Apologies, if this has been mentioned already (not seen it). Could get interesting on interconnectors.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas Political crisis in Norway due to -- wait for it -- high electricity prices linked to exports to the rest of Europe via interconnectors.
The coalition gov collapsed Thursday, leaving the center-left Labour Party to govern alone for 1st time in 25 years.
And the biggest interconnector, lest we forget, is the 1.4GW North Sea Link which went live in 2021 and exports energy to the UK.
The reality is that energy prices are extremely correlated everywhere. It's why the UK, Pakistan and Australia all saw the same increases in energy prices as Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine.
But regarding the price of gas, the debate I watched with Farage last night (Farage must know a bit, he was a commodities trader) he said that whilst the domestic oil price is dictated by the world price, the gas price isn't - or at least gas prices domestically are dictated by a variety of things. Is this true? It's not something I've seen discussed much here.
He traded metals and decades ago.
He is talking through his hoop
Industrial or domestic gas.
Industrial gas prices for importers (which the UK is) are broadly similar. So in the UK Large business gas prices are very similar to the rest of the EU
USA would be a lot cheaper - that's because they have a glut of it and export maybe 50% of what they produce. But think about the process of liguifying the gas, shipping it accross oceans, the terminals both ends etc etc
Germany had to build terminals in a hurry once Ukraine happened.
We have terminals plus 2 way interconnectors
We are talking within the context of domestic production of gas, so we wouldn't be importing it. Clearly we would pay the market price for imported gas. So it seems to be you talking through your fundament, or at least doing some silly obfuscation.
We are not however a closed market.
So as we increase supply from the North Sea the producers are going to sell it for as much as possible - which means our domestic gas may get very slightly cheaper as the overall global supply increased a bit
Apologies, if this has been mentioned already (not seen it). Could get interesting on interconnectors.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas Political crisis in Norway due to -- wait for it -- high electricity prices linked to exports to the rest of Europe via interconnectors.
The coalition gov collapsed Thursday, leaving the center-left Labour Party to govern alone for 1st time in 25 years.
And the biggest interconnector, lest we forget, is the 1.4GW North Sea Link which went live in 2021 and exports energy to the UK.
The reality is that energy prices are extremely correlated everywhere. It's why the UK, Pakistan and Australia all saw the same increases in energy prices as Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine.
But regarding the price of gas, the debate I watched with Farage last night (Farage must know a bit, he was a commodities trader) he said that whilst the domestic oil price is dictated by the world price, the gas price isn't - or at least gas prices domestically are dictated by a variety of things. Is this true? It's not something I've seen discussed much here.
He's partly right.
Oil prices are completely connected because it's really easy to ship around the world, and there are thousands of oil tankers. Essentially any price "bump" will rapidly get ironed out by arbitrage.
In the old days (say when Farage was a commodities trader) then the only natural gas trade was pipelines on long-term contracts.
So, in 1985, Farage would have been correct.
Nowadays, the gas market is halfway in between, so there is strong correlation between markets, but it's not 100%.
Firstly, there many fewer long-term contracts than there used to be. So, Russian gas that came via Nord Stream was almost entirely sold on the European open market.
Secondly, the LNG market is growing, but there is nowhere near as much capacity as the oil market. The US -for example- massively upped its exports to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there were only so many LNG export terminals that had been built, and only so many LNG carriers available.
That's changing every day, though. Because the world LNG shipping fleet has increased about 70% since 2019, and will probably double again between now and the end of the decade. There at least 5 new LNG export terminals in the US under construction, with another 3 in the later stages of planning. Existing facilities - like Corpus Christi in Texas - are being expanded.
So, Farage is partly right, but he gets a little less right every day.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
Not all of them. He misses the reduced insurance premiums, for example. That's great news for lower income drivers in particular, who spend a much larger proportion on insurance.
20mph typically has a bigger effect on the number of collisions than the number of KSIs.
The politician who has been kicked out of Reform for being too extremist. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kl2nmzrvo If Reform want to be seen as a serious party worthy of government they are correct to get rid of such pople.
Yes. Agreed. The problem is whether they'll have anyone left...
People (eg Musk) think Farage is cuddly compared to the proper hard right - and I agree - but that doesn't necessarily apply to his party. Strong polling, yes, but they have a lot of detoxing work to do. Their people and policies are going to be heavily scrutinised if they go into a GE campaign as a potential government rather than a 'rock in the pond' protest vote.
In the past, Farage cleverly positioned himself as being cuddly: standing for something, but not being too extreme. (How much that reflects his true beliefs and how much is for show, I don't know.)
The situation today has perhaps changed. Many of his natural allies have gone harder right. (Much, much, much harder right in the case of Musk.) Many of his voters were already outright racists, but this has given them permission to be more vocal about that (as seen with some here).
Meanwhile, Farage also has to transition from a one-man band, where he could rely on his charisma to get him through, to a party of multiple personalities.
Two points. It is of course possible that some people who will vote Reform are outright racists. But if so, they have not just be conjured into existence. In the olden days they voted for Lab/Con/whatever, and not many voted for proper fascist/overtly racist parties because they (NF/BNP etc) never got a significant number of votes. Reform will lose many more votes than it would gain by overt racism.
Secondly; there are four things that all need to be in place in the voter mind before Reform can do well: they need to be traditional on migration and culture, they have to accept with enthusiasm the post 1945 social democrat welfare safety net, pensions, free NHS, NATO etc, they have to be though capable of competence in running things, and they have to be markedly better than the alternatives. The last is the easy one.
Reduce the speed limit to 1mph and make a man with a red flag walk in front of all vehicles and the casualty rate would drop 100%. All policies look good if you only talk about the positive effects, not the negative.
You're not addressing the policy tbh - you're quoting an extreme version which does not exist to try and credit the effective one which does, and to avoid looking the actual policy in the eye.
There is no extreme proposal at 1mph - it is simply that the 20mph default is a far better, and sweeter, spot than the current 30mph default, for all users of the large majority of our streets in built up areas.
TBH I don't really worry about this, as the research is done, the evidence is in, the way ahead is clear, and it's just a matter of time with a certain amounts of politics in the interim.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
Not the case in parts of North Wales, especially if you are on a bus travelling along the coast to Llandudno
As I have said on countless times, 20mph zones are very much to be welcomed, but as can be seen from the hundreds of roads Welsh authorities are to revert back to 30mph with the Welsh government approval it was the conversion of all 30mph roads to 20mph that was the error and this is recognised now across all the political parties here in Wales
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Apologies, if this has been mentioned already (not seen it). Could get interesting on interconnectors.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas Political crisis in Norway due to -- wait for it -- high electricity prices linked to exports to the rest of Europe via interconnectors.
The coalition gov collapsed Thursday, leaving the center-left Labour Party to govern alone for 1st time in 25 years.
And the biggest interconnector, lest we forget, is the 1.4GW North Sea Link which went live in 2021 and exports energy to the UK.
The reality is that energy prices are extremely correlated everywhere. It's why the UK, Pakistan and Australia all saw the same increases in energy prices as Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine.
But regarding the price of gas, the debate I watched with Farage last night (Farage must know a bit, he was a commodities trader) he said that whilst the domestic oil price is dictated by the world price, the gas price isn't - or at least gas prices domestically are dictated by a variety of things. Is this true? It's not something I've seen discussed much here.
He traded metals and decades ago.
He is talking through his hoop
Industrial or domestic gas.
Industrial gas prices for importers (which the UK is) are broadly similar. So in the UK Large business gas prices are very similar to the rest of the EU
USA would be a lot cheaper - that's because they have a glut of it and export maybe 50% of what they produce. But think about the process of liguifying the gas, shipping it accross oceans, the terminals both ends etc etc
Germany had to build terminals in a hurry once Ukraine happened.
We have terminals plus 2 way interconnectors
We are talking within the context of domestic production of gas, so we wouldn't be importing it. Clearly we would pay the market price for imported gas. So it seems to be you talking through your fundament, or at least doing some silly obfuscation.
We are not however a closed market.
So as we increase supply from the North Sea the producers are going to sell it for as much as possible - which means our domestic gas may get very slightly cheaper as the overall global supply increased a bit
If you enforced a British gas price unanchored from the world price, then no one would drill for gas.
And if you didn't, then the effects would be (while positive for balance of payments and tax receipts) extremely modest for domestic energy prices.
The significance of the Priti Patel interview can’t be underestimated. The Tories have made a decision to defend their liberal record on immigration unapologetically, parking their tanks on Labour and the Lib Dems’ lawn.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Get a Stadium Pal, and you don't have to stop for a pee!
The cited FAA text is real, but the implication that the policy is new, or that it stems from efforts that began under U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and President Biden, was demonstrably false. It has been included on the FAA's website since at least as early as February 2013. It was present during the entirety of the Trump administration
"Train manufacturer Alstom will open its factory for the first time in more than 50 years for a major gathering of historic railway vehicles.
The event in Derby will mark the 200th anniversary of the world's first passenger train service with the Greatest Gathering event between August 1 and 3."
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
One interesting point of the politics of this, is that until Sunak and Harper etc went sectarian to try and save the Election, and used driving as a wedge issue, this had cross party support in the Senedd, and the Conservatives were criticising the Welsh Assembly Government for being too slow bringing it in.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
I think BigG might end up disappointed. For example, 334 streets have been assessed in Newport and the council have put only 16 of those out to consultation. I think the "hundreds" figure comes from the roads people have requested to revert back.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Get a Stadium Pal, and you don't have to stop for a pee!
They've been times I'd have killed for one. But, I dunno, not sure I could. Seems wrong.
@PeteButtigieg Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.
Apologies, if this has been mentioned already (not seen it). Could get interesting on interconnectors.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas Political crisis in Norway due to -- wait for it -- high electricity prices linked to exports to the rest of Europe via interconnectors.
The coalition gov collapsed Thursday, leaving the center-left Labour Party to govern alone for 1st time in 25 years.
And the biggest interconnector, lest we forget, is the 1.4GW North Sea Link which went live in 2021 and exports energy to the UK.
The reality is that energy prices are extremely correlated everywhere. It's why the UK, Pakistan and Australia all saw the same increases in energy prices as Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine.
But regarding the price of gas, the debate I watched with Farage last night (Farage must know a bit, he was a commodities trader) he said that whilst the domestic oil price is dictated by the world price, the gas price isn't - or at least gas prices domestically are dictated by a variety of things. Is this true? It's not something I've seen discussed much here.
He's partly right.
Oil prices are completely connected because it's really easy to ship around the world, and there are thousands of oil tankers. Essentially any price "bump" will rapidly get ironed out by arbitrage.
In the old days (say when Farage was a commodities trader) then the only natural gas trade was pipelines on long-term contracts.
So, in 1985, Farage would have been correct.
Nowadays, the gas market is halfway in between, so there is strong correlation between markets, but it's not 100%.
Firstly, there many fewer long-term contracts than there used to be. So, Russian gas that came via Nord Stream was almost entirely sold on the European open market.
Secondly, the LNG market is growing, but there is nowhere near as much capacity as the oil market. The US -for example- massively upped its exports to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there were only so many LNG export terminals that had been built, and only so many LNG carriers available.
That's changing every day, though. Because the world LNG shipping fleet has increased about 70% since 2019, and will probably double again between now and the end of the decade. There at least 5 new LNG export terminals in the US under construction, with another 3 in the later stages of planning. Existing facilities - like Corpus Christi in Texas - are being expanded.
So, Farage is partly right, but he gets a little less right every day.
Just to add another thing:
Even if there was no LNG, natural gas prices would still have a degree of correlation, because (a) electricity generation (which will be correlated via both interconnectors and the global coal price), and (b) there are lots of products that are just proxies for energy and for natural gas.
Take nitrogen based fertilizer: that's a straight proxy for natural gas. If the gas price falls somewhere, then fertilizer plants run 24 hours a day there, while they get turned off in places where gas is more expensive. The effect of this is to mean that gas demand rises in the place with lower gas prices, and falls in the place with higher gas prices, etc.
In other words, all energy markets are correlated to a greater or lesser extent.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
What’s the cost of a life?
I believe that depends on which government department you work for.
Yes - the relevant one here is DfT, whi have a figure for this for the purposes of cost:benefit analyses - IIRC it is in the tens of millions. NICE also have one. This is important, because there is an opportunity cost involved. A safety intervention with billions of pounds worth of disbenefits which saves 1 life is clearly a poor investment, because we might instead use thise billions on, say, healthcare investments, if keeping people alive is your priority. This is exactlt the sort of calculation which wasn't made during covid.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
The politician who has been kicked out of Reform for being too extremist. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kl2nmzrvo If Reform want to be seen as a serious party worthy of government they are correct to get rid of such pople.
Yes. Agreed. The problem is whether they'll have anyone left...
People (eg Musk) think Farage is cuddly compared to the proper hard right - and I agree - but that doesn't necessarily apply to his party. Strong polling, yes, but they have a lot of detoxing work to do. Their people and policies are going to be heavily scrutinised if they go into a GE campaign as a potential government rather than a 'rock in the pond' protest vote.
In the past, Farage cleverly positioned himself as being cuddly: standing for something, but not being too extreme. (How much that reflects his true beliefs and how much is for show, I don't know.)
The situation today has perhaps changed. Many of his natural allies have gone harder right. (Much, much, much harder right in the case of Musk.) Many of his voters were already outright racists, but this has given them permission to be more vocal about that (as seen with some here).
Meanwhile, Farage also has to transition from a one-man band, where he could rely on his charisma to get him through, to a party of multiple personalities.
Two points. It is of course possible that some people who will vote Reform are outright racists. But if so, they have not just be conjured into existence. In the olden days they voted for Lab/Con/whatever, and not many voted for proper fascist/overtly racist parties because they (NF/BNP etc) never got a significant number of votes. Reform will lose many more votes than it would gain by overt racism.
Secondly; there are four things that all need to be in place in the voter mind before Reform can do well: they need to be traditional on migration and culture, they have to accept with enthusiasm the post 1945 social democrat welfare safety net, pensions, free NHS, NATO etc, they have to be though capable of competence in running things, and they have to be markedly better than the alternatives. The last is the easy one.
We need some numbers on that outright racist.
eg in 2008 Richard Barnbrook got 200k votes in the London Election (80k pref 1, 200k pref 2), and in certain Westminster Constituencies the BNP have had 10%+.
It's a small vote, but it's not insignificant, and it will come out sometimes.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Get a Stadium Pal, and you don't have to stop for a pee!
They've been times I'd have killed for one. But, I dunno, not sure I could. Seems wrong.
Really? Just think of being freed from worrying about your bladder. Imagine being able to hold a conversation, or drink a drink, and just ... ahhh ...
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
What’s the cost of a life?
We could save more lives by banning vehicular traffic altogether.
I walk quite a lot. I think I'm more likely to murder other pedestrians than I am likely to kill someone in my car. They're all over the place - swerve and weave isn't even in the game - it's wholesale blocking. French tourists are particularly bad. I think that the French secret services have a training programme which features getting to the top of British escalators and stopping, barging on to tube trains before anyone has detrained, and walking 3 abreast holding hands on all footpaths.
The significance of the Priti Patel interview can’t be underestimated. The Tories have made a decision to defend their liberal record on immigration unapologetically, parking their tanks on Labour and the Lib Dems’ lawn.
Patel is doing what Starmer is unwilling to.
You would hardly expect Starmer to defend the Tory record on anything.
Reminds me of the architect who wanted to build linear tower blocks. With motorways on the roof…
Trying to remember the architects name. Lived in an Elizabethan manor house and used his influence to prevent any development in the area.
Of course he did! Concrete is for the little people!
It'd be interesting to see images of that particular scheme.
Were the motorways on the roof or on a lower balcony? (Bit like the way they trieds to move the pedestrians up to 1st floor in Princes St, Edinburgh, to make lots more room for a lovely motorway. As welll as wrecking the south side with univcersity flaktuerme and planning blight for another motorway. Bastards.)
Roof
Saw it in a documentary - praising his genius!
Apparently his hobby was playing with mirrors in the gardens of his Manor House, reflecting the ponds.
Another cracking (not sure the right word in the circs) comment on PPrune about the Washington crash:
Imagine being that ATC right now. As if yesterday wasn't horrific enough, the President of the USA is now on TV implying that the accident was directly your fault, and that you are a mentally-handicapped diversity hire.
The significance of the Priti Patel interview can’t be underestimated. The Tories have made a decision to defend their liberal record on immigration unapologetically, parking their tanks on Labour and the Lib Dems’ lawn.
Patel is doing what Starmer is unwilling to.
You would hardly expect Starmer to defend the Tory record on anything.
He accused them of an "open borders experiment" in an effort to out-Farage Farage. I'm afraid that anyone who wants to take a stand against that kind of politics will have no choice but to back Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Get a Stadium Pal, and you don't have to stop for a pee!
They've been times I'd have killed for one. But, I dunno, not sure I could. Seems wrong.
Really? Just think of being freed from worrying about your bladder. Imagine being able to hold a conversation, or drink a drink, and just ... ahhh ...
It's genuinely liberating.
Yes I see that. But you get the best "ahhh" after a couple of hours of agony. It makes a man of you.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
I think BigG might end up disappointed. For example, 334 streets have been assessed in Newport and the council have put only 16 of those out to consultation. I think the "hundreds" figure comes from the roads people have requested to revert back.
You need to read the posts between @MattW and myself to see that he and I are very much on the same page
Of the roads reverting in our area, each one is sensible and it is not a question of being disappointed it is one of common sense and not extreme views on either side
And by the way I do not support the conservatives and Reform policy of reverting back to the original 30mphs
Apologies, if this has been mentioned already (not seen it). Could get interesting on interconnectors.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas Political crisis in Norway due to -- wait for it -- high electricity prices linked to exports to the rest of Europe via interconnectors.
The coalition gov collapsed Thursday, leaving the center-left Labour Party to govern alone for 1st time in 25 years.
And the biggest interconnector, lest we forget, is the 1.4GW North Sea Link which went live in 2021 and exports energy to the UK.
The reality is that energy prices are extremely correlated everywhere. It's why the UK, Pakistan and Australia all saw the same increases in energy prices as Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine.
But regarding the price of gas, the debate I watched with Farage last night (Farage must know a bit, he was a commodities trader) he said that whilst the domestic oil price is dictated by the world price, the gas price isn't - or at least gas prices domestically are dictated by a variety of things. Is this true? It's not something I've seen discussed much here.
He's partly right.
Oil prices are completely connected because it's really easy to ship around the world, and there are thousands of oil tankers. Essentially any price "bump" will rapidly get ironed out by arbitrage.
In the old days (say when Farage was a commodities trader) then the only natural gas trade was pipelines on long-term contracts.
So, in 1985, Farage would have been correct.
Nowadays, the gas market is halfway in between, so there is strong correlation between markets, but it's not 100%.
Firstly, there many fewer long-term contracts than there used to be. So, Russian gas that came via Nord Stream was almost entirely sold on the European open market.
Secondly, the LNG market is growing, but there is nowhere near as much capacity as the oil market. The US -for example- massively upped its exports to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there were only so many LNG export terminals that had been built, and only so many LNG carriers available.
That's changing every day, though. Because the world LNG shipping fleet has increased about 70% since 2019, and will probably double again between now and the end of the decade. There at least 5 new LNG export terminals in the US under construction, with another 3 in the later stages of planning. Existing facilities - like Corpus Christi in Texas - are being expanded.
So, Farage is partly right, but he gets a little less right every day.
Just to add another thing:
Even if there was no LNG, natural gas prices would still have a degree of correlation, because (a) electricity generation (which will be correlated via both interconnectors and the global coal price), and (b) there are lots of products that are just proxies for energy and for natural gas.
Take nitrogen based fertilizer: that's a straight proxy for natural gas. If the gas price falls somewhere, then fertilizer plants run 24 hours a day there, while they get turned off in places where gas is more expensive. The effect of this is to mean that gas demand rises in the place with lower gas prices, and falls in the place with higher gas prices, etc.
In other words, all energy markets are correlated to a greater or lesser extent.
Thanks for the excellent info. To reduce it down to the simplistically stupid though, the fact is that pumping more gas here at scale *could* drive down the price of domestic gas though we do not know to what extent. So Farage (who only said there were domestic factors, not that the price of gas is set domestically) was correct, not 'talking through his hoop' as some of our low information posters have suggested.
I wonder if he will boldy go.................to the supreme court to stop the third runway.
Relax, Jolyon Maugham is bringing a case to stop the third runaway, this alone means Heathrow is going to end up with a minimum of five runways now.
I think he's the least successful barrister since Tony "Did Magna Carta Die in Vain" Hancock.
Successful barristers present their case using their legal and presentational skills, whatever their feelings about the subject. Maugham is so convinced he is right that he thinks that’s enough for him to win. Results have proven otherwise.
Alternatively, Maugham is RFK for the Green Progressives - a huckster selling bullshit.
He gets paid for every time he loses. He just needs to keep losing so the fund raising continues.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
I am a convert to the 20 zones. It's much easier to pull out from side roads. Also whilst walking you can cross a lot easier without rushing. The only bugbear is when travelling through villages having to drop down from 40 or 50 to 20 without a tapering speed. Also the lack of reminder signs.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Get a Stadium Pal, and you don't have to stop for a pee!
They've been times I'd have killed for one. But, I dunno, not sure I could. Seems wrong.
Really? Just think of being freed from worrying about your bladder. Imagine being able to hold a conversation, or drink a drink, and just ... ahhh ...
It's genuinely liberating.
I didn't know such a product existed. Does Billy Connolly get royalties for it?
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
The politician who has been kicked out of Reform for being too extremist. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kl2nmzrvo If Reform want to be seen as a serious party worthy of government they are correct to get rid of such pople.
Yes. Agreed. The problem is whether they'll have anyone left...
People (eg Musk) think Farage is cuddly compared to the proper hard right - and I agree - but that doesn't necessarily apply to his party. Strong polling, yes, but they have a lot of detoxing work to do. Their people and policies are going to be heavily scrutinised if they go into a GE campaign as a potential government rather than a 'rock in the pond' protest vote.
In the past, Farage cleverly positioned himself as being cuddly: standing for something, but not being too extreme. (How much that reflects his true beliefs and how much is for show, I don't know.)
The situation today has perhaps changed. Many of his natural allies have gone harder right. (Much, much, much harder right in the case of Musk.) Many of his voters were already outright racists, but this has given them permission to be more vocal about that (as seen with some here).
Meanwhile, Farage also has to transition from a one-man band, where he could rely on his charisma to get him through, to a party of multiple personalities.
Two points. It is of course possible that some people who will vote Reform are outright racists. But if so, they have not just be conjured into existence. In the olden days they voted for Lab/Con/whatever, and not many voted for proper fascist/overtly racist parties because they (NF/BNP etc) never got a significant number of votes. Reform will lose many more votes than it would gain by overt racism.
Secondly; there are four things that all need to be in place in the voter mind before Reform can do well: they need to be traditional on migration and culture, they have to accept with enthusiasm the post 1945 social democrat welfare safety net, pensions, free NHS, NATO etc, they have to be though capable of competence in running things, and they have to be markedly better than the alternatives. The last is the easy one.
We need some numbers on that outright racist.
eg in 2008 Richard Barnbrook got 200k votes in the London Election (80k pref 1, 200k pref 2), and in certain Westminster Constituencies the BNP have had 10%+.
It's a small vote, but it's not insignificant, and it will come out sometimes.
Yes. I think on the data available we are well away from any party doing well - and Reform clearly want to be in contention - on an overtly racist ticket.
Maybe they get the racist vote. Maybe Corbyn's Labour got the anti semitic vote. I have no idea. But to do well in UK politics you have to get the non extreme vote too. There aren't enough extremists to go round.
The significance of the Priti Patel interview can’t be underestimated. The Tories have made a decision to defend their liberal record on immigration unapologetically, parking their tanks on Labour and the Lib Dems’ lawn.
Patel is doing what Starmer is unwilling to.
You would hardly expect Starmer to defend the Tory record on anything.
He accused them of an "open borders experiment" in an effort to out-Farage Farage. I'm afraid that anyone who wants to take a stand against that kind of politics will have no choice but to back Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
But he was referring specifically to the Boris Bulge. Everyone agrees that was out of control.
Apologies, if this has been mentioned already (not seen it). Could get interesting on interconnectors.
Javier Blas @JavierBlas Political crisis in Norway due to -- wait for it -- high electricity prices linked to exports to the rest of Europe via interconnectors.
The coalition gov collapsed Thursday, leaving the center-left Labour Party to govern alone for 1st time in 25 years.
And the biggest interconnector, lest we forget, is the 1.4GW North Sea Link which went live in 2021 and exports energy to the UK.
The reality is that energy prices are extremely correlated everywhere. It's why the UK, Pakistan and Australia all saw the same increases in energy prices as Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine.
But regarding the price of gas, the debate I watched with Farage last night (Farage must know a bit, he was a commodities trader) he said that whilst the domestic oil price is dictated by the world price, the gas price isn't - or at least gas prices domestically are dictated by a variety of things. Is this true? It's not something I've seen discussed much here.
He's partly right.
Oil prices are completely connected because it's really easy to ship around the world, and there are thousands of oil tankers. Essentially any price "bump" will rapidly get ironed out by arbitrage.
In the old days (say when Farage was a commodities trader) then the only natural gas trade was pipelines on long-term contracts.
So, in 1985, Farage would have been correct.
Nowadays, the gas market is halfway in between, so there is strong correlation between markets, but it's not 100%.
Firstly, there many fewer long-term contracts than there used to be. So, Russian gas that came via Nord Stream was almost entirely sold on the European open market.
Secondly, the LNG market is growing, but there is nowhere near as much capacity as the oil market. The US -for example- massively upped its exports to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there were only so many LNG export terminals that had been built, and only so many LNG carriers available.
That's changing every day, though. Because the world LNG shipping fleet has increased about 70% since 2019, and will probably double again between now and the end of the decade. There at least 5 new LNG export terminals in the US under construction, with another 3 in the later stages of planning. Existing facilities - like Corpus Christi in Texas - are being expanded.
So, Farage is partly right, but he gets a little less right every day.
Just to add another thing:
Even if there was no LNG, natural gas prices would still have a degree of correlation, because (a) electricity generation (which will be correlated via both interconnectors and the global coal price), and (b) there are lots of products that are just proxies for energy and for natural gas.
Take nitrogen based fertilizer: that's a straight proxy for natural gas. If the gas price falls somewhere, then fertilizer plants run 24 hours a day there, while they get turned off in places where gas is more expensive. The effect of this is to mean that gas demand rises in the place with lower gas prices, and falls in the place with higher gas prices, etc.
In other words, all energy markets are correlated to a greater or lesser extent.
Thanks for the excellent info. To reduce it down to the simplistically stupid though, the fact is that pumping more gas here at scale *could* drive down the price of domestic gas though we do not know to what extent. So Farage (who only said there were domestic factors, not that the price of gas is set domestically) was correct, not 'talking through his hoop' as some of our low information posters have suggested.
You clearly haven’t read what Rcs and myself have said,
Regardless of the amount of gas you extract from the north sea the impact on the gas price would be marginal to no change
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
I am a convert to the 20 zones. It's much easier to pull out from side roads. Also whilst walking you can cross a lot easier without rushing. The only bugbear is when travelling through villages having to drop down from 40 or 50 to 20 without a tapering speed. Also the lack of reminder signs.
They have their place but not every 30mph zone needs to be reduced
We have the practical experience here in Wales and it has been resolved to most everyone's satisfaction
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
I am a convert to the 20 zones. It's much easier to pull out from side roads. Also whilst walking you can cross a lot easier without rushing. The only bugbear is when travelling through villages having to drop down from 40 or 50 to 20 without a tapering speed. Also the lack of reminder signs.
Virtually my entire village is a 20MPH zone now. It was annoying at first (and still can be when I need to go from one side of the village to the other), but on the whole I'm just used to it.
Interestingly, they tried to make the village a 19MPH zone when it was first created. Which slowly died out, as apparently it was not legally a speed limit.
Which makes me wonder what the speed limit is on all the unadopted roads?
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
You may be surprised again but I can support all of that, and I am over 80
You're not addressing the policy tbh - you're quoting an extreme version which does not exist to try and credit the effective one which does, and to avoid looking the actual policy in the eye.
You missed my point entirely. 20mph zones exist because the authorities want them to exist, so the only metric that ever gets quoted is casualty figures. My fictitious 1mph limit would look spectacularly safe if measured in the same way, indicating just how ridiculous looking at a single figure is. No account is taken of increased journey times causing issues.
One of the bus services in my area was announced as being withdrawn, partly because three 20mph zones were introduced along the route forcing the operator to either add another vehicle - doubling costs - or reduce the frequency of service, making an already marginal service unviable. Ultimately the frequency of the service was reduced and a government subsidy plugged the financial gap. This is a negative you won't see in any 'research' on 20mph zones.
For a personal perspective I dislike 20mph zones, because they're a low effort 'fix' for a complex problem. At least in my area there's zero enforcement of these limits, so almost no drivers pay any attention to them. As a motorcyclist I end up with a choice of obeying the limits and having cars tailgating like crazy, meaning a crash and possibly serious injury if I have to brake sharply, or ignore the limit and speed like everyone else. That's no a choice I'm wild about.
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
Reduce the speed limit to 1mph and make a man with a red flag walk in front of all vehicles and the casualty rate would drop 100%. All policies look good if you only talk about the positive effects, not the negative.
You're not addressing the policy tbh - you're quoting an extreme version which does not exist to try and credit the effective one which does, and to avoid looking the actual policy in the eye.
There is no extreme proposal at 1mph - it is simply that the 20mph default is a far better, and sweeter, spot than the current 30mph default, for all users of the large majority of our streets in built up areas.
TBH I don't really worry about this, as the research is done, the evidence is in, the way ahead is clear, and it's just a matter of time with a certain amounts of politics in the interim.
I remain slightly sceptical about the number of collisions. It looks to me as if there are a lot of cars showing the evidence of low speed collisions that have presumably been judged as costing too much to repair but not so much as to be worth losing the driver's no claims discount over. I see a lot more scuffs and dents than used to be the case. Of course, low speed collisions cause less damage than higher speed crashes so there is still a benefit, but perhaps insurance company figures are a bit off.
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
In the US, the police have been demanding that future vehicles have remote disable and remote lock available to them (the police).
You're not addressing the policy tbh - you're quoting an extreme version which does not exist to try and credit the effective one which does, and to avoid looking the actual policy in the eye.
You missed my point entirely. 20mph zones exist because the authorities want them to exist, so the only metric that ever gets quoted is casualty figures. My fictitious 1mph limit would look spectacularly safe if measured in the same way, indicating just how ridiculous looking at a single figure is. No account is taken of increased journey times causing issues.
One of the bus services in my area was announced as being withdrawn, partly because three 20mph zones were introduced along the route forcing the operator to either add another vehicle - doubling costs - or reduce the frequency of service, making an already marginal service unviable. Ultimately the frequency of the service was reduced and a government subsidy plugged the financial gap. This is a negative you won't see in any 'research' on 20mph zones.
For a personal perspective I dislike 20mph zones, because they're a low effort 'fix' for a complex problem. At least in my area there's zero enforcement of these limits, so almost no drivers pay any attention to them. As a motorcyclist I end up with a choice of obeying the limits and having cars tailgating like crazy, meaning a crash and possibly serious injury if I have to brake sharply, or ignore the limit and speed like everyone else. That's no a choice I'm wild about.
Re your last paragraph in Wales enforcement is happening though it is 4mph + 10% = 26mph
In Wales drivers are most certainly paying attention to them as GoSafe vans are everywhere
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
“ the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller”
Nonsense
It was down to a Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AI.
Khan has been a very poor mayor. Simply destructive of the spirit of London.
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
Could it be that the longer time passes with the Tories completely in an insoluble mess the greater the chance that the return of Boris becomes thinkable?
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
One of the things noted by Phil Jones in the presentation I linked (who worked with Lee Waters who did both the Economy and Transport, and the Climate Change portfolios over the period) was that the Comms activity was tricky as Covid interfered.
Also that the "further changes after implementation phase" being done now was always in the process.
I'm not convinced that in England this Government are bold enough (I've often said I think they are too timied) to do it with everything else happening, so I think they will try to encourage Local Highways Authorities to do it by providing a benign climate, funding etc, and perhaps look to something more universal as part of their 2nd Term.
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
“ the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller”
Nonsense
It was down to a Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AI.
Khan has been a very poor mayor. Simply destructive of the spirit of London.
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
Could it be that the longer time passes with the Tories completely in an insoluble mess the greater the chance that the return of Boris becomes thinkable?
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
There is no political problem anywhere on the planet to which the return of that lying charlatan is the answer.
Khan has been a very poor mayor. Simply destructive of the spirit of London.
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
Could it be that the longer time passes with the Tories completely in an insoluble mess the greater the chance that the return of Boris becomes thinkable?
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
Watch for him doing things like events around conference. Sunak might have been wise to have kicked him into the Lords and made him Ukraine Tsar.
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
In the US, the police have been demanding that future vehicles have remote disable and remote lock available to them (the police).
The manufacturers have not been impressed…
Lazy gits. Unlock with a truncheon and remote disable with a stinger/EMP/bullet in the engine block.
Khan has been a very poor mayor. Simply destructive of the spirit of London.
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
Could it be that the longer time passes with the Tories completely in an insoluble mess the greater the chance that the return of Boris becomes thinkable?
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
Watch for him doing things like events around conference. Sunak might have been wise to have kicked him into the Lords and made him Ukraine Tsar.
Even better, send him to Russia with the title of Tzar.
Khan has been a very poor mayor. Simply destructive of the spirit of London.
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
Could it be that the longer time passes with the Tories completely in an insoluble mess the greater the chance that the return of Boris becomes thinkable?
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
There is no political problem anywhere on the planet to which the return of that lying charlatan is the answer.
Khan has been a very poor mayor. Simply destructive of the spirit of London.
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
Could it be that the longer time passes with the Tories completely in an insoluble mess the greater the chance that the return of Boris becomes thinkable?
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
Oh yes, very much so. The only problem he has is that he was so dreadful when he was PM. Brexit, covid, and then simply a Boris-protection regime.
Too much work, and too little aptitude. So yes, a chance, but very much not a likely future path.
The significance of the Priti Patel interview can’t be underestimated. The Tories have made a decision to defend their liberal record on immigration unapologetically, parking their tanks on Labour and the Lib Dems’ lawn.
Patel is doing what Starmer is unwilling to.
You would hardly expect Starmer to defend the Tory record on anything.
He accused them of an "open borders experiment" in an effort to out-Farage Farage. I'm afraid that anyone who wants to take a stand against that kind of politics will have no choice but to back Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Is Priti on manoeuvres? Must think there will be an opening soon.
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
PPrune thinks that it was an accident waiting to happen, that the helicopter acknowledged the wrong plane so was allowed to switch to visuals, that the area being so congested meant that there were lights everywhere so it was difficult to make out other aircraft (and the lights on an aircraft on collision course would appear static in any case), and that the helicopter was higher (at 400ft) than it perhaps should have been.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
The long road to the fish and chip shop has three schools, a 20mph limit, and speed bumps (which are apparently no longer called sleeping policemen). For years I walked its length, there and back, and would say the 20mph limit is fine but was rarely exceeded anyway, but the speed bumps installed a couple of years ago are entirely pointless for the same reason (and probably it was a case of the department having to use or lose its budget). The schools benefit from zebra and pelican crossings, with also lollipop men or women for the primaries.
Perhaps more can be done with driver education and testing. Dropping the 3-point turn, for instance, means you now see drivers turning in main roads because they are no longer taught to use side roads. Mini roundabouts are too often driven over instead of round. There also seem to be more ‘bumper car’ drivers who prefer to swerve rather than slow.
It is the Waspi women problem. The government makes changes but tells no-one.
And whisper it, but some immigrants learned in very different conditions from ours.
As to your other proposals, ban pavement parking and you will block roads. Some roads and many pavements are just too narrow. Cyclists are overindulged. Operation Snap is widespread anyway but perhaps not under that name, if you mean uploading dash cam footage.
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
No idea but if your car depends on automatic software updates to its management system, it would be easy enough to disable certain features, like moving forward (or indicating!).
You're not addressing the policy tbh - you're quoting an extreme version which does not exist to try and credit the effective one which does, and to avoid looking the actual policy in the eye.
You missed my point entirely. 20mph zones exist because the authorities want them to exist, so the only metric that ever gets quoted is casualty figures. My fictitious 1mph limit would look spectacularly safe if measured in the same way, indicating just how ridiculous looking at a single figure is. No account is taken of increased journey times causing issues.
One of the bus services in my area was announced as being withdrawn, partly because three 20mph zones were introduced along the route forcing the operator to either add another vehicle - doubling costs - or reduce the frequency of service, making an already marginal service unviable. Ultimately the frequency of the service was reduced and a government subsidy plugged the financial gap. This is a negative you won't see in any 'research' on 20mph zones.
For a personal perspective I dislike 20mph zones, because they're a low effort 'fix' for a complex problem. At least in my area there's zero enforcement of these limits, so almost no drivers pay any attention to them. As a motorcyclist I end up with a choice of obeying the limits and having cars tailgating like crazy, meaning a crash and possibly serious injury if I have to brake sharply, or ignore the limit and speed like everyone else. That's no a choice I'm wild about.
There is no enforcement in Edinburgh at all and it still had a marked effect on casualties. It just takes one council worker, one police car etc etc and that's everyone down to 20mph. There's also a "norm" factor, where people just get used to it - I feel genuinely uncomfortable driving around English villages at 30.
The bus thing is interesting. If you consider that the 20mph limits are only in urban areas, acceleration and deceleration, junctions and bus stops, the difference in journey times is going to be small because such a large proportion of the journey is below 20mph anyway.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
The long road to the fish and chip shop has three schools, a 20mph limit, and speed bumps (which are apparently no longer called sleeping policemen). For years I walked its length, there and back, and would say the 20mph limit is fine but was rarely exceeded anyway, but the speed bumps installed a couple of years ago are entirely pointless for the same reason (and probably it was a case of the department having to use or lose its budget). The schools benefit from zebra and pelican crossings, with also lollipop men or women for the primaries.
Perhaps more can be done with driver education and testing. Dropping the 3-point turn, for instance, means you now see drivers turning in main roads because they are no longer taught to use side roads. Mini roundabouts are too often driven over instead of round. There also seem to be more ‘bumper car’ drivers who prefer to swerve rather than slow.
It is the Waspi women problem. The government makes changes but tells no-one.
And whisper it, but some immigrants learned in very different conditions from ours.
As to your other proposals, ban pavement parking and you will block roads. Some roads and many pavements are just too narrow. Cyclists are overindulged. Operation Snap is widespread anyway but perhaps not under that name, if you mean uploading dash cam footage.
Can I jump in to have a go at lazy, modern, “speed bumps” which are 3ft tall and made out of some form of bricks which fall apart when weathered, damage cars, and break cyclists’ backs? What was wrong with the old design of a simple “sleeping policeman” bump?
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
PPrune thinks that it was an accident waiting to happen, that the helicopter acknowledged the wrong plane so was allowed to switch to visuals, that the area being so congested meant that there were lights everywhere so it was difficult to make out other aircraft (and the lights on an aircraft on collision course would appear static in any case), and that the helicopter was higher (at 400ft) than it perhaps should have been.
The expert on R4 PM earlier claimed that it had already been predicted that the next US disaster would be a mid air collision, given the pressure on the FAA, their under staffed ATC, and the corners being cut especially in DC given the popularity of flying into Reagan and the number of military and private helipads all around.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
The long road to the fish and chip shop has three schools, a 20mph limit, and speed bumps (which are apparently no longer called sleeping policemen). For years I walked its length, there and back, and would say the 20mph limit is fine but was rarely exceeded anyway, but the speed bumps installed a couple of years ago are entirely pointless for the same reason (and probably it was a case of the department having to use or lose its budget). The schools benefit from zebra and pelican crossings, with also lollipop men or women for the primaries.
Perhaps more can be done with driver education and testing. Dropping the 3-point turn, for instance, means you now see drivers turning in main roads because they are no longer taught to use side roads. Mini roundabouts are too often driven over instead of round. There also seem to be more ‘bumper car’ drivers who prefer to swerve rather than slow.
It is the Waspi women problem. The government makes changes but tells no-one.
And whisper it, but some immigrants learned in very different conditions from ours.
As to your other proposals, ban pavement parking and you will block roads. Some roads and many pavements are just too narrow. Cyclists are overindulged. Operation Snap is widespread anyway but perhaps not under that name, if you mean uploading dash cam footage.
We had that issue after the pavement parking ban - drivers blocking the road, preventing access for buses, fire engines etc. It was quickly solved when the police start towing cars.
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
PPrune thinks that it was an accident waiting to happen, that the helicopter acknowledged the wrong plane so was allowed to switch to visuals, that the area being so congested meant that there were lights everywhere so it was difficult to make out other aircraft (and the lights on an aircraft on collision course would appear static in any case), and that the helicopter was higher (at 400ft) than it perhaps should have been.
The expert on R4 PM earlier claimed that it had already been predicted that the next US disaster would be a mid air collision, given the pressure on the FAA, their under staffed ATC, and the corners being cut especially in DC given the popularity of flying into Reagan and the number of military and private helipads all around.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
The long road to the fish and chip shop has three schools, a 20mph limit, and speed bumps (which are apparently no longer called sleeping policemen). For years I walked its length, there and back, and would say the 20mph limit is fine but was rarely exceeded anyway, but the speed bumps installed a couple of years ago are entirely pointless for the same reason (and probably it was a case of the department having to use or lose its budget). The schools benefit from zebra and pelican crossings, with also lollipop men or women for the primaries.
Perhaps more can be done with driver education and testing. Dropping the 3-point turn, for instance, means you now see drivers turning in main roads because they are no longer taught to use side roads. Mini roundabouts are too often driven over instead of round. There also seem to be more ‘bumper car’ drivers who prefer to swerve rather than slow.
It is the Waspi women problem. The government makes changes but tells no-one.
And whisper it, but some immigrants learned in very different conditions from ours.
As to your other proposals, ban pavement parking and you will block roads. Some roads and many pavements are just too narrow. Cyclists are overindulged. Operation Snap is widespread anyway but perhaps not under that name, if you mean uploading dash cam footage.
Thanks for the reply.
I'm just comment on two points if I may.
1 - Contraflow cycling is about providing more direct networks to make it as convenient as possible for non-motorised transport to be used. Once adopted, it's generally just a minor change - already in use in every one way street in Cambridge AIUI.
But try it in Mansfield and the Council would have a fit.
2 - A pavement parking ban did not seem to have blocked streets in Edinburgh once it settled down. It's another one of things that is frightening until it happens. I see it through the lens of equality, where people who cannot (eg 40% of disabled adults) have an absolutely basic right not to have *their* space blocked by vehicles.
There are a number of principles involved, and few problem locations once they are examined.
Here's a short presentation about how they thought about it in Scotland:
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
In the US, the police have been demanding that future vehicles have remote disable and remote lock available to them (the police).
The manufacturers have not been impressed…
Lazy gits. Unlock with a truncheon and remote disable with a stinger/EMP/bullet in the engine block.
Apparently ramming people off the road who turn out to be driving a different car than the one they are supposed to stop is getting frowned at.
As is their requests to use 50 cal rifles vs engine blocks.
They see remotely disabling the vehicle and locking the occupants in as a woke solution. Woke as in “not killing black people, lots”.
"Broken English" is one of my favourite records. The original video (pre-MTV era!) was directed by Derek Jarman and is a bit pervy, but here's a more sanitised presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgEesTrIycU
Compare and contrast to Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4K4obX3wcs . Both are from a time when Europe was very much the British present, both a frightening threat and thrusting future. All gone now...
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
PPrune thinks that it was an accident waiting to happen, that the helicopter acknowledged the wrong plane so was allowed to switch to visuals, that the area being so congested meant that there were lights everywhere so it was difficult to make out other aircraft (and the lights on an aircraft on collision course would appear static in any case), and that the helicopter was higher (at 400ft) than it perhaps should have been.
When I got my FAA piggyback PPL in the US, they were obsessed with keeping to the designated altitude, such that as the pilot you spent more time than is probably wise looking at the altimeter in the cabin and so less time looking out of the window.
Sad news. If you listed 10 people to personify the 60s in London she'd be on it.
Wild Horses was about her.
"Let's do some living ... after we'll die"
Strange evening here. The phone is going off non-stop.
My wife is making a biopic about Marianne and had become close. She was frail recently, but when she was admitted to hospital at the start of the Covid epidemic, she was the only person admitted to the hospital that day to survive.
A week ago she was filming some test scenes with her Marianne and her Mick. To take a show reel to the Berlin Film Festival where it is being announced...
Can't say more ahead of that, but her Mick is remarkable. And her Marianne is going to be a real star...
“Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.”
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
I used to hate those "average 50 mph" stretches on the M1 but I've realised they shorten journey times via regulating the flow. In return for driving slower you get less time sat stationary wishing you'd stopped at Watford Gap for a pee.
Get a Stadium Pal, and you don't have to stop for a pee!
They've been times I'd have killed for one. But, I dunno, not sure I could. Seems wrong.
Really? Just think of being freed from worrying about your bladder. Imagine being able to hold a conversation, or drink a drink, and just ... ahhh ...
It's genuinely liberating.
I didn't know such a product existed. Does Billy Connolly get royalties for it?
I hope there isn't any truth in his accusations that the best people for the job weren't selected.
At least now we know that the crash was down to a black lesbian dwarf air traffic controller, they can save the cost of an investigation.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
PPrune thinks that it was an accident waiting to happen, that the helicopter acknowledged the wrong plane so was allowed to switch to visuals, that the area being so congested meant that there were lights everywhere so it was difficult to make out other aircraft (and the lights on an aircraft on collision course would appear static in any case), and that the helicopter was higher (at 400ft) than it perhaps should have been.
When I got my FAA piggyback PPL in the US, they were obsessed with keeping to the designated altitude, such that as the pilot you spent more time than is probably wise looking at the altimeter in the cabin and so less time looking out of the window.
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
In the US, the police have been demanding that future vehicles have remote disable and remote lock available to them (the police).
The manufacturers have not been impressed…
Lazy gits. Unlock with a truncheon and remote disable with a stinger/EMP/bullet in the engine block.
Apparently ramming people off the road who turn out to be driving a different car than the one they are supposed to stop is getting frowned at.
As is their requests to use 50 cal rifles vs engine blocks.
They see remotely disabling the vehicle and locking the occupants in as a woke solution. Woke as in “not killing black people, lots”.
It's quite interesting comparing the UK and US approaches to disabling vehicles under pursuit and PIT manoeuvres etc.
In the UK they have a controller in the police HQ supervising the pursuit by radio to avoid the police drivers getting hot-headed and making reckless decisions.
Real question. Can Tesla, if they feel like it, stop your Tesla working/lock you out of it by pressing buttons somewhere in USA or indeed anywhere?
As I do not have a Tesla or indeed an ev I cannot advise, but I can remotely lock my Mercedes from almost anywhere so maybe Mercedes could in some circumstances
In the US, the police have been demanding that future vehicles have remote disable and remote lock available to them (the police).
The manufacturers have not been impressed…
Lazy gits. Unlock with a truncheon and remote disable with a stinger/EMP/bullet in the engine block.
Apparently ramming people off the road who turn out to be driving a different car than the one they are supposed to stop is getting frowned at.
As is their requests to use 50 cal rifles vs engine blocks.
They see remotely disabling the vehicle and locking the occupants in as a woke solution. Woke as in “not killing black people, lots”.
It's quite interesting comparing the UK and US approaches to disabling vehicles under pursuit and PIT manoeuvres etc.
In the UK they have a controller in the police HQ supervising the pursuit by radio to avoid the police drivers getting hot-headed and making reckless decisions.
If you had a perfectly spherical world, where public officials behaved with good sense, a police capability to tell a car to shutdown next time it stops and lock all the doors could actually be useful. No more car chases.
The problem is small things, like the Metropolitan police force.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
I doubt that a separate Palestinian state is viable - not geographically contiguous, the extreme Israelis and Palestinians would also constantly seek to undermine it and the Iranians would always to looking to cause trouble.
I think that the more sustainable outcome long term is for Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to coexist together in a Greater Israel/Palestine/Israeli-Palestinian Federation/whatever. Jews and Arabs coexisted in Palestine for centuries before Zionism (after the 8th century dispersals) and might be able to do so again. The 2 million Israeli Arabs whose ancestors survived ethnic cleansing in the 1940s show it is at least possible.
The extreme Israelis would have to give up the idea of Israeli as a Jewish state and move towards acceptance of multiculturalism and the extreme Palestinian juihadis would have to give up the idea of pushing the Jews out.
Would it be perfect or a panacea? No. Can I see an easy way to get there from here? Not really. But it would be a viable country with at least a chance of working.
I used to think this falls down on "they breed".
However Israel's birth rate is highest on OECD by a significant margin.
I think where it would fail is because of the 3 million or so Palestinian refugees who have been in Jordan (and Egypt and Lebanon) for 80 years and to whom the Israelis have always refused to grant a right of return. If there is a peaceful, multicultural federation, even the spurious pretexts the Israelis keep making for not allowing them their rights under international law would become untenable. Those refugees, added to the five million in the West Bank and Gaza and the two million Israeli Arabs would mean that the 7.2 million Jews would be in a minority in Israel and without some credible safeguards they would not be willing to accept that.
So I'm afraid my Utopian solution of a civilised, cosmopolitan state is unlikely and a continuation of the present situation of oppression punctuated by massacre is the most probable outcome.
Or, alternatively, the Donald J Trump solution. Which, however much you hate him, or Jews, or America, or Israel, is the only solution which offers anything to the Palestinians other than “more of the same, but probably worse”
Ethnic cleansing always looks deceptively simple and attractive to people sitting in armchairs in London or Washington with large scale maps, especially if they are basically ignorant of the region and its history, as Donald Trump clearly is.
Move people from Place A where they aren't having a good time to Place B where they can thrive. But I'm afraid when you have to inflict it on people who have lived in a place for generations, at the behest of a brutal occupying power, and force them to move to a much poorer place where they are not wanted and have no ancestral ties, it rather breaks down in practice. There are also lots of complicated questions about what do you do with people who are of mixed ancestry, or people who are too old or ill to move.
That is why it is rightly considered one of the four Mass Atrocity crimes, alongside genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
And the alternative is…
Well, you posted it, The situation as now - extreme squalor and deprivation - punctuated by massacres
I submit that this is worse, you are free to disagree
Funny how the dim witted right are all for self determination when it comes to their favoured peoples.
Not for Palestinians it seems.
I'm sure tens of thousands would jump at the chance to emigrate, but how about we ask them ?
I’m suggesting that the world community clubs together and gives every single Palestinian £100k and a condo
Literally
It can be slowly paid back from the profits as Gaza is developed into a kind of Monte Carlo on med. a freezone governed not by Isreal or Hamas or anyone.
It’s not like the Palestinians are losing much. They’re not from Gaza they’re mainly from Isreal, they were displaced from Israel by the nakba. Their homeland is already gone and they will never return
So what they will be giving up is a refugee camp/open prison
I apologise for wondering if there might just be a better future for them than that
The "better future" is that the Israelis finally live up to their obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which they are a signatory, and allow the Palestinians to return to their ancestral homelands from which they ethnically cleansed them in the 1940s and learn to live side by side with them, as they do with the 2 million Israeli Arabs.
Better than ethnic cleansing anyway.
Takes two to tango, who would trust Hamas aka Gaza government to ever live peacefully with Israel. Until they agree to live peacefully and don't want to kill every Israeli then it will not improve. Both sides ar entrenched and it will not b esorted in the short term. Why are ZERO Arab nations offering Gazans a place to live.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
I doubt that a separate Palestinian state is viable - not geographically contiguous, the extreme Israelis and Palestinians would also constantly seek to undermine it and the Iranians would always to looking to cause trouble.
I think that the more sustainable outcome long term is for Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to coexist together in a Greater Israel/Palestine/Israeli-Palestinian Federation/whatever. Jews and Arabs coexisted in Palestine for centuries before Zionism (after the 8th century dispersals) and might be able to do so again. The 2 million Israeli Arabs whose ancestors survived ethnic cleansing in the 1940s show it is at least possible.
The extreme Israelis would have to give up the idea of Israeli as a Jewish state and move towards acceptance of multiculturalism and the extreme Palestinian juihadis would have to give up the idea of pushing the Jews out.
Would it be perfect or a panacea? No. Can I see an easy way to get there from here? Not really. But it would be a viable country with at least a chance of working.
I used to think this falls down on "they breed".
However Israel's birth rate is highest on OECD by a significant margin.
I think where it would fail is because of the 3 million or so Palestinian refugees who have been in Jordan (and Egypt and Lebanon) for 80 years and to whom the Israelis have always refused to grant a right of return. If there is a peaceful, multicultural federation, even the spurious pretexts the Israelis keep making for not allowing them their rights under international law would become untenable. Those refugees, added to the five million in the West Bank and Gaza and the two million Israeli Arabs would mean that the 7.2 million Jews would be in a minority in Israel and without some credible safeguards they would not be willing to accept that.
So I'm afraid my Utopian solution of a civilised, cosmopolitan state is unlikely and a continuation of the present situation of oppression punctuated by massacre is the most probable outcome.
Or, alternatively, the Donald J Trump solution. Which, however much you hate him, or Jews, or America, or Israel, is the only solution which offers anything to the Palestinians other than “more of the same, but probably worse”
Ethnic cleansing always looks deceptively simple and attractive to people sitting in armchairs in London or Washington with large scale maps, especially if they are basically ignorant of the region and its history, as Donald Trump clearly is.
Move people from Place A where they aren't having a good time to Place B where they can thrive. But I'm afraid when you have to inflict it on people who have lived in a place for generations, at the behest of a brutal occupying power, and force them to move to a much poorer place where they are not wanted and have no ancestral ties, it rather breaks down in practice. There are also lots of complicated questions about what do you do with people who are of mixed ancestry, or people who are too old or ill to move.
That is why it is rightly considered one of the four Mass Atrocity crimes, alongside genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
And the alternative is…
Well, you posted it, The situation as now - extreme squalor and deprivation - punctuated by massacres
I submit that this is worse, you are free to disagree
Funny how the dim witted right are all for self determination when it comes to their favoured peoples.
Not for Palestinians it seems.
I'm sure tens of thousands would jump at the chance to emigrate, but how about we ask them ?
I’m suggesting that the world community clubs together and gives every single Palestinian £100k and a condo
Literally
It can be slowly paid back from the profits as Gaza is developed into a kind of Monte Carlo on med. a freezone governed not by Isreal or Hamas or anyone.
It’s not like the Palestinians are losing much. They’re not from Gaza they’re mainly from Isreal, they were displaced from Israel by the nakba. Their homeland is already gone and they will never return
So what they will be giving up is a refugee camp/open prison
I apologise for wondering if there might just be a better future for them than that
The "better future" is that the Israelis finally live up to their obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which they are a signatory, and allow the Palestinians to return to their ancestral homelands from which they ethnically cleansed them in the 1940s and learn to live side by side with them, as they do with the 2 million Israeli Arabs.
Better than ethnic cleansing anyway.
Takes two to tango, who would trust Hamas aka Gaza government to ever live peacefully with Israel. Until they agree to live peacefully and don't want to kill every Israeli then it will not improve. Both sides ar entrenched and it will not b esorted in the short term. Why are ZERO Arab nations offering Gazans a place to live.
Black September weighs heavily on the minds of other Arab governments, I think you'll find.
Not obviously the case. For us to know that this is good policy making we would need to know both costs and benefits. All we have here is benefits.
I dislike 20 mph zones, but reluctantly admit that they don't really add significantly to journey time, because they're limited to a village at a time, and the figures seem reasonably persuasive.
This provides the context and a fair review of the debate
Deaths and serious injuries on Welsh roads fall in first year of 20mph default
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
Generally we are fairly well on the same page and 20mph zones do very much have their place but of the roads in North Wales that are reverting back to 30mph are ones I think you would agree are sensible
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
Absolutely on England - five of my key asks are 20mph national default limit for streets inside community boundaries, nationwide pavement parking ban, significant boost to traffic police (some offences cannot be caught on camera), Operation SNAP (again - pioneered in Wales) to be more widely used, and all anti-wheelchair barriers to go.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
The long road to the fish and chip shop has three schools, a 20mph limit, and speed bumps (which are apparently no longer called sleeping policemen). For years I walked its length, there and back, and would say the 20mph limit is fine but was rarely exceeded anyway, but the speed bumps installed a couple of years ago are entirely pointless for the same reason (and probably it was a case of the department having to use or lose its budget). The schools benefit from zebra and pelican crossings, with also lollipop men or women for the primaries.
Perhaps more can be done with driver education and testing. Dropping the 3-point turn, for instance, means you now see drivers turning in main roads because they are no longer taught to use side roads. Mini roundabouts are too often driven over instead of round. There also seem to be more ‘bumper car’ drivers who prefer to swerve rather than slow.
It is the Waspi women problem. The government makes changes but tells no-one.
And whisper it, but some immigrants learned in very different conditions from ours.
As to your other proposals, ban pavement parking and you will block roads. Some roads and many pavements are just too narrow. Cyclists are overindulged. Operation Snap is widespread anyway but perhaps not under that name, if you mean uploading dash cam footage.
Can I jump in to have a go at lazy, modern, “speed bumps” which are 3ft tall and made out of some form of bricks which fall apart when weathered, damage cars, and break cyclists’ backs? What was wrong with the old design of a simple “sleeping policeman” bump?
Speedbumps are shit. I hate them from the bottom of my heart. I hate them almost as much as I hate feckin pyramids.
You want people to obey the speed limit? Just put up camera and do like the French - confiscate the car and licence of people caught speeding.
You need to account for the unwinding of the "get the Tories out" tactical voters. The Lib Dems won't be anywhere near in most of these target seats.
A heroic assumption on your part.
The get the Tories out unwind will go to the stop Farage movement.
Nah
The “stop Farage” coalition is why I think a second Labour term is the most probable outcome at present.
Farage is more popular and less unpopular than you realise. He is no longer the fringe UKIPPER
The British people feel utterly betrayed on immigration (and they are right to feel that). Farage is the only guy that’s been honest about it and willing to talk about it
He’s gonna win as things stand. BUT there’s a long way to go of course. We could all be living on Neptune by 2029
A couple of things, Farage wanting the UK to take back Shamima Begum is going to get plastered all over the airwaves during a campaign.
A scandal she was not allowed back , they allowed thousands of wrong un's back in with no problem but for some odd reason she was shafted.
The significance of the Priti Patel interview can’t be underestimated. The Tories have made a decision to defend their liberal record on immigration unapologetically, parking their tanks on Labour and the Lib Dems’ lawn.
Patel is doing what Starmer is unwilling to.
If that's the position of the Tories, I will be voting Reform.
Comments
So as we increase supply from the North Sea the producers are going to sell it for as much as possible - which means our domestic gas may get very slightly cheaper as the overall global supply increased a bit
Oil prices are completely connected because it's really easy to ship around the world, and there are thousands of oil tankers. Essentially any price "bump" will rapidly get ironed out by arbitrage.
In the old days (say when Farage was a commodities trader) then the only natural gas trade was pipelines on long-term contracts.
So, in 1985, Farage would have been correct.
Nowadays, the gas market is halfway in between, so there is strong correlation between markets, but it's not 100%.
Firstly, there many fewer long-term contracts than there used to be. So, Russian gas that came via Nord Stream was almost entirely sold on the European open market.
Secondly, the LNG market is growing, but there is nowhere near as much capacity as the oil market. The US -for example- massively upped its exports to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there were only so many LNG export terminals that had been built, and only so many LNG carriers available.
That's changing every day, though. Because the world LNG shipping fleet has increased about 70% since 2019, and will probably double again between now and the end of the decade. There at least 5 new LNG export terminals in the US under construction, with another 3 in the later stages of planning. Existing facilities - like Corpus Christi in Texas - are being expanded.
So, Farage is partly right, but he gets a little less right every day.
20mph typically has a bigger effect on the number of collisions than the number of KSIs.
Secondly; there are four things that all need to be in place in the voter mind before Reform can do well: they need to be traditional on migration and culture, they have to accept with enthusiasm the post 1945 social democrat welfare safety net, pensions, free NHS, NATO etc, they have to be though capable of competence in running things, and they have to be markedly better than the alternatives. The last is the easy one.
There is no extreme proposal at 1mph - it is simply that the 20mph default is a far better, and sweeter, spot than the current 30mph default, for all users of the large majority of our streets in built up areas.
TBH I don't really worry about this, as the research is done, the evidence is in, the way ahead is clear, and it's just a matter of time with a certain amounts of politics in the interim.
As I have said on countless times, 20mph zones are very much to be welcomed, but as can be seen from the hundreds of roads Welsh authorities are to revert back to 30mph with the Welsh government approval it was the conversion of all 30mph roads to 20mph that was the error and this is recognised now across all the political parties here in Wales
And if you didn't, then the effects would be (while positive for balance of payments and tax receipts) extremely modest for domestic energy prices.
Patel is doing what Starmer is unwilling to.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/01/15/faa-dei-initiatives/
The cited FAA text is real, but the implication that the policy is new, or that it stems from efforts that began under U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and President Biden, was demonstrably false. It has been included on the FAA's website since at least as early as February 2013. It was present during the entirety of the Trump administration
"Train manufacturer Alstom will open its factory for the first time in more than 50 years for a major gathering of historic railway vehicles.
The event in Derby will mark the 200th anniversary of the world's first passenger train service with the Greatest Gathering event between August 1 and 3."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626vgwn62go
Having had a listen to the presentation I linked several days ago, and reading around, it seems that the North Wales Local Highways Authorities were more restrictive on their implementation originally than South Wales LTAs, and are making relatively more proposals for changes to defaults back to 30mph now.
The impression I get is that something like 5-8% of road mileage might be reverting back to a 30mph default.
Given my strong belief in 20mph on residential roads, but not all distributer / link roads, that seems quite reasonable to me.
One interesting point of the politics of this, is that until Sunak and Harper etc went sectarian to try and save the Election, and used driving as a wedge issue, this had cross party support in the Senedd, and the Conservatives were criticising the Welsh Assembly Government for being too slow bringing it in.
This was the presentation, which is still worth a look:
https://youtu.be/C61sBe39u1c?t=559
Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.
President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.
Even if there was no LNG, natural gas prices would still have a degree of correlation, because (a) electricity generation (which will be correlated via both interconnectors and the global coal price), and (b) there are lots of products that are just proxies for energy and for natural gas.
Take nitrogen based fertilizer: that's a straight proxy for natural gas. If the gas price falls somewhere, then fertilizer plants run 24 hours a day there, while they get turned off in places where gas is more expensive. The effect of this is to mean that gas demand rises in the place with lower gas prices, and falls in the place with higher gas prices, etc.
In other words, all energy markets are correlated to a greater or lesser extent.
This is important, because there is an opportunity cost involved. A safety intervention with billions of pounds worth of disbenefits which saves 1 life is clearly a poor investment, because we might instead use thise billions on, say, healthcare investments, if keeping people alive is your priority.
This is exactlt the sort of calculation which wasn't made during covid.
And yes, North Wales were very much stricter and it was noticeable to me as I drove extensively ( and went on the Great Little Trains of Wales) last summer that Gwynedd was very different in its application of the 20mph zones
I would just suggest Wales is an excellent example to England to introduce 20mph zones with care, and not tell everyone in England all 30mph will become 20mph virtually overnight
eg in 2008 Richard Barnbrook got 200k votes in the London Election (80k pref 1, 200k pref 2), and in certain Westminster Constituencies the BNP have had 10%+.
It's a small vote, but it's not insignificant, and it will come out sometimes.
It's genuinely liberating.
It looked grim in the models.
Anyway.. Murder you say! It's too good for them!
Oh, and Trump is convinced that the Potomac colission was caused by brown-skinned dwarfs in the control tower.
And we're nine days into the second Trump administration, folks!
Saw it in a documentary - praising his genius!
Apparently his hobby was playing with mirrors in the gardens of his Manor House, reflecting the ponds.
The contrast was insane..
Imagine being that ATC right now. As if yesterday wasn't horrific enough, the President of the USA is now on TV implying that the accident was directly your fault, and that you are a mentally-handicapped diversity hire.
https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/663888-aa5342-down-dca-11.html
Of the roads reverting in our area, each one is sensible and it is not a question of being disappointed it is one of common sense and not extreme views on either side
And by the way I do not support the conservatives and Reform policy of reverting back to the original 30mphs
He gets paid for every time he loses. He just needs to keep losing so the fund raising continues.
The only bugbear is when travelling through villages having to drop down from 40 or 50 to 20 without a tapering speed. Also the lack of reminder signs.
And another lot that are no-brainers, such as more nuanced licensing and testing for both under 21s and over-80s.
And then a lot that are more detailed or strategic, such as contraflow cycling on 20mph one way streets as default, a major reimagining of our road design methods to be inclusive, and rewriting the legal charge given to Local Highways Authorities.
And that's before I get onto the Fatal 5.
Maybe they get the racist vote. Maybe Corbyn's Labour got the anti semitic vote. I have no idea. But to do well in UK politics you have to get the non extreme vote too. There aren't enough extremists to go round.
Regardless of the amount of gas you extract from the north sea the impact on the gas price would be marginal to no change
We have the practical experience here in Wales and it has been resolved to most everyone's satisfaction
Interestingly, they tried to make the village a 19MPH zone when it was first created. Which slowly died out, as apparently it was not legally a speed limit.
Which makes me wonder what the speed limit is on all the unadopted roads?
THE BEST STAR TREK FILM EVER!
One of the bus services in my area was announced as being withdrawn, partly because three 20mph zones were introduced along the route forcing the operator to either add another vehicle - doubling costs - or reduce the frequency of service, making an already marginal service unviable. Ultimately the frequency of the service was reduced and a government subsidy plugged the financial gap. This is a negative you won't see in any 'research' on 20mph zones.
For a personal perspective I dislike 20mph zones, because they're a low effort 'fix' for a complex problem. At least in my area there's zero enforcement of these limits, so almost no drivers pay any attention to them. As a motorcyclist I end up with a choice of obeying the limits and having cars tailgating like crazy, meaning a crash and possibly serious injury if I have to brake sharply, or ignore the limit and speed like everyone else. That's no a choice I'm wild about.
It seems to me that the plane asked for a late change of runway, because the one being used was congested, and hence continued its track beyond the point where the other planes turned onto final. My guess is that the helicopter pilot expected the plane to turn, but it didn’t. The ATC recordings show an alarming lack of urgency; ATC didn’t behave as if an airprox was underway, and their instructions to the pilot were vague. But ultimately, responsibility for collision avoidance sits with the pilots, and more so in the US given the way their ATC operates.
The manufacturers have not been impressed…
Weirdly Boris somehow brought the communities closer together.
In Wales drivers are most certainly paying attention to them as GoSafe vans are everywhere
Nonsense
It was down to a Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AI.
There are only a tiny number of UK politicians with charisma. I would list Blair, Boris, Farage and Forbes. One per party except LDs zero. Are there any others?
Also that the "further changes after implementation phase" being done now was always in the process.
I'm not convinced that in England this Government are bold enough (I've often said I think they are too timied) to do it with everything else happening, so I think they will try to encourage Local Highways Authorities to do it by providing a benign climate, funding etc, and perhaps look to something more universal as part of their 2nd Term.
Too much work, and too little aptitude. So yes, a chance, but very much not a likely future path.
Will Boris join in?
Perhaps more can be done with driver education and testing. Dropping the 3-point turn, for instance, means you now see drivers turning in main roads because they are no longer taught to use side roads. Mini roundabouts are too often driven over instead of round. There also seem to be more ‘bumper car’ drivers who prefer to swerve rather than slow.
It is the Waspi women problem. The government makes changes but tells no-one.
And whisper it, but some immigrants learned in very different conditions from ours.
As to your other proposals, ban pavement parking and you will block roads. Some roads and many pavements are just too narrow. Cyclists are overindulged. Operation Snap is widespread anyway but perhaps not under that name, if you mean uploading dash cam footage.
But I think there's still plenty of custom for the channel.
"This week ... how to disguise your Tesla as a Jaaaaaagggg."
The bus thing is interesting. If you consider that the 20mph limits are only in urban areas, acceleration and deceleration, junctions and bus stops, the difference in journey times is going to be small because such a large proportion of the journey is below 20mph anyway.
Wild Horses was about her.
"Let's do some living ... after we'll die"
I'm just comment on two points if I may.
1 - Contraflow cycling is about providing more direct networks to make it as convenient as possible for non-motorised transport to be used. Once adopted, it's generally just a minor change - already in use in every one way street in Cambridge AIUI.
But try it in Mansfield and the Council would have a fit.
2 - A pavement parking ban did not seem to have blocked streets in Edinburgh once it settled down. It's another one of things that is frightening until it happens. I see it through the lens of equality, where people who cannot (eg 40% of disabled adults) have an absolutely basic right not to have *their* space blocked by vehicles.
There are a number of principles involved, and few problem locations once they are examined.
Here's a short presentation about how they thought about it in Scotland:
https://youtu.be/aIMOoNpX2X4?t=680
As is their requests to use 50 cal rifles vs engine blocks.
They see remotely disabling the vehicle and locking the occupants in as a woke solution. Woke as in “not killing black people, lots”.
Compare and contrast to Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4K4obX3wcs . Both are from a time when Europe was very much the British present, both a frightening threat and thrusting future. All gone now...
Always preferred later crackling voiced Marianne to the 60s pixie.
My wife is making a biopic about Marianne and had become close. She was frail recently, but when she was admitted to hospital at the start of the Covid epidemic, she was the only person admitted to the hospital that day to survive.
A week ago she was filming some test scenes with her Marianne and her Mick. To take a show reel to the Berlin Film Festival where it is being announced...
Can't say more ahead of that, but her Mick is remarkable. And her Marianne is going to be a real star...
“Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.”
In the UK they have a controller in the police HQ supervising the pursuit by radio to avoid the police drivers getting hot-headed and making reckless decisions.
The problem is small things, like the Metropolitan police force.
So it's a bad idea.
Why are ZERO Arab nations offering Gazans a place to live.
As did the experience of the PLO in Lebanon.
You want people to obey the speed limit? Just put up camera and do like the French - confiscate the car and licence of people caught speeding.
Not the other way round.