor’
I have nothing but admiration for the ability of RTD to garner publicity for his show ahead of it dropping on the 11th May. He truly is a master at his craft. I have nothing but admiration for him. Also makes some decent Telly.
Nick Ferrari on LBC claims two Labour MPs are about to defect to Gorgeous's latest vehicle.
The MP for Coventry South might be a possibility.
I suspect that entirely depends on whether jezza is planning a new party or not. Rumours were Webbe and Tahir Ali but the latter has vehemently denied
Claudia Webbe is not currently a Labour MP, of course.
There are a few potential names if we are looking at "majors on Palestine" people, but we'll hear soon enough.
Yep. I think the rumours was 2 MPs 'one of whom is a serving Lab MP' which allows for Webbe to be the other one. Sultana, Whittome etc I wouldn't be surprised if he's angling at Abbott on the qt
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places? Maybe a lottery system would be better.
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Nick Ferrari on LBC claims two Labour MPs are about to defect to Gorgeous's latest vehicle.
The MP for Coventry South might be a possibility.
I suspect that entirely depends on whether jezza is planning a new party or not. Rumours were Webbe and Tahir Ali but the latter has vehemently denied
Claudia Webbe is not currently a Labour MP, of course.
There are a few potential names if we are looking at "majors on Palestine" people, but we'll hear soon enough.
Yep. I think the rumours was 2 MPs 'one of whom is a serving Lab MP' which allows for Webbe to be the other one. Sultana, Whittome etc I wouldn't be surprised if he's angling at Abbott on the qt
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places?
Because the places that everyone wants to go will have to be rationed SOMEHOW. Read that brilliantly prescient article by the much-missed @SeanT
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Nick Ferrari on LBC claims two Labour MPs are about to defect to Gorgeous's latest vehicle.
The MP for Coventry South might be a possibility.
I suspect that entirely depends on whether jezza is planning a new party or not. Rumours were Webbe and Tahir Ali but the latter has vehemently denied
Claudia Webbe is not currently a Labour MP, of course.
There are a few potential names if we are looking at "majors on Palestine" people, but we'll hear soon enough.
Yep. I think the rumours was 2 MPs 'one of whom is a serving Lab MP' which allows for Webbe to be the other one. Sultana, Whittome etc I wouldn't be surprised if he's angling at Abbott on the qt
Abbott's not a serving Labour MP either though.
That's why it's a separate sentence, separate point to any imminent movement. Edit - he claims to be talking to 'MPs, a Lord, several councillors' about defection
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
Local elections are not national elections. There is considerable polling evidence that the Cons nationally are remarkably more unpopular than local conservatives. There is a reason so many candidates choose to identify themselves as just that, 'Local Conservatives'. There is a reason Mayoral candidates have been distancing themselves from the dreaded C-word, even with the local branding.
Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one. Remember when the story broke and when the 'campaign' ended. Any impact was minimal at best. It was also something of a one-shot pistol. An aspect of the failure of the Rayner allegations to move the polls is that Currygate turned out to be, how should we say this, a load of bollocks.
Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE. Well, probably. However, not inevitably. I think Lab will have to make a major mistake and that is not impossible. However, to assume it will happen is to seriously under-estimate Starmer. He does not have to be brilliant he just has to be better than his opponent and at the moment that opponent seems very likely to be Mr Rishi Sunak.
Think on that - have you seen any evidence that Mr Sunak can maintain a credible election campaign? Can you imagine him facing a 'job interview' style grilling from a serious journalist? Can you imagine him in a debate with Starmer? To have a chance of closing the gap to any meaningful degree he willl have to do all of those and do them well.
In my many GEs I have only ever voted Lab once. I am no fan-boy for Starmer. However, their (not so) secret weapons are going to be front and centre throughout the GE campaign whenever it comes. Their names - Mr Rishi Sunak and the truly pathetic record of the current Govt.
We can all hope for miracles but they hardly ever come.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
You've come back madder than ever MarchMoonHare!
Up the Tories!
I thought they were spoofing the other day and I’m still not sure. No one can be reading the mood of the nation this badly can they?
Tories closing the gap to 5 points is not misreading the mood of a Nation, all they need to do is attract back out for them on election day a block of rightwing brexiteer voters they have had voting for them at the last General Elections. Simples.
Why do you keep misreading the polls into thinking Labour have attracted so many votes away from Conservatives, it’s given them a 20 point lead? That’s not what the polling situation is, thats not the 20 point lead, that’s not the mood of the Nation.
I am sure you are right and as such have mortgaged my house for a 33/1 bet on a Conservative majority.
You evidence is scant, but I am relying on your instincts to make me very wealthy.
Would you be interested in investing in a startup? Novel electric vehicle batteries utilising block chain, associated with New Physics, Fusion and Space launch?
Just this morning I invested the remainder of my pile on Rolls Royce mini nuclear power generation and European delicatessen importation.
Those RR mini nukes are still a bit big though for domestic use. There's a gap in the market for a full service household nuclear generation option, on the model of solar panels.
Subscribe for home nuclear. Up-front payment then a small monthly service contract.
Briefcase-sized reactor arrives and the installers will install it on the back wall or in the basement and wire it up to your mains supply. Excess power goes back into the grid with a generous feed-in tariff. Cooling water can be reused for your bath and showers. Every couple of months an engineer will come with a van to collect your radioactive waste and replenish the uranium.
And if you want to be even more green then consider home hydro. Engineers will come and install a micro-generator on your mains water supply. Worth considering if you're on fixed water rates rather than a meter.
Given recent weather, what about mini turbines installed in drainpipes?
Let's assume a fairly large roof - 120sqm. Average rainfall in my part of Ireland of around 2000mm, or 2000kg/sqm, so that's 240 tonnes of rain falling through the drainpipes. Assume a height for the roof of, I have no idea, 4 metres? Total gravitational potential energy released is then 240000 * 9.8 * 4 = 9.4 million Joules of energy. Or about 2.6kWh. With a 25% efficient turbine, that would be about 650Wh* of energy. Over the course of a year.
You would want the turbines to be very cheap.
* Our resident electric car youtube star can perhaps say how far this would move a Tesla model Y.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
"BRISTOL The local elections in Bristol on May 2 are the most significant for some time, as the city moves to a new way of governing that will see the mayor replaced by a committee system. It follows a landmark referendum in 2022 where residents voted to scrap the position of a directly elected mayor.
It means the Green Party is far more likely to be in positions of power after the elections. The party currently has the most councillors with 25, but has been excluded from the cabinet because there is no obligation for the outgoing mayor, Labour’s Marvin Rees, to include them."
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places?
Because the places that everyone wants to go will have to be rationed SOMEHOW. Read that brilliantly prescient article by the much-missed @SeanT
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Tried to get into the BM last week to see the Romans exhibition. Needless to say, being a scholar and a gent, I had not thought to buy a ticket in advance. I expect to walk in there at a time of my own choosing, with a polite nod on the way from a uniformed commissionaire. So I was unprepared to find the crowd in Gt Russell Street resembling the aftermath of a north-London derby, heaving blindly in all directions, bemoaning each other's presence in every known language except English. Any pretence that the BM is a place of learning or scholarship has long been abandoned. We may as well sell the Elgin Marbles to the Arabs and be done with them.
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places?
Because the places that everyone wants to go will have to be rationed SOMEHOW. Read that brilliantly prescient article by the much-missed @SeanT
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Tried to get into the BM last week to see the Romans exhibition. Needless to say, being a scholar and a gent, I had not thought to buy a ticket in advance. I expect to walk in there at a time of my own choosing, with a polite nod on the way from a uniformed commissionaire. So I was unprepared to find the crowd in Gt Russell Street resembling the aftermath of a north-London derby, heaving blindly in all directions, bemoaning each other's presence in every known language except English. Any pretence that the BM is a place of learning or scholarship has long been abandoned. We may as well sell the Elgin Marbles to the Arabs and be done with them.
That could easily be fixed - if we want to keep the BM free - by making people book timed entrance online. Honestly, all these hugely popular places will have to ration entrance. Most will do it by money. Some by time
A billion Indians are about to start travelling. On top of a billion Chinese who are now on the move
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places? Maybe a lottery system would be better.
Don't worry, when wealthy people go there they stop being interesting.
"Simon Harris: ‘Legitimate expectation’ asylum seekers will be returned to UK The Taoiseach called for a sense of calm and said everyone needed ‘to take a deep breath and just be very factual’."
Worth noting that the government in Ireland is pulling a bit of a fast one here. They admitted yesterday that they had no statistics or data on asylum seeker arrivals, and had just assumed they all asylum seekers who weren't claiming asylum at a port of entry (like Dublin Airport) must have come from the UK via Northern Ireland.
Of course, it suited the Tories to accept responsibility so they could claim it as evidence that Rwanda was working.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I think they should start by banning journalists and travel writers. After all they just attract more of the proles.
"Simon Harris: ‘Legitimate expectation’ asylum seekers will be returned to UK The Taoiseach called for a sense of calm and said everyone needed ‘to take a deep breath and just be very factual’."
Worth noting that the government in Ireland is pulling a bit of a fast one here. They admitted yesterday that they had no statistics or data on asylum seeker arrivals, and had just assumed they all asylum seekers who weren't claiming asylum at a port of entry (like Dublin Airport) must have come from the UK via Northern Ireland.
Of course, it suited the Tories to accept responsibility so they could claim it as evidence that Rwanda was working.
A parties of the right mutually satisfying 69.
How do the Irish propose to “return” these people to the UK? What are they going to do? Bus them to Newry and drop them there? So they can stroll back into Ireland? Fly them in helicopters to Newent and kick them out with a parachute attached?
Do they expect the RAF to land at Knock airport and do it all for them?
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I think they should start by banning journalists and travel writers. After all they just attract more of the proles.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I did warn you a week or so ago when you said you were going. It is very commercialised. We basically cycled up to it. Admired it from our bikes and then went for a beer in one of the modern bars/restaurants on the path leading up to it.
As you say it is impressive to look at, but I couldn't be bothered to go in.
In 2021, the Labour leader had criticised Ms Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix, saying that her comment “is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right”.
In 2021, the Labour leader had criticised Ms Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix, saying that her comment “is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right”.
Some left wing men have fallen into the same trap as Billy Bragg - if sex realists / gender critics include women like Kemi Badenoch they must be “wrong”, when a little thinking could go a long way.
We are seeing a flood of people changing their tune on this matter. Problem is people have kept the receipts. Whatever people think of Rosie Duffields views she was treated appallingly by Labour over it. Ostracised and abused by online TRA's for daring to challenge their orthodoxy.
People now changing their views because of the Cass report are just moral cowards. Weathervanes. It is not a case of changing views as the information had changed. It was all there in the first place.
Billy Bragg is just a prick. Mansplaining feminism to real feminists. Women be quiet. A man is speaking.
A classic example is Caroline Blokes who has purged her Twitter of all references to Trans - but there are interviews where she intoned the mantra TWAW.
Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country almost afraid to know itself.
The second line adds much needed context to the first.
If you want context, there are those who believe every single Reform vote will head to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder. A more realistic aim might be the 23% of 2019 Conservative voters who now back Reform - with the 2019 Conservative at 45%, 23% of that would be just over 10% of the entire electorate so you could see the Conservative vote share at 33% with Reform down to 3%.
The actual polling of Reform voters has suggested only a third would support the Conservatives absent a Reform candidate so that would push the Conservatives to the mid to upper 20s on tonight's polling.
In the 2021 PCC elections, the Conservatives led 44.5%-30% and won 30 with Labour winning 8.
On a straight 16% swing from Conservative to Labour, the Conservatives would hold just four. Turnout in 2021 was 34% - will be it any better on Thursday?
If you are referring to me, please use my name as the antagonist. I’m more than happy to debate this.
The polling breakdown of REF support you quoted is meaningless. Pollsters don’t predict, they just give you a snapshot. Not even MRP are prediction, just research that’s dating badly the moment it’s published.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when faced with a real choice. Pollsters have been feeding voters a smorgasbord of options that’s not avaivailble at the general election, unless you wish to waste your time and effort voting. First past the post ensures only Conservative or Labour wins the General Election, voters pick either Starmer or Sunak as Prime Minister - outside of that it’s Libdem to battle in 25 to 45 constituencies, Greens fighting in 2, every vote elsewhere voters will know its waste of time filling in the form, as it doesn’t count in the real election. First past the post creates this different forced choice election.
Whatever polls have been telling you, please remember they are not predictive, the minds of voters can move very quickly when the narrative changes - shift in just the 4 weeks of an election in defiance of real local elections votes mere weeks before. A July 4th election will be set against inflation under 2%, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth, and BOE announced interest rate cut and mortgage lenders responding - the credit crunch and Truss budget will be from a different time and place, years ago. Also thousands of Asylum Seekers have been rounded up into detention and planes taking off deporting them to Africa, with Ireland and the EU bleeting deterrents like this are just not playing fair, as they are now getting the immigrants once set on Britain.
Those are just the known knowns, relentlessly across media that will reshape the narrative in the six weeks till polling day. What’s unknown knowns is what dirt will be thrown at Labour front bench. Fact is, just footage of Starmer at a window holding a beer, reduced a 10 point labour lead down to just 4 points when relentlessly thrown at him daily in a campaign month two years ago. The unknown unknowns I ask you to consider, is impact on polls of Nigel Farage invited to join the Conservative Party, and stand for them as a Conservative candidate.
Secondly, I thank you Stodge for your fine headers on the Local Elections, where you have given us what to watch to calibrate what is good middling and bad night for each party. But what PNS and NEV will show us Labour underperforming the polling, what share figure shows them underperforming against the westminster polling, but still on cusp of a parliamentary majority? I found a NEV of 12% is the least Labour need to get this week to form a majority government - and even that figure is way beneath the swings in the polling. How do you understand it?
Local elections are not national elections. There is considerable polling evidence that the Cons nationally are remarkably more unpopular than local conservatives. There is a reason so many candidates choose to identify themselves as just that, 'Local Conservatives'. There is a reason Mayoral candidates have been distancing themselves from the dreaded C-word, even with the local branding.
Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one. Remember when the story broke and when the 'campaign' ended. Any impact was minimal at best. It was also something of a one-shot pistol. An aspect of the failure of the Rayner allegations to move the polls is that Currygate turned out to be, how should we say this, a load of bollocks.
Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE. Well, probably. However, not inevitably. I think Lab will have to make a major mistake and that is not impossible. However, to assume it will happen is to seriously under-estimate Starmer. He does not have to be brilliant he just has to be better than his opponent and at the moment that opponent seems very likely to be Mr Rishi Sunak.
Think on that - have you seen any evidence that Mr Sunak can maintain a credible election campaign? Can you imagine him facing a 'job interview' style grilling from a serious journalist? Can you imagine him in a debate with Starmer? To have a chance of closing the gap to any meaningful degree he willl have to do all of those and do them well.
In my many GEs I have only ever voted Lab once. I am no fan-boy for Starmer. However, their (not so) secret weapons are going to be front and centre throughout the GE campaign whenever it comes. Their names - Mr Rishi Sunak and the truly pathetic record of the current Govt.
We can all hope for miracles but they hardly ever come.
“Currygate closed the polls? You might like to check the figures on that one.” The evidence absolutely supports me on that one. Go look, just 4% gap when it came to polling day. It actually worked. By the end of the campaign Labour couldn’t get its message across for being asked by every media outfit about beergate.
“Meanwhile we can assume the polls will narrow in the run in to the GE.” I am arguing they will close to just a 5 point gap without any swingback from Lab to Con, just reuniting of the centre right bloc.
Sunak is a drag on Tory polling, though maybe not ultimately huge drag on votes as you assume. Sunak and Hunt will be thought of differently than last year, last month, last week and next week after a 6 week campaign built upon inflation under 2%, BOE interest rate cut, economy out of recession with strong 2024 growth. The fact Labour have called the Rwanda policy so badly only accelerates that Ref to Con campaign period swingback.
You don’t understand do you? Just watch. watch it happen just like this.
You've come back madder than ever MarchMoonHare!
Up the Tories!
I thought they were spoofing the other day and I’m still not sure. No one can be reading the mood of the nation this badly can they?
Tories closing the gap to 5 points is not misreading the mood of a Nation, all they need to do is attract back out for them on election day a block of rightwing brexiteer voters they have had voting for them at the last General Elections. Simples.
Why do you keep misreading the polls into thinking Labour have attracted so many votes away from Conservatives, it’s given them a 20 point lead? That’s not what the polling situation is, thats not the 20 point lead, that’s not the mood of the Nation.
I salute your indefatigiblity over the chances of Tory recovery if not agreeing with them. However it strikes me that a lot of negativity from the right on here and elsewhere about the Tories is down to the stink of likely defeat rather than any great point of principle. A few 30 pointers for the Tories and I suspect there'd be a load of Rishi-sceptic righties quietly changing their position.
Polls don’t predict. They just give a snapshot. Have a think about what might move the polls.
When inflation is Under 2%, and BoE announce rat cut, the economy is out of recession because growth in 2024 is strong. And Rwanda flights are in the air, you reckon the polls won’t move at all?
And I know why you get it wrong. Psychologically if you are left or centre left, this magic dust sprinkled on you won’t work at all, so you can’t “imagine” a world how it would work on anyone. But if you were right or centre right getting this magic dust…
And remember Beergate month worked. It tightened the polls to just a 4% lead polling day.
Low inflation might be a symptom of weak demand combined with rising unemployment.Inflation has already fallen from 11% to just over 3% but has had little obvious effect on the polls. Why should any further decline to 2% make much difference?
It’s a huge symbolic moment in a febrile political atmosphere, meaning lots of voters will notice it and think the government have done a good job to stand cost of living crisis on its head so quickly.
Just to correct you, it’s energy behind the big drop. And the sequence of announcements is: 9th May interest rate cut announced, 10th May UK comes out of recession with very good first quarter growth, 22nd May Inflation will fall below 2%!
To exploit this, Rishi Sunak is announcing the General Election date 1037hrs 13th May, for 2024 General Election is being held on 4th July. Parliament will end on 23rd May.
The final vote shares will be CON33 LAB39 LDM16 REF3 GRN4 SNP2
I seem to remember a previous prediction of the election date voiced with great confidence, yet proving to be mistaken. Do you have no self doubt around this new prediction?
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I did warn you a week or so ago when you said you were going. It is very commercialised. We basically cycled up to it. Admired it from our bikes and then went for a beer in one of the modern bars/restaurants on the path leading up to it.
As you say it is impressive to look at, but I couldn't be bothered to go in.
I was going to condemn you for being a careless philistine about an hour ago - now I salute your excellent good sense. Yes, all you have to do is get close and look at it. If there’s any noom it’s there - simply the sight of it - faraway and up close. Inside you might as well be in a weird stone Disneyland but without the exciting rides
In 2021, the Labour leader had criticised Ms Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix, saying that her comment “is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right”.
In 2021, the Labour leader had criticised Ms Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix, saying that her comment “is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right”.
Some left wing men have fallen into the same trap as Billy Bragg - if sex realists / gender critics include women like Kemi Badenoch they must be “wrong”, when a little thinking could go a long way.
We are seeing a flood of people changing their tune on this matter. Problem is people have kept the receipts. Whatever people think of Rosie Duffields views she was treated appallingly by Labour over it. Ostracised and abused by online TRA's for daring to challenge their orthodoxy.
People now changing their views because of the Cass report are just moral cowards. Weathervanes. It is not a case of changing views as the information had changed. It was all there in the first place.
Billy Bragg is just a prick. Mansplaining feminism to real feminists. Women be quiet. A man is speaking.
A classic example is Caroline Blokes who has purged her Twitter of all references to Trans - but there are interviews where she intoned the mantra TWAW.
Is Caroline Blokes a typo for Caroline Nokes? I hope not. Under the circumstances the comedy works for me.
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places?
Because the places that everyone wants to go will have to be rationed SOMEHOW. Read that brilliantly prescient article by the much-missed @SeanT
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Tried to get into the BM last week to see the Romans exhibition. Needless to say, being a scholar and a gent, I had not thought to buy a ticket in advance. I expect to walk in there at a time of my own choosing, with a polite nod on the way from a uniformed commissionaire. So I was unprepared to find the crowd in Gt Russell Street resembling the aftermath of a north-London derby, heaving blindly in all directions, bemoaning each other's presence in every known language except English. Any pretence that the BM is a place of learning or scholarship has long been abandoned. We may as well sell the Elgin Marbles to the Arabs and be done with them.
That could easily be fixed - if we want to keep the BM free - by making people book timed entrance online. Honestly, all these hugely popular places will have to ration entrance. Most will do it by money. Some by time
A billion Indians are about to start travelling. On top of a billion Chinese who are now on the move
Timed entrance is an excellent thing. I went to Rome with my wife a few years back. She really doesn't like what she calls "excessive planning".
For the Vatican Museum, we walked past the queue for about 45 minutes. The queues are so normal that they have slots in the pavement for the barriers to keep the line tidy and out of the way of people using the pavement for other reasons.
Interesting - but it doesn’t factor in middle class bungs like “free” Uni (paid for by lower access for poorer students) and “free” prescriptions - which the poor/elderly didn’t pay for anyway.
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places? Maybe a lottery system would be better.
Don't worry, when wealthy people go there they stop being interesting.
You could fix that by having lottery tickets for a few lucky and interesting plebs. They’d have to prove they are characterful, engaging and ornamental. I’m not sure you or @kinabalu would qualify on any grounds other than a plebeian origin, sorry
But that’s how you fix the rich man ghetto issue. Have a tiny sprinkling of fat proles in their sports attire, they’d have their own entrances marked by a a crossed out puffer gilet
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
Actually the interior of Mont St Michel is a stunning piece of medieval civil engineering. It's a stone box projected around a point. So the cloister is built three (?) stories up.
Sorry that the crowds are getting in the way of enjoying it though. The only consolation is that it is a somewhat authentic experience. The crowds of medieval pilgrims would have been equally jostled and fleeced by the rip off souvenir shops.
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places?
Because the places that everyone wants to go will have to be rationed SOMEHOW. Read that brilliantly prescient article by the much-missed @SeanT
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Tried to get into the BM last week to see the Romans exhibition. Needless to say, being a scholar and a gent, I had not thought to buy a ticket in advance. I expect to walk in there at a time of my own choosing, with a polite nod on the way from a uniformed commissionaire. So I was unprepared to find the crowd in Gt Russell Street resembling the aftermath of a north-London derby, heaving blindly in all directions, bemoaning each other's presence in every known language except English. Any pretence that the BM is a place of learning or scholarship has long been abandoned. We may as well sell the Elgin Marbles to the Arabs and be done with them.
That could easily be fixed - if we want to keep the BM free - by making people book timed entrance online. Honestly, all these hugely popular places will have to ration entrance. Most will do it by money. Some by time
A billion Indians are about to start travelling. On top of a billion Chinese who are now on the move
Timed entrance is an excellent thing. I went to Rome with my wife a few years back. She really doesn't like what she calls "excessive planning".
For the Vatican Museum, we walked past the queue for about 45 minutes. The queues are so normal that they have slots in the pavement for the barriers to keep the line tidy and out of the way of people using the pavement for other reasons.
We walked straight in with our timed tickets.
Even with timed entrance and premium tickets the Vatican museum is now horrific. Enormous crowds - potentially dangerous - squeezing past all that remarkable art. It’s sad. I experienced it last year
About 25 years ago I remember being the ONLY person in the Stanze of Raphael looking at The School of Athens. Unthinkable now
So even tho they are charging they will simply have to charge more and more until the crowds finally dwindle and it becomes tolerable again
And thus travel returns to what it was: the indulgence of the wealthy
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
Actually the interior of Mont St Michel is a stunning piece of medieval civil engineering. It's a stone box projected around a point. So the cloister is built three (?) stories up.
Sorry that the crowds are getting in the way of enjoying it though. The only consolation is that it is a somewhat authentic experience. The crowds of medieval pilgrims would have been equally jostled and fleeced by the rip off souvenir shops.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
You needed to go to Mass for a full noom
Monks and nuns chanting beautifully in Latin really lifts the place
And you need some zen to do deal with those crowds, but it is so worth it
In 2021, the Labour leader had criticised Ms Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix, saying that her comment “is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right”.
In 2021, the Labour leader had criticised Ms Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix, saying that her comment “is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right”.
Some left wing men have fallen into the same trap as Billy Bragg - if sex realists / gender critics include women like Kemi Badenoch they must be “wrong”, when a little thinking could go a long way.
We are seeing a flood of people changing their tune on this matter. Problem is people have kept the receipts. Whatever people think of Rosie Duffields views she was treated appallingly by Labour over it. Ostracised and abused by online TRA's for daring to challenge their orthodoxy.
People now changing their views because of the Cass report are just moral cowards. Weathervanes. It is not a case of changing views as the information had changed. It was all there in the first place.
Billy Bragg is just a prick. Mansplaining feminism to real feminists. Women be quiet. A man is speaking.
A classic example is Caroline Blokes who has purged her Twitter of all references to Trans - but there are interviews where she intoned the mantra TWAW.
Is Caroline Blokes a typo for Caroline Nokes? I hope not. Under the circumstances the comedy works for me.
Given her rapidly being erased position on TWAW it’s her unaffectionate nickname.
I am astonished by how many of the parties are not running a full slate of candidates. Back in the day in Stafford and Cannock - before they became Tory strongholds - we always put up a full slate. We operated on the basis that if people got out of the habit of voting for us in the locals, they may not do so when the General Election came around.
When I stood as a paper candidate for Craven District Council, we made sure that we were able to stand a full slate of candidates. We didn't win any of the wards up that year (came close in one), but we felt it was important to give everyone the opportunity to vote Labour.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I did warn you a week or so ago when you said you were going. It is very commercialised. We basically cycled up to it. Admired it from our bikes and then went for a beer in one of the modern bars/restaurants on the path leading up to it.
As you say it is impressive to look at, but I couldn't be bothered to go in.
At the other end of the scale we have recently seen the Ruthwell Cross (first visit since about 1977) and appeared to have been the only humans within about 5 miles. Noom factor lessened by the aesthetics of the Scottish kirk but still a miraculous survival from when Northumbria was at the apex of European civilization. And equally miraculously unlocked (though apparently usually locked, like Scottish churches are, key to be had from someone somewhere).
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
You needed to go to Mass for a full noom
Monks and nuns chanting beautifully in Latin really lifts the place
And you need some zen to do deal with those crowds, but it is so worth it
You and @FF43 nearly persuaded me to book a hotel on the island overnight. So I could see the abbey first thing in the morning before the crowds…. But it’s shut on May 1
I'm pretty sure this would be criminal - but then again, if Trump's elected, he can pardon everyone involved. The dirt would have to be invented, but that's not been a problem for them before.
I hope Robert Mueller's ears are burning.
Rudy is now telling Mike Johnson & Jim Jordan to do exactly what Trump was impeached for: “Somebody should lean on Zelensky. You want another penny, give us your Biden file.”
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but do you think Sadiq Khan deliberately called Susan Hall ‘The Tory Candidate’ because she is more popular than the Tories in London?
Sadiq Khan confronted over people "running around with machetes" on the streets of London earlier this week:
“I think the Tory candidate should stop watching The Wire."
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I think they should start by banning journalists and travel writers. After all they just attract more of the proles.
I am constantly aware of this unhappy paradox
Actually more seriously, as a travel journlist you should know that the best time to visit these places is out of season. There is something fabulously bleak and imposing about Mont St Michel in January or February. Same goes for so many of the relligious sites in Spain and Italy. They somehw feel far more authentic than on a warm spring or summer's day.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I did warn you a week or so ago when you said you were going. It is very commercialised. We basically cycled up to it. Admired it from our bikes and then went for a beer in one of the modern bars/restaurants on the path leading up to it.
As you say it is impressive to look at, but I couldn't be bothered to go in.
At the other end of the scale we have recently seen the Ruthwell Cross (first visit since about 1977) and appeared to have been the only humans within about 5 miles. Noom factor lessened by the aesthetics of the Scottish kirk but still a miraculous survival from when Northumbria was at the apex of European civilization. And equally miraculously unlocked (though apparently usually locked, like Scottish churches are, key to be had from someone somewhere).
Pretty sure your pin up would enjoy the aesthetics of the Scottish kirk. Or at least take a flinty satisfaction from them which passes for Noom in Weefreeworld.
"Simon Harris: ‘Legitimate expectation’ asylum seekers will be returned to UK The Taoiseach called for a sense of calm and said everyone needed ‘to take a deep breath and just be very factual’."
Worth noting that the government in Ireland is pulling a bit of a fast one here. They admitted yesterday that they had no statistics or data on asylum seeker arrivals, and had just assumed they all asylum seekers who weren't claiming asylum at a port of entry (like Dublin Airport) must have come from the UK via Northern Ireland.
Of course, it suited the Tories to accept responsibility so they could claim it as evidence that Rwanda was working.
A parties of the right mutually satisfying 69.
How do the Irish propose to “return” these people to the UK? What are they going to do? Bus them to Newry and drop them there? So they can stroll back into Ireland? Fly them in helicopters to Newent and kick them out with a parachute attached?
Do they expect the RAF to land at Knock airport and do it all for them?
They are a pathetic nation
A coach from Dublin to Glasgow via Belfast would cost £52 commercially, with a change at Belfast.
If the Irish government is capable of organising a direct service (not guaranteed), at which point will UK Border Force check the passports and prevent entry to the returning asylum seekers?
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but do you think Sadiq Khan deliberately called Susan Hall ‘The Tory Candidate’ because she is more popular than the Tories in London?
Sadiq Khan confronted over people "running around with machetes" on the streets of London earlier this week:
“I think the Tory candidate should stop watching The Wire."
Could just be SOP- don't name your rival, being talked about negatively is better than not being talked about at all.
But Hall almost certainly will outperform Generic Conservative; she'd be a hopeless Mayor and is comfortably on track to lose very badly, but she has kept Reform in a very small box. High floor/low ceiling. Zone 6 appeal, which is where Conservative voters are.
Forget the ethnic bit; Sunak is The Man (looks, sounds and behaves like a banker) and a chunk of the Reform vote is a vote against The Man.
(Which is why Con+Ref=Not too bad a defeat is unlikely to happen.)
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places?
Because the places that everyone wants to go will have to be rationed SOMEHOW. Read that brilliantly prescient article by the much-missed @SeanT
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Tried to get into the BM last week to see the Romans exhibition. Needless to say, being a scholar and a gent, I had not thought to buy a ticket in advance. I expect to walk in there at a time of my own choosing, with a polite nod on the way from a uniformed commissionaire. So I was unprepared to find the crowd in Gt Russell Street resembling the aftermath of a north-London derby, heaving blindly in all directions, bemoaning each other's presence in every known language except English. Any pretence that the BM is a place of learning or scholarship has long been abandoned. We may as well sell the Elgin Marbles to the Arabs and be done with them.
That could easily be fixed - if we want to keep the BM free - by making people book timed entrance online. Honestly, all these hugely popular places will have to ration entrance. Most will do it by money. Some by time
A billion Indians are about to start travelling. On top of a billion Chinese who are now on the move
Timed entrance is an excellent thing. I went to Rome with my wife a few years back. She really doesn't like what she calls "excessive planning".
For the Vatican Museum, we walked past the queue for about 45 minutes. The queues are so normal that they have slots in the pavement for the barriers to keep the line tidy and out of the way of people using the pavement for other reasons.
We walked straight in with our timed tickets.
Even with timed entrance and premium tickets the Vatican museum is now horrific. Enormous crowds - potentially dangerous - squeezing past all that remarkable art. It’s sad. I experienced it last year
About 25 years ago I remember being the ONLY person in the Stanze of Raphael looking at The School of Athens. Unthinkable now
So even tho they are charging they will simply have to charge more and more until the crowds finally dwindle and it becomes tolerable again
And thus travel returns to what it was: the indulgence of the wealthy
Can’t wait
A lot of these places will be happy to rent themselves out as an event space. If you have the money I expect you can already arrange for private use, in the evening at least.
Such a shame that you can't afford that extravagance.
“By the end of my autumnal travels, it occurred to me that there is one solution: the Bhutanese example. You ration travel, by time and money: you start to make people pay simply to get into cities, regions, nations”
I bow to no-one in my futurology and extrapolations, but that is notably prescient: as Venice starts to charge simply for Venice
Why should only wealthy people be able to travel to interesting places? Maybe a lottery system would be better.
We should all have a tradeable carbon allowance that us poor serfs can sell to the Posh boys and girls who can pollute the globe with conscience clear.
Bad morning for him. I can’t help but think that when public see more of him, he could mess this up
What could be dangerous is that Rishi makes some headway on the economy and Rwanda and then starts successfully spinning himself as Britain's 'Comeback Kid'. I think elements of Labour and the Left might attempt to spread panic at that point - either out of genuinely concern or devilry - and Sir Keir will seriously feel the pressure.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but do you think Sadiq Khan deliberately called Susan Hall ‘The Tory Candidate’ because she is more popular than the Tories in London?
Sadiq Khan confronted over people "running around with machetes" on the streets of London earlier this week:
“I think the Tory candidate should stop watching The Wire."
No defections in Galloway's announcement, but he says he is talking to '3 Lab mps and a lord' and expects councillor defections 'as soon as next week' So a nothing nothing burger
Bad morning for him. I can’t help but think that when public see more of him, he could mess this up
What could be dangerous is that Rishi makes some headway on the economy and Rwanda and then starts successfully spinning himself as Britain's 'Comeback Kid'. I think elements of Labour and the Left might start spreading panic at that point - either out of genuinely concern or devilry - and Sir Keir might seriously feel the pressure.
I have to factor in my intense dislike of Sir Keir, but to me he is just as shifty and dishonest as Boris… and he doesn't charm ANYONE.
Whenever an interviewer exposes his double standards or non answers he tells them off as if they should know better, or grins like Alan Partridge when a guest embarrasses him. Sunak seems a lot more of a nice guy & has a youthful energy that should contrast well in a one vs one with Sir Keir’s overweight old man look
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
Why the fuck is this UNESCO World Heritage Listed already, when the Jobbie building in Edinburgh, or the Holyrood Parliament masterpiece, have yet to even make the “tentative list”?!
And what about “the ensemble of Camden High Street retail centre and its homeless tents”. Been waiting for status for yonks. Yet this crap, a couple of houses and a chapel on a muddy island? - the French bribe a couple of UNESCO dudes in Paris and bingo. Listed
Pff!
I remember going there as a young whipper-snapper and being given one of those big Franc notes that were like wrapping paper to occupy myself in the shops whilst my parents and their friends enjoyed post lunch drinks. I bought a comb that was made like a flick knife with a crocodile design handle. Obviously when I got home I took apart a real knife and replaced the comb and thought I was the nuts with my flick knife until my sister grassed me up and my parents confiscated it.
I’m not sure what connects flick-combs with Mont St Michel to warrant selling them there but maybe they were a thing with the monks for keeping their tonsures neat.
My only visit was ill-timed, on a peak day in summer when the place was heaving with tourists. Still beautiful especially from a distance but the magic is dimmed when you're struggling up the streets being elbowed by fellow visitors. I was told then that the best thing is to stay overnight, as in so many tourist honeypots, and I can well imagine on a quiet sunny evening once all the day trippers have gone it would be wonderful.
It’s fucking hideous. They should UNESCO list the tourist crowds. This is the queue just to get in the abbey
Outrageous! Don't you have a Press Pass?
I do have a press card but I can’t be arsed with the faff. From what I’ve read the abbey interior is not that special anyway - it’s all about the location
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
I think they should start by banning journalists and travel writers. After all they just attract more of the proles.
I am constantly aware of this unhappy paradox
Actually more seriously, as a travel journlist you should know that the best time to visit these places is out of season. There is something fabulously bleak and imposing about Mont St Michel in January or February. Same goes for so many of the relligious sites in Spain and Italy. They somehw feel far more authentic than on a warm spring or summer's day.
And of course a lot less tourists.
Of course I know that. I never intended to come here on this trip. It’s a whim - I’m choosing my destination every morning
Anyway I’ve ticked it off from my list. And it does look magnificent in the bright sunshine - glittering on the spires and stone
Also in winter I wouldn’t get this view above my aperol spritz
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
The Tories probably could have won the London mayoral election if they'd selected a better candidate. A bit of a missed opportunity. For instance, someone like Alan Sugar, if he still supports the Tories. (He probably doesn't).
Sugar isn't a Tory, he supported Thatcher but also backed Blair and Brown. If he did stand it would have been as an Independent
Kate Forbes has said she has a "groundswell of support amongst the party" as she told BBC Scotland News that she's still weighing up whether to run to be the next SNP leader.
Speaking in Holyrood, Forbes said she was considering her options and whether this was the right time for the party, the country and her family.
John Swinney has just said that he's giving a "great deal of thought" to whether to run for SNP leader.
The former deputy first minister said he wanted to ensure it was the right decision for his family, party and country. His potential leadership rival Kate Forbes said something similar a few minutes before.
Asked about his decision to not run for the leadership again last year, John Swinney said "events change" and that it "wouldn't be my style" to ignore the voices telling him to run this time.
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
Off topic - What is it with HMRC Government Gateway IDs and seperate logins for stuff both business and personal.
Just amended something with the Deferment/CDS, but had to use a login which I randomly googled rather than the "main" VAT portal, even though there's stuff about DAN within the VAT login.
Similiar for taxation and the childcare system personally (Different login pages, same ID & password for both)- government systems really should have a single login for a single gateway ID !
I expect it's similar for universal credit and so on.
AI-enabled electrocardiography alert intervention and all-cause mortality: a pragmatic randomized clinical trial
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02961-4 The early identification of vulnerable patients has the potential to improve outcomes but poses a substantial challenge in clinical practice. This study evaluated the ability of an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled electrocardiogram (ECG) to identify hospitalized patients with a high risk of mortality in a multisite randomized controlled trial involving 39 physicians and 15,965 patients. The AI-ECG alert intervention included an AI report and warning messages delivered to the physicians, flagging patients predicted to be at high risk of mortality. The trial met its primary outcome, finding that implementation of the AI-ECG alert was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality within 90 days: 3.6% patients in the intervention group died within 90 days, compared to 4.3% in the control group (4.3%) (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.83, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.70–0.99). A prespecified analysis showed that reduction in all-cause mortality associated with the AI-ECG alert was observed primarily in patients with high-risk ECGs (HR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.53–0.90). In analyses of secondary outcomes, patients in the intervention group with high-risk ECGs received increased levels of intensive care compared to the control group; for the high-risk ECG group of patients, implementation of the AI-ECG alert was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of cardiac death (0.2% in the intervention arm versus 2.4% in the control arm, HR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.01–0.56). While the precise means by which implementation of the AI-ECG alert led to decreased mortality are to be fully elucidated, these results indicate that such implementation assists in the detection of high-risk patients, prompting timely clinical care and reducing mortality.
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
Sadly, some of these words are becoming normalised. "Trainings" is not just said by Indians in tech anymore. Americans and even Brits have taken it up.
Off topic - What is it with HMRC Government Gateway IDs and seperate logins for stuff both business and personal.
Just amended something with the Deferment/CDS, but had to use a login which I randomly googled rather than the "main" VAT portal, even though there's stuff about DAN within the VAT login.
Similiar for taxation and the childcare system personally (Different login pages, same ID & password for both)- government systems really should have a single login for a single gateway ID !
I expect it's similar for universal credit and so on.
Yes, a single login would be great, until someone steals your identity.
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
It seems to me as though he is preparing to have clean hands if Rayner is in trouble, by saying he believes her and doesn't need to look at the evidence. This way he can pile the blame on her whilst making himself look like a good boss who trusts his team but has been let down
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
Off topic - What is it with HMRC Government Gateway IDs and seperate logins for stuff both business and personal.
Just amended something with the Deferment/CDS, but had to use a login which I randomly googled rather than the "main" VAT portal, even though there's stuff about DAN within the VAT login.
Similiar for taxation and the childcare system personally (Different login pages, same ID & password for both)- government systems really should have a single login for a single gateway ID !
I expect it's similar for universal credit and so on.
Yes, a single login would be great, until someone steals your identity.
Err you do have a single User ID and password. I happen to use two as I log in personally and on behalf of my employer. It's the same for taxes and childcare (Personal); deferment and VAT account (Business). But the webpages for logging into different parts of your account are different. Which is unlike any other organisation I can think of.
It does rather look like Galloway/WPB will be running in at least a plurality of seats at the GE, I wonder what effect prompting for them in polling might have? 2%?
It has been said that one contributory factor to May's disastrous 2017GE campaign was the terrorist attacks that occurred. There's an obvious parallel with today's horrific knife attack in North London for Thursday's Mayoral election.
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
It seems to me as though he is preparing to have clean hands if Rayner is in trouble, by saying he believes her and doesn't need to look at the evidence. This way he can pile the blame on her whilst making himself look like a good boss who trusts his team but has been let down
It would be interesting if Watson lays charges on Rayner tomorrow. That would be optimal timing for the elections.
It has been said that one contributory factor to May's disastrous 2017GE campaign was the terrorist attacks that occurred. There's an obvious parallel with today's horrific knife attack in North London for Thursday's Mayoral election.
Might Khan lose?
Him scoffing at Halls machete comments was ill advised but he should still win relatively easily imo
It has been said that one contributory factor to May's disastrous 2017GE campaign was the terrorist attacks that occurred. There's an obvious parallel with today's horrific knife attack in North London for Thursday's Mayoral election.
Might Khan lose?
I can't believe anyone would change their vote based on an isolated incident like this, maybe some do.
AI-enabled electrocardiography alert intervention and all-cause mortality: a pragmatic randomized clinical trial
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02961-4 The early identification of vulnerable patients has the potential to improve outcomes but poses a substantial challenge in clinical practice. This study evaluated the ability of an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled electrocardiogram (ECG) to identify hospitalized patients with a high risk of mortality in a multisite randomized controlled trial involving 39 physicians and 15,965 patients. The AI-ECG alert intervention included an AI report and warning messages delivered to the physicians, flagging patients predicted to be at high risk of mortality. The trial met its primary outcome, finding that implementation of the AI-ECG alert was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality within 90 days: 3.6% patients in the intervention group died within 90 days, compared to 4.3% in the control group (4.3%) (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.83, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.70–0.99). A prespecified analysis showed that reduction in all-cause mortality associated with the AI-ECG alert was observed primarily in patients with high-risk ECGs (HR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.53–0.90). In analyses of secondary outcomes, patients in the intervention group with high-risk ECGs received increased levels of intensive care compared to the control group; for the high-risk ECG group of patients, implementation of the AI-ECG alert was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of cardiac death (0.2% in the intervention arm versus 2.4% in the control arm, HR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.01–0.56). While the precise means by which implementation of the AI-ECG alert led to decreased mortality are to be fully elucidated, these results indicate that such implementation assists in the detection of high-risk patients, prompting timely clinical care and reducing mortality.
(I haven't read this yet, so may well be in the article)
Sounds promising, but as always, there's the question of how many alerts - sensitivity/specificity etc. A system that raised alerts for most/all patients would (in the short term at least, until ignored) probably reduce mortality by getting them extra time reviewed by a clinician.
It has been said that one contributory factor to May's disastrous 2017GE campaign was the terrorist attacks that occurred. There's an obvious parallel with today's horrific knife attack in North London for Thursday's Mayoral election.
Might Khan lose?
It is interesting the relative level of knife crime in Labour London and Conservative West Midlands.
It does look from our PB correspondents that everything is going horribly wrong for Labour this week.
It has been said that one contributory factor to May's disastrous 2017GE campaign was the terrorist attacks that occurred. There's an obvious parallel with today's horrific knife attack in North London for Thursday's Mayoral election.
Might Khan lose?
I can't believe anyone would change their vote based on an isolated incident like this, maybe some do.
It puts issues around crime and violence in the forefront of voters' minds. There's ample evidence that people react differently as a result.
It has been said that one contributory factor to May's disastrous 2017GE campaign was the terrorist attacks that occurred. There's an obvious parallel with today's horrific knife attack in North London for Thursday's Mayoral election.
Might Khan lose?
Unlikely given it’s the Tories that have cut funding to the Met Police . Although I’m sure Hall will try and score political points on this.
"Pedro Sánchez has built a reputation as a successful political gambler, but suspending public duties and threatening to resign, as he did last week, was a political bombshell. It was so extraordinary it led to five days of national puzzlement and the wildest speculation over his motives: from mental health to true love and all kinds of shenanigans associated with the dark arts of politics in between."
"The timing of this apparently self-inflicted political turmoil adds to its oddity. "(...)
"On Monday, after his period of reflection, Sanchez issued another statement, vowing to stay on and fight even harder against those who peddled the “falsehoods distorting political life”." (...)
"The irony is that Spain is now in good shape." (BBM)
"Spain’s Sanchez says ‘disproportionate’ Israeli Gaza attacks a world threat
"Prime minister pushes for recognition of a Palestinian state, says such a ‘just’ move would be in European Union’s interest."
"Late last month, he signed a joint statement with his Irish, Maltese and Slovenian counterparts announcing they were ready “to recognise Palestine” if that could help bring about a resolution to more than six months of war in Gaza, during which Israeli attacks have killed at least 33,360 people, according to Palestinian health officials.
Sanchez is due to meet several other leaders, including those of Norway and Portugal, in the coming days to discuss the issue, Spanish government spokeswoman Pilar Alegria said on Tuesday.
The prime minister had already raised the subject of statehood during a visit last week to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar when he indicated Spain could recognise Palestine as a nation by the end of June."
Sir Keir will fall apart under scrutiny in the campaign debates.
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
It seems to me as though he is preparing to have clean hands if Rayner is in trouble, by saying he believes her and doesn't need to look at the evidence. This way he can pile the blame on her whilst making himself look like a good boss who trusts his team but has been let down
It would be interesting if Watson lays charges on Rayner tomorrow. That would be optimal timing for the elections.
Given he’s a Tory stooge perhaps he might . But it would look so politically timed that I expect he doesn’t want his career progression to hit the buffers .
One of Sir Keir & Rosie Duffield is telling porkies
Starmer's treatment of Rosie Duffield echoes one of the low points of Corbyn's leadership of Labour, when the latter did nothing to help Luciana Berger when she was suffering from antisemitic attacks.
Enjoyed all 3 of your LE threads. Thanks for the information
The one to watch from a Green perspective is Bristol.
I think the East Midlands Mayoral race will also be close and within my family 8 votes have gone directly from Labour to Green and none of us care much if that results in the Tories sneaking it in the ;likely 2 horse race.
Frank Adlington-Stringer is a good guy and far better than any of the other Candidates so gets all our votes
Comments
There are a few potential names if we are looking at "majors on Palestine" people, but we'll hear soon enough.
The first Doctor was a sprightly youngster compared to this Doctor who is several iterations and many centuries further down the line.
I am optimistic about the new season. I like Gatwa, he is very charismatic.
Sultana, Whittome etc
I wouldn't be surprised if he's angling at Abbott on the qt
The obvious way to ration them is by price - so that the money can be used to maintain the sites and bribe the locals to tolerate the influx
I guess you could ration them by lottery ticket but let’s face it that’s not going to happen. Humans are not that generous and also you need to recompense local traders who will lose from diminished custom
So yes travel to the really lovely places will be limited to rich people and professional travel writers. Good. Kick out all the smelly plebs, they’ve ruined Mont St Michel. I am already leaving. Ugh
Edit - he claims to be talking to 'MPs, a Lord, several councillors' about defection
Average rainfall in my part of Ireland of around 2000mm, or 2000kg/sqm, so that's 240 tonnes of rain falling through the drainpipes.
Assume a height for the roof of, I have no idea, 4 metres?
Total gravitational potential energy released is then
240000 * 9.8 * 4 = 9.4 million Joules of energy. Or about 2.6kWh.
With a 25% efficient turbine, that would be about 650Wh* of energy. Over the course of a year.
You would want the turbines to be very cheap.
* Our resident electric car youtube star can perhaps say how far this would move a Tesla model Y.
BBC WATO.
The Government assumes they have not absconded.
Edit: Sarah Montague believes they have all gone to Dublin, which means Rwanda is working.
"BRISTOL
The local elections in Bristol on May 2 are the most significant for some time, as the city moves to a new way of governing that will see the mayor replaced by a committee system. It follows a landmark referendum in 2022 where residents voted to scrap the position of a directly elected mayor.
It means the Green Party is far more likely to be in positions of power after the elections. The party currently has the most councillors with 25, but has been excluded from the cabinet because there is no obligation for the outgoing mayor, Labour’s Marvin Rees, to include them."
https://www.politics.co.uk/5-minute-read/2024/04/30/six-key-battlegrounds-at-the-2024-local-elections/
And now I’ve seen the location and the moment you finally approach the Mont is indeed very special and quite sublime. This majestic ensemble in grey gold stone, rising from the Normandy waters
After that it’s just massive crowds outside mediocre creperies. Mont St Michel can go fuck itself until they keep out the proles by charging €300 a day to people like me and only me
Tchoh!
A billion Indians are about to start travelling. On top of a billion Chinese who are now on the move
Unfortunately, I'll just have to wait until the little un's 18 and I can chuck him out of the house.
Do they expect the RAF to land at Knock airport and do it all for them?
They are a pathetic nation
As you say it is impressive to look at, but I couldn't be bothered to go in.
For the Vatican Museum, we walked past the queue for about 45 minutes. The queues are so normal that they have slots in the pavement for the barriers to keep the line tidy and out of the way of people using the pavement for other reasons.
We walked straight in with our timed tickets.
But that’s how you fix the rich man ghetto issue. Have a tiny sprinkling of fat proles in their sports attire, they’d have their own entrances marked by a a crossed out puffer gilet
Sorry that the crowds are getting in the way of enjoying it though. The only consolation is that it is a somewhat authentic experience. The crowds of medieval pilgrims would have been equally jostled and fleeced by the rip off souvenir shops.
https://x.com/michaelpforan/status/1785235291814461664
About 25 years ago I remember being the ONLY person in the Stanze of Raphael looking at The School of Athens. Unthinkable now
So even tho they are charging they will simply have to charge more and more until the crowds finally dwindle and it becomes tolerable again
And thus travel returns to what it was: the indulgence of the wealthy
Can’t wait
I’ve not missed much else in this life, so far
Monks and nuns chanting beautifully in Latin really lifts the place
And you need some zen to do deal with those crowds, but it is so worth it
God has decided. Or the queen of Beltane. Allez!
The dirt would have to be invented, but that's not been a problem for them before.
I hope Robert Mueller's ears are burning.
Rudy is now telling Mike Johnson & Jim Jordan to do exactly what Trump was impeached for: “Somebody should lean on Zelensky. You want another penny, give us your Biden file.”
And we are supposed to believe that Trump & Rudy didn’t do this?
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1785050398266474644
Sadiq Khan confronted over people "running around with machetes" on the streets of London earlier this week:
“I think the Tory candidate should stop watching The Wire."
https://x.com/mrharrycole/status/1785279238410580151?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
And of course a lot less tourists.
Or at least take a flinty satisfaction from them which passes for Noom in Weefreeworld.
If the Irish government is capable of organising a direct service (not guaranteed), at which point will UK Border Force check the passports and prevent entry to the returning asylum seekers?
https://x.com/gmb/status/1785212404416000254
I think Madeley is quite a good interviewer, plenty don’t, but could the Labour leader look any more shifty and evasive here? The blinking, the Partridge smirk, the repetition. So evasive
https://youtu.be/CbnyjcYGw_M?si=5G_k2NaUauMjD72L
But Hall almost certainly will outperform Generic Conservative; she'd be a hopeless Mayor and is comfortably on track to lose very badly, but she has kept Reform in a very small box. High floor/low ceiling. Zone 6 appeal, which is where Conservative voters are.
Forget the ethnic bit; Sunak is The Man (looks, sounds and behaves like a banker) and a chunk of the Reform vote is a vote against The Man.
(Which is why Con+Ref=Not too bad a defeat is unlikely to happen.)
Such a shame that you can't afford that extravagance.
So a nothing nothing burger
Whenever an interviewer exposes his double standards or non answers he tells them off as if they should know better, or grins like Alan Partridge when a guest embarrasses him. Sunak seems a lot more of a nice guy & has a youthful energy that should contrast well in a one vs one with Sir Keir’s overweight old man look
Anyway I’ve ticked it off from my list. And it does look magnificent in the bright sunshine - glittering on the spires and stone
Also in winter I wouldn’t get this view above my aperol spritz
So he'll look like a titan.
Speaking in Holyrood, Forbes said she was considering her options and whether this was the right time for the party, the country and her family.
The former deputy first minister said he wanted to ensure it was the right decision for his family, party and country. His potential leadership rival Kate Forbes said something similar a few minutes before.
Asked about his decision to not run for the leadership again last year, John Swinney said "events change" and that it "wouldn't be my style" to ignore the voices telling him to run this time.
Lorra, lorra 'well, look's
https://x.com/firthoforth/status/1784643379701137429
Just amended something with the Deferment/CDS, but had to use a login which I randomly googled rather than the "main" VAT portal, even though there's stuff about DAN within the VAT login.
Similiar for taxation and the childcare system personally (Different login pages, same ID & password for both)- government systems really should have a single login for a single gateway ID !
I expect it's similar for universal credit and so on.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02961-4
The early identification of vulnerable patients has the potential to improve outcomes but poses a substantial challenge in clinical practice. This study evaluated the ability of an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled electrocardiogram (ECG) to identify hospitalized patients with a high risk of mortality in a multisite randomized controlled trial involving 39 physicians and 15,965 patients. The AI-ECG alert intervention included an AI report and warning messages delivered to the physicians, flagging patients predicted to be at high risk of mortality. The trial met its primary outcome, finding that implementation of the AI-ECG alert was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality within 90 days: 3.6% patients in the intervention group died within 90 days, compared to 4.3% in the control group (4.3%) (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.83, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.70–0.99). A prespecified analysis showed that reduction in all-cause mortality associated with the AI-ECG alert was observed primarily in patients with high-risk ECGs (HR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.53–0.90). In analyses of secondary outcomes, patients in the intervention group with high-risk ECGs received increased levels of intensive care compared to the control group; for the high-risk ECG group of patients, implementation of the AI-ECG alert was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of cardiac death (0.2% in the intervention arm versus 2.4% in the control arm, HR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.01–0.56). While the precise means by which implementation of the AI-ECG alert led to decreased mortality are to be fully elucidated, these results indicate that such implementation assists in the detection of high-risk patients, prompting timely clinical care and reducing mortality.
Exclusive: Israel planning ring of checkpoints to prevent “military age” men from fleeing Rafah, a senior Western official says
https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1785057903147208865
Alternatively, Rayner got a second opinion to be sure ?
Might Khan lose?
Something of a hobby, I think.
Sounds promising, but as always, there's the question of how many alerts - sensitivity/specificity etc. A system that raised alerts for most/all patients would (in the short term at least, until ignored) probably reduce mortality by getting them extra time reviewed by a clinician.
It does look from our PB correspondents that everything is going horribly wrong for Labour this week.
Why did Yousaf end the (twattishly labelled) Bute House Agreement? Not clear. Then it was "I will fight on". Then BANG, he's gone.
Meanwhile in Spain:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/30/pedro-sanchez-spain-crisis-prime-minister
"Pedro Sánchez has built a reputation as a successful political gambler, but suspending public duties and threatening to resign, as he did last week, was a political bombshell. It was so extraordinary it led to five days of national puzzlement and the wildest speculation over his motives: from mental health to true love and all kinds of shenanigans associated with the dark arts of politics in between."
"The timing of this apparently self-inflicted political turmoil adds to its oddity. "(...)
"On Monday, after his period of reflection, Sanchez issued another statement, vowing to stay on and fight even harder against those who peddled the “falsehoods distorting political life”." (...)
"The irony is that Spain is now in good shape." (BBM)
Sanchez will gone by the end of the week IMO.
From earlier this month:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/10/spains-sanchez-saysdisproportionate-israeli-gaza-attacks-a-world-threat
"Spain’s Sanchez says ‘disproportionate’ Israeli Gaza attacks a world threat
"Prime minister pushes for recognition of a Palestinian state, says such a ‘just’ move would be in European Union’s interest."
"Late last month, he signed a joint statement with his Irish, Maltese and Slovenian counterparts announcing they were ready “to recognise Palestine” if that could help bring about a resolution to more than six months of war in Gaza, during which Israeli attacks have killed at least 33,360 people, according to Palestinian health officials.
Sanchez is due to meet several other leaders, including those of Norway and Portugal, in the coming days to discuss the issue, Spanish government spokeswoman Pilar Alegria said on Tuesday.
The prime minister had already raised the subject of statehood during a visit last week to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar when he indicated Spain could recognise Palestine as a nation by the end of June."
The one to watch from a Green perspective is Bristol.
I think the East Midlands Mayoral race will also be close and within my family 8 votes have gone directly from Labour to Green and none of us care much if that results in the Tories sneaking it in the ;likely 2 horse race.
Frank Adlington-Stringer is a good guy and far better than any of the other Candidates so gets all our votes