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The Tory soap opera continues – politicalbetting.com
The Tory soap opera continues – politicalbetting.com
“She said Suella Braverman, former home secretary, appears to be having a 'very public' nervous breakdown”? ? ? https://t.co/aAbiDte7Ux
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Edit: Actually, I do - it's great entertainment.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp682nprlw7o
(You're not wrong tbf)
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Surely the Tories will realise that they need to put a grown up in charge?
And eventually in about 2030 they will realise that there is no way of doing so and adopt a sensible plan, until then it will be a matter of watching them argue amongst themselves.
We don't need an authoritarian desire for perfection to replace the good enough.
This isn't an 80/20 problem, its a 99.5/0.5 problem and the 99.5 is good enough and the 0.5 is never getting addressed whatever you do.
putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
Though they've a whole heap of problems to address, they can get all the bad news in now.
Imagine, for example, if it had been a month later and Sunak's government had approved Offwat surrendering to the water companies before leaving office ; that decision is now in Starmer's hands.
And there likely will be some continued economic rebound that they can take credit for without actually doing anything.
But unless they do genuinely start to sort things out, the honeymoon won't last long.
We'll know within a year.
Reg plates for cyclists. Definitely not worth it.
AI cameras for phone use. Probably worth it - one relatively cheap, mobile camera can catch thousands of drivers. It's as bad as drink driving and requires a deterrent.
I'd guess she was the biggest single motivating factor in getting the Greens and Lib Dems to the polling booths.
Difficult to quantify but you could be talking about three figures of non Tory MPs owing their seats to Braverman. She cemented the tactical vote like no other.
I can't be the only person motivated by Rwanda and her to get the nasties out of office by any means possible.
With the caveat that the solar figures will drop sharply over the winter, this is nonetheless remarkably encouraging news from China.
Analysis: China’s clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-clean-energy-pushes-coal-to-record-low-53-share-of-power-in-may-2024/
...The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and other data that only became available last week, reveals the true scale of the drop in coal’s share of the mix.
Coal lost seven percentage points compared with May 2023, when it accounted for 60% of generation in China.
Other key insights revealed by the analysis include:
Monthly National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data on generation by technology is now severely limited for wind and solar. For example, it excludes “distributed” rooftop solar and smaller centralised solar plants, capturing only about half of solar generation.
This mismatch becomes clear when comparing the NBS total for monthly electricity generation of 718 terawatt hours (TWh) with reported monthly electricity demand of 775TWh, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). In reality, electricity generation must be higher than demand due to losses at power plants and on the grid.
Media reports have speculated that the record renewable capacity additions would have run into grid constraints in May, but the new data shows this is not the case.
China’s electricity demand in May 2024 grew by 49TWh (7.2%) from a year earlier.
At the same time, generation from clean energy sources grew by a record 78TWh, including a record rise from solar of 41TWh (78%), a recovery from earlier drought-driven lows for hydro of 34TWh (39%) and a modest rise for wind of 4TWh (5%).
With clean energy expanding by more than the rise in electricity demand, fossil fuel output was forced into retreat, seeing the largest monthly drop since the Covid 19 pandemic. Gas generation fell by 4TWh (16%) and that from coal by 16TWh (4%).
Falling generation from fossil fuels point to a 3.6% drop in CO2 emissions from the power sector, which accounts for around two-fifths of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions and has been the dominant source of emissions growth in recent years.
The new findings show a continuation of recent trends, which helped send China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement into reverse in March 2024.
If current rapid wind and solar deployment continues, then China’s CO2 output is likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year for the country’s emissions...
One other leg of the energy transition - the switch to battery power for transport - is currently happening faster in China than in the west.
Neither would be good leaders, although Braverman would be a negative and Kemi merely a missed opportunity in my view.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
Possibly a multi parliament job - get a leader in who can draw back in Reform voters at least a bit, lose in 2029 but recover somewhat, then get a more centrist leader to build on it and hope Reform will be running out of steam by then.
I'll offer a different perspective on why the Conservatives lost - two words, Human Nature.
Most people tend to avoid the difficult decisions, the intractable problems and spend more time trying to cope with issues and questions which they think they can resolve even though, in the cosmic scheme of things, they aren't so important - I believe the term is called "creative avoidance".
In essence, the Conservatives looked at the really big problems - social care, education, the NHS, law and order and realised they were so difficult and with no real majority until 2019 (coalition, a majority of 12 and then no majority) they were put in the Pending tray.
Instead, an excess of time and energy was focused on what for most was an irrelevance - membership of the European Union. This was a problem which seemingly could be resolved and it was although the consequences of the decision weren't thought through to any degree and the issues the resolution has created have also proved to be difficult.
Had the time spent on deciding whether we should be in the EU been spent on trying to resolve any of the other myriad issues affecting the country we might have made some headway but there would be no sense of achievement or accomplishment for the Conservatives but perhaps the electorate would have recognised the effort.
That's the thing with Government - there's a perception you should always be seen to be doing something ("delivering") but it's often the work you can't or don't see which yields the real benefits.
The Conservatives failed because they were neither willing nor able to make real progress on the big issues and said issues have only got bigger. Covid showed the best and worst of them - the vaccine roll out will stand as a success for Johnson but the other side of that will probably be the thing for which he is remembered. Instead they wasted money, time and energy on trivialities - that may be harsh and time may tell they did make a start in some areas (housing) on which, with luck, future Governments can build.
Others with competing interests will do likewise.
Those that inherit.
Investors/Landlords with multiple properties.
The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
Nevertheless, bills remain below what they were in 2019-20 when they stood at £503 a year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmm26e1qpzgo
So if water bills have been falling why are we regularly told that they've been 'soaring' and are 'sky high' ?
The problem of negative equity for mortgage payers is real, though, and something might need to be done about it, especially if the government wants to stay in office. Ask John Major. #WeBuyAnyHouse.gov.uk
We share our disgust about Braverman but Truss did far more damage and gave the opposition parties the biggest gift in political history
And re the thread header I couldn't agree more
Indeed the conservative party melodrama is demonstrating just why they need grown ups in charge but where are they ?
So all cyclists were insured for accidents on their bikes for damage to anyone or anything else which was a good thing. Wasn’t expensive, about £30 per year I think I recall.
You will never get to zero offences.
But they should invest more in policing as that has utility across multiple offences
" system designed around Galileo would work (we use the word advisedly) in a similar way to the lorry road pricing scheme currently used in Germany, and proposed for the UK's Lorry Road User Charging scheme (LRUC), which was abandoned in favour of a general, national scheme in 2005. A 'black box' in the vehicle would be needed to take the vehicle's position from Galileo and to record and/or transmit on this data for use by the charging systems. In such a set-up positioning and use data is clearly collected, and clearly needs to be related to a charging mechanism (which in the case of most motorists would be a named account), and there you have your snoop record, the data that "the Government doesn't hold.""
https://www.theregister.com/2007/02/22/blair_road_pricing_privacy/
Edit: In fact I'd *expect* those to be installed anyway as part of a digital tracker system.
Lucky Generals both.
And the sun has come out too.
Still slightly mystified how this economic growth will express itself.
https://x.com/martin_oneill/status/1810663913005982130?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Maybe the two should have a public debate, so everyone can decide they want neither. Then they can both pack away their poisonous ambitions and let the party get on with deciding on someone voters might vote for.
Most people don't give a monkeys about tracking. Look at mobile phone uptake.
There's an element of ebb and flow about all of this - a poor April followed by a better May overall balances out. I suspect we're still in a period of growth but it's historically low. My concern is one month's strength will panic the MPC into postponing interest rate cuts to the autumn.
Obviously, it doesn't make a lot of difference politically now if rates are cut in August, September or October - I suspect Reeves would like to be able to showcase the interest rate cut at her first Labour Conference speech as CoE but to be honest most people will be looking at the cats fighting in a sack which will be the Conservative Party shindig.
FTFY.
Actually.
Might I suggest Conservative politicians keep off twatter ?
FTFY ^2
On the manufacturing side, the tracking is driven by the manufacturers, to collect their own terabytes of data, against the wishes of their customers who now have little choice in the matter. There are forums dedicated to finding and removing the always-online functionality of cars.
"Between March 2023 and March 2024, China installed more solar than it had in the previous three years combined, and more than the rest of the world combined for 2023, the GEM analysts found. China is on track to reach 1,200GW of installed wind and solar capacity by the end of 2024, six years ahead of the government’s target."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/china-building-twice-as-much-wind-and-solar-power-as-rest-of-world-report/ar-BB1pMji3?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=b8a090311d9048e4a20e3489a4bec021&ei=24
I think the libertarian tendency on PB just isn't reflected in the general population, and when they pop up on Facebook they are met with lots of tin hat memes. You get far more authoritarians IRL than you do here as well.
If it continues to argue publicly and pointlessly it will quickly become even less important. It has just 50 more seats than the LDs, ffs. Does nobody in the Party appreciate that?
Their economy is going to steam (lol) ahead of the rest based on this insanely cheap energy. Gonna be tough keeping up.
France has the same population (pretty much) and 8 million more properties. And yet their house prices are not zero.
While I have doubts about the steadiness of his aim, Trump does present a larger target.
When I was at primary school in my middle class suburb in the 80s it seemed comparatively unusual that kids came and went as their fathers (inevitably their fathers in those days) got work in different parts of the country. It seems very rare now, even though we are much less inclined to stick to one employer. Suggested reasons:
1) Almost no family can survive on one income any more - how do you coordinate two earners moving to a different city? With great difficulty.
2) The pattern of employment has changed. Middle class employment is to a much greater extent focused on cities rather than big campuses in the middle of nowhere. And if you live in a city, you can quite easily change employers without changing geography.
3) We are much more willing and able to work somewhere in a different part of the country to where we live. This is especially true since 2020, but had been growing quite a lot in the previous decade.
4) Social convention. Because fewer people do it, it's no longer seen as something you can do with impunity. Uprooting your family's entire social network seems a rather odd thing to do in a way it didn't previously, so fewer people do it. If you can't move within the catchment of the school your kids are at, you don't move at all. Obviously there are exceptions - but they seem remarkable in a way that they wouldn't have done 40 years ago.
28 odd minutes on the last six weeks or so of crazy. [be warned an awful lot of swearing]
Former shadow chancellor
@JohnMcDonnellMP tells @MattChorley
he plans to table amendments to Rachel Reeves' first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
The more impressive news is that Chinese renewables growth is currently outstripping the strong growth in energy demand. (And that's based on US analysis of their figures, not just the official stats.)
Unfortunately, it's similar to that of the the 13th Duke of Wybourne.
Similarly, although I would call the Green Party 'extremist', I don't think their voters are necessarily extreme - or at least, not most of them. I don't think their views are so easily characterised as Reform voters, but no doubt many of them simply think 'mm - the environment - that's an important issue. Perhaps the most important issue. So I'll vote Green.' I don't think that unreasonable either.
German consensus after the Switzerland game: England played badly but are in the semis, whereas Germany played well but are out. Them's the breaks.
German consensus after last night: England deserved to win, but where the hell was this team for the first 5 matches? England's chances of winning the final have increased from approximately zero before last night's game, to maybe 40%.
Negative equity is something that affects a proportion of sellers (but should be fixable if they are selling then buying by transferrable mortgages - not beyond the wit of man).
Those who buy at the peak and get negative equity I have great sympathy for.
Those who use their house as a cash machine by remortgaging when the value goes up for a higher mortgage for more money to spend, rather less sympathy.
Amusingly for a nominally communist society, the market, rather than government dictat, is now likely to switch their transport sector to renewables.
I'd be intrigued to see if that's the case for those who actually voted for them in the end.
The other reason is that constituency Labour Parties in normally hopeless seats don't tend to be infested with trots and choose moderate candidates.
What follows in these tweets with Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation is utterly hilarious.
https://x.com/TheRickWilson/status/1811150586538020956
If there is a transgression, the only thing you can do is award a free kick, which if it's inside the area is a penalty. But for some acts of blatant cheating - pulling down a forward running through at goal, but outside the penalty area, from where the chances of a goal are maybe 20%, the punishment - a free kick, from which the chances of scoring a goal are probably rather less than 2%, and a yellow card - seems a ridiculously small sanction. For other minor transgressions which happen to be in the box: yes, they need sanction, but you have gone from a 5% chance of scoring to a 75% chance of scoring.
In rugby, there is a much better balance between the magnitude of the transgression and the chances of profiting from the situation. And if you transgress, and get caught, you are always worse off than if you did not transgress.
None of this would matter so much if football wasn't such a ridiculously low scoring game. In a high-scoring game like rugby the unfairnesses even themselves out over time. Whereas in football every one is pored over and everyone agonises about how things could have been different. Usually in sport, one individual or team deserves to win, and wins: you rarely come out of a sporting occasion having lost and thinking 'we should have won that but for incident x, which was unfair for reason y. But in football you almost always do. It's almost designed to make people cross.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Football is stupid.
Braverman may do the former but not the latter, Badenoch could do both. Tugendhat is a serious candidate who would hold most current Tory voters and maybe win back some lost to the LDs but he wouldn't win back any lost to Reform and could leak further to Farage
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/10/act-of-desperation-bidens-team-checks-delegates-for-loyalty-00167393
There were so many Reform voters that I'd be surprised if more than a small minority had *out there* views.
And in the interests of balance ditto the Green Party.
As we saw last night with the comments about the NL coach, decades long grudges are the lifeblood of the sport.