So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
So they'll get higher prices but they wont get any more jobs.
And there certainly will not be any manufacturing jobs for these unskilled Trump voters you keep talking about.
Not if they only buy American goods and products.
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
I think Horse didn't appreciate that Lucky is still in a state of what he'd term denial, about climate change.
Sticking with "there isn't a problem with the climate" has a certain integrity.
Sashaying fron "there isn't a problem" to "there is a problem but we shouldn't do anything about it" is a move so old and so cynical that the writers of Yes, Minister gave it to Foreign Office mandarins.
Usually followed by "perhaps we could have done something, but it's too late now."
"There is a problem but it isn't worth the UK (or world) doing anything about it" has integrity too.
But the implication of that position is that we need to start spending significant cash on things like flood defences and look seriously at some of the more extreme scenarios. If we blast through 2.5C, 3C, 3.5C... things could get ugly fast.
There is a great deal of uncertainty around climate change, but facebook warriors only ever consider the upside risk of it not being as bad as we think.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
We do seem to have a habit of (at times) trying to throw out the house, bathroom and bath alongside the bath water
There is this strange idea that we have to be 100% perfect when we should be aiming for 100% in the areas where it’s possible and accepting that the last 5% is impossible so we just mitigate the issues as best we can
That is what we are doing. Net zero by 2050 is not being "100% perfect".
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
Such certainty..😏 When I look out of my window I don't instantly think/see "climate emergency"
When I look out my window, I don't instantly think/see "evolution by natural selection" or "heliocentric model of the solar system", but they're still true. Gosh, sometimes I think you just like being contrarian.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
I know. It's just nice to give credit to someone, when you can, whom you disagree with generally. Of course my view on the matter of climate charge is with you and @BatteryCorrectHorse.
Just nice to see someone applying logic correctly, particularly from this segment of the political spectrum.
Mainsteam Research have Conservatives 2% ahead in Canada, not enough to form a Government but back into no party control territory?
The Mainstream Research poll is a daily rolling poll (remember the one Sky News did?) and to be fair it has shown the gap between Liberals and Conservatives closing over recent day - I think the preceding days were Liberals +7, Liberals +5, Liberals +1 so may be it's seeing a trend but it's not being seen in other polls at the moment.
The Liaison Strategies rolling daily poll is going the other way - last three days, Liberals +5, then +7 and yesterday +8.
The daily Nanos Research Poll has a Liberal lead of around +6. The weekly MQO Research poll has shown a very small reduction in the Liberal lead - yesterday's was +9, previous was +10, the one before that +11.
Mainstreet looks an outlier to be honest but it may not be.
The overnight polls from Australia continue to show a strengthening in the Labor position with the two party polling showing Labor leads of 7 points (Resolve) and 9 points (Roy Morgan). Last time, Labor beat the Coalition by 4 points in the two party polling so we could even be looking at an increase in the Labor majority on the current polling numbers.
The latest Newspoll is 52% Labour 48% Coalition, the last Newspoll before the 2022 election was 53% Labor 47% Coalition and it ended up 52% 48% on election night.
Which suggests a 51% Labor 49% Coalition result and still a small swing to the Coalition but Labor scrape back in
New: The Gambling Commission has charged 15 people - including former MP Craig Williams and ex-CCHQ campaigning boss Tony Lee - over bets placed on the timing of the 2024 general election.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
Such certainty..😏 When I look out of my window I don't instantly think/see "climate emergency"
I did this week, with the Pentlands on fire. Both of our "window views" are equally fallacious.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
It helps because it means you don’t have someone booking appointments (as a tout) trying to make money from it.
If you can’t make money from it the touts would stop booking appointments because they wouldn’t be able to sell them to for £200 more.
Now granted it would screw up a few honest driving instructors but it’s a necessary evil.
The lack of test examiners is completely separate to the fact people can currently operate as touts - and while more examiners would reduce the market value of a test it won’t fix the problem that people can currently profit from it
Exactly. WRT the TM analogy, info from someone who worked there is that pitches included the estimated increase in revenue from retaining a % of tickets for the secondary market. An example of this in action would be T20 matches at the oval in past years, difficult to find decent seats together on the website in advance, but on the day an abundance of tickets for less than face + admin fees available from touts outside the tube station or officially for sale on the gate at face value. You might suspect that these were never listed then dumped on the day, a practice reported in some TV investigations.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
As I understand it, the bots are taking all the available spaces so if you want a test you currently have to wait a long time, travel a long distance or pay an extortionate price to a rip off mercant.
There are not enough test slots because they are taken up by the rip off merchants. My solution removes the rip off merchants.
EDIT Just seen Malmebury's post Just turn off the portal which allows businesses to block book driving lessons. 60 seconds.
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
So they'll get higher prices but they wont get any more jobs.
And there certainly will not be any manufacturing jobs for these unskilled Trump voters you keep talking about.
Not if they only buy American goods and products.
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
Surely the tariff is on the cost to the US wholesaler and not on the retail price???? So a $5 pair of sneakers can have an extra 10 to 15 bucks added to them on entry to the US and they can be sold as Air Jordans for $120 instead of $100. The percentage margin is not so good but the cash margin remains the same.
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
They won't support paying the higher prices this implies though.
Average hourly wage in the US: $24.10, while in China it was around $3.60 (2022 figures).
The more they buy American goods, the less the tariffs rise hits them too
I know we did this the other day, but if US manufacturers could compete prior to tarrifs they would have done, so the price of the replacement US produced goods will be higher than the pre tariff prices. So the consumer is still paying more regardless. They get hit by the tariff either directly (by buying Chinese) or indirectly (by buying higher priced untariffed US goods).
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
So they'll get higher prices but they wont get any more jobs.
And there certainly will not be any manufacturing jobs for these unskilled Trump voters you keep talking about.
Not if they only buy American goods and products.
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
If you are only buying American goods you will be buying fewer more expensive goods.
And 100% tariffs only stop you importing from China, there will be other countries who produce the goods at a price above China but well below the price it would cost in the USA
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
It helps because it means you don’t have someone booking appointments (as a tout) trying to make money from it.
If you can’t make money from it the touts would stop booking appointments because they wouldn’t be able to sell them to for £200 more.
Now granted it would screw up a few honest driving instructors but it’s a necessary evil.
The lack of test examiners is completely separate to the fact people can currently operate as touts - and while more examiners would reduce the market value of a test it won’t fix the problem that people can currently profit from it
At my youngest’s driving test (which he passed, fortunately!) I was chatting to one of the examiners who told me that on one day earlier in the week no one had turned up to take any of the booked slots.
Obviously completely anecdotal, but something is going seriously wrong in the system if examiners (or students) are letting paid for tests go unused.
Yes, the current situation is absurd. After months of trying, my step daugher has finally managed to get a test date, and that was only by hitting the apply button at precisely the moment the next tranche of dates was released. Meanwhile, as you say, examiners are wasting their time waiting for people who don't show, probably because they don't exist or have unknowingly had a test booked in their name.
The process has been incredibly frustrating for her and others that I know who have had similar difficulties.
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
So they'll get higher prices but they wont get any more jobs.
And there certainly will not be any manufacturing jobs for these unskilled Trump voters you keep talking about.
Not if they only buy American goods and products.
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
If you are only buying American goods you will be buying fewer more expensive goods.
And 100% tariffs only stop you importing from China, there will be other countries who produce the goods at a price above China but well below the price it would cost in the USA
Indeed. Massive US tariffs on China probably benefits Vietnamese industry more than US industry.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
Such certainty..😏 When I look out of my window I don't instantly think/see "climate emergency"
I did this week, with the Pentlands on fire. Both of our "window views" are equally fallacious.
Thing is, you don’t need to fight anecdote with anecdote. We have the time series of global surface temperature, which rises, decade on decade, in a monotonic manner and pretty much a straight line.
Then we have ocean heat content which is even more monotonic and ruler-straight because the ocean smooths out the ENSO cycle.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
We do seem to have a habit of (at times) trying to throw out the house, bathroom and bath alongside the bath water
There is this strange idea that we have to be 100% perfect when we should be aiming for 100% in the areas where it’s possible and accepting that the last 5% is impossible so we just mitigate the issues as best we can
That is what we are doing. Net zero by 2050 is not being "100% perfect".
If we are screwing up the North Sea and steel production then we are still trying to do way more than we should be doing
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
I know. It's just nice to give credit to someone, when you can, whom you disagree with generally. Of course my view on the matter of climate charge is with you and @BatteryCorrectHorse.
Just nice to see someone applying logic correctly, particularly from this segment of the political spectrum.
If this is about the UK's high energy costs then moneyweek has a good article explaining that the high costs are mainly due to marginal pricing based on gas fuelled power stations. UK needs more electricity storage, to reduce reliance on gas for short-term back-up and move more generators off marginal pricing.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
We do seem to have a habit of (at times) trying to throw out the house, bathroom and bath alongside the bath water
There is this strange idea that we have to be 100% perfect when we should be aiming for 100% in the areas where it’s possible and accepting that the last 5% is impossible so we just mitigate the issues as best we can
That is what we are doing. Net zero by 2050 is not being "100% perfect".
Consider the words "Net zero". And why it is not "Zero".
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
We do seem to have a habit of (at times) trying to throw out the house, bathroom and bath alongside the bath water
There is this strange idea that we have to be 100% perfect when we should be aiming for 100% in the areas where it’s possible and accepting that the last 5% is impossible so we just mitigate the issues as best we can
That is what we are doing. Net zero by 2050 is not being "100% perfect".
If we are screwing up the North Sea and steel production then we are still trying to do way more than we should be doing
Climate change will do wonders for North Sea production. Higher temperatures melt ice and sea levels rise, leading to more North Sea. Coastal communities may not want more North Sea, however.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
Just turn off the portal which allows businesses to block book driving lessons. 60 seconds.
EDIT: When individuals book a test, it is linked to your personal details and can't be transferred. That is the current system, right now.
I believe driving instructors also have to have a learner driving licence number in order to book a test.
Since booked tests can be transferred, dodgy instructors are using their own student’s driving licence numbers to book tests & then selling them on.
(Could be wrong about this obviously - the lack of transparency into the workings of the system is one of the problems - it prevents outsiders from seeing what’s going on & demanding change.)
I don't see how we're going to get to net zero by 2050. Net lower than now, sure but there's either going to have to be i. A staggering overbuilding of wind and solar, or ii. frankly enormous leaps in battery technology or iii. Shutting down all of our industry.
Net "quite low" sure. But net zero seems extraordinarily difficult given we're susceptible to gloom laden winter highs in particular which removes tonnes gigawatt hours of wind and solar production.
Another route would be to heavily invest in nuclear - but going wind/solar means gas is the better counterfit so I can't really see a nuclear/wind/solar fit.
I think somewhere like France or South Korea where they seem able to build nuclear has a more realistic prospect of net zero than us to be frank.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
We do seem to have a habit of (at times) trying to throw out the house, bathroom and bath alongside the bath water
There is this strange idea that we have to be 100% perfect when we should be aiming for 100% in the areas where it’s possible and accepting that the last 5% is impossible so we just mitigate the issues as best we can
That is what we are doing. Net zero by 2050 is not being "100% perfect".
If we are screwing up the North Sea and steel production then we are still trying to do way more than we should be doing
We could dump a ton of money into the Green Steel. It is possible to use hydrogen instead of coal. This has already been demonstrated at scale.
New: The Gambling Commission has charged 15 people - including former MP Craig Williams and ex-CCHQ campaigning boss Tony Lee - over bets placed on the timing of the 2024 general election.
I am surprised by Craig Williams as it was such a stupidly small amount of money, it seemed like he was just an moron move (and he claimed he had bet and lost on previous timing bets). Anthony Lee, a former director of campaigning for the Conservatives, on the other hand I seemed to remember allegedly put on £1000s.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
It helps because it means you don’t have someone booking appointments (as a tout) trying to make money from it.
If you can’t make money from it the touts would stop booking appointments because they wouldn’t be able to sell them to for £200 more.
Now granted it would screw up a few honest driving instructors but it’s a necessary evil.
The lack of test examiners is completely separate to the fact people can currently operate as touts - and while more examiners would reduce the market value of a test it won’t fix the problem that people can currently profit from it
At my youngest’s driving test (which he passed, fortunately!) I was chatting to one of the examiners who told me that on one day earlier in the week no one had turned up to take any of the booked slots.
Obviously completely anecdotal, but something is going seriously wrong in the system if examiners (or students) are letting paid for tests go unused.
Yes, the current situation is absurd. After months of trying, my step daugher has finally managed to get a test date, and that was only by hitting the apply button at precisely the moment the next tranche of dates was released. Meanwhile, as you say, examiners are wasting their time waiting for people who don't show, probably because they don't exist or have unknowingly had a test booked in their name.
The process has been incredibly frustrating for her and others that I know who have had similar difficulties.
It will sit there and refresh the test booking page for you until it finds a test that meets your criteria & will book it for you fast enough to beat the bots. You need to already have a test booked, so it doesn’t get rid of the need to be up at 6am on a Monday morning, but you have a good change of finding a more suitable cancellation to swap with your booked test.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
I think Horse didn't appreciate that Lucky is still in a state of what he'd term denial, about climate change.
Actually I am not 'still' in a state of anything. I was a firm believer in primary and secondary, when it was already being drummed into us (largely unaffected by an odd and rather admirable intervention from Johnny Ball when we met him, who stated that he didn't believe it). Later on my views have developed, knocked by the (first) climate falsification scandal (was it Leicester University?) and becoming more skeptical over time.
I now tend to think of the actual science behind man-made global warming as somewhat moot. If we are warming up because of man-made CO2, not only will global action probably not work, UK actions will certainly not work, and many have been actively harmful - moving production to coal burning China and switching oil and gas supply away from domestic and toward LNG tankers from Saudi and the US. If it isn't happening in the way suggested, of course the privations involved are even more perverse.
The battle now is between people who want the world (and particularly our rainy corner of it) to go back to the dark ages, and those who don't.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
Then put a big CO2 tariff on imported steel (runs away LOLing...)
There's a serious point for the net-zero true believers - imports from the most heavily CO2 producing countries should probably be "carbon tariffed" according to some formula or other so that you're not putting domestic production at a competitive disadvantage.
& We've seen how well that goes down with the money men recently.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
It wouldn't have mattered either way. There was never going to be a massive turn around, in fact there was potential for a lot worse news. I think Sunak had just had enough.
Steve Bray has been cleared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of “flouting a police ban on playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit music through speakers outside Parliament in March last year.”
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
I think Horse didn't appreciate that Lucky is still in a state of what he'd term denial, about climate change.
Actually I am not 'still' in a state of anything. I was a firm believer in primary and secondary, when it was already being drummed into us (largely unaffected by an odd and rather admirable intervention from Johnny Ball when we met him, who stated that he didn't believe it). Later on my views have developed, knocked by the (first) climate falsification scandal (was it Leicester University?) and becoming more skeptical over time.
I now tend to think of the actual science behind man-made global warming as somewhat moot. If we are warming up because of man-made CO2, not only will global action probably not work, UK actions will certainly not work, and many have been actively harmful - moving production to coal burning China and switching oil and gas supply away from domestic and toward LNG tankers from Saudi and the US. If it isn't happening in the way suggested, of course the privations involved are even more perverse.
The battle now is between people who want the world (and particularly our rainy corner of it) to go back to the dark ages, and those who don't.
That's quite a dilemma. We probably split 52:48 on the Dark Ages, but hard to say which way.
Then put a big CO2 tariff on imported steel (runs away LOLing...)
There's a serious point for the net-zero true believers - imports from the most heavily CO2 producing countries should probably be "carbon tariffed" according to some formula or other so that you're not putting domestic production at a competitive disadvantage.
& We've seen how well that goes down with the money men recently.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
It helps because it means you don’t have someone booking appointments (as a tout) trying to make money from it.
If you can’t make money from it the touts would stop booking appointments because they wouldn’t be able to sell them to for £200 more.
Now granted it would screw up a few honest driving instructors but it’s a necessary evil.
The lack of test examiners is completely separate to the fact people can currently operate as touts - and while more examiners would reduce the market value of a test it won’t fix the problem that people can currently profit from it
At my youngest’s driving test (which he passed, fortunately!) I was chatting to one of the examiners who told me that on one day earlier in the week no one had turned up to take any of the booked slots.
Obviously completely anecdotal, but something is going seriously wrong in the system if examiners (or students) are letting paid for tests go unused.
Yes, the current situation is absurd. After months of trying, my step daugher has finally managed to get a test date, and that was only by hitting the apply button at precisely the moment the next tranche of dates was released. Meanwhile, as you say, examiners are wasting their time waiting for people who don't show, probably because they don't exist or have unknowingly had a test booked in their name.
The process has been incredibly frustrating for her and others that I know who have had similar difficulties.
Congratulations to your son, by the way!
That is the TM secondary market model, you make more revenue by charging a huge mark-up on the secondary market even if you don't sell everything.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
I see the rate of boat people arriving is up year on year. A headache that won't go away for the government and of course the system is so jammed up will continue to require loads of hotel rooms for many years to come.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
Other nations and steel companies likely have coke orders in ahead of time for raw material so they're probably on the blower to Xi and getting rinsed worse than Covid PPE and Trump's tariffs combined.
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
It'll turn out to be either Russian or American...
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
Labour are using the Blairite playbook, but Blair was *very* careful not to do anything controversial in his first term, letting the idea of a Labour govt "bed-in" first. Starmer "believes" (insofar as he believes anything) that doing the anti-benefits stuff first enables him to give goodies away later, but that assumes i) that there are goodies later, and ii) doing anti-benefits stuff is popular. Both are problematic and may be fictional.
My taxi drivers are right wing and they excoriate Starmer for this, reasoning that taking money off old folk, the disabled and the poor is *not* what a Labour government should be doing, and I am hard-pressed to disagree.
Incidentally, the politician that Starmer now most resembles isn't Blair or Corbyn or Thatcher... it's Clegg.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Labour are alienating their own voters on the EU issue....a bit part of their polling challenges would go away if THEY WERE IN ALIGNMENT WITH THEIR VOTERS BY DROPPING THEIR RED LINES 🙄🙄🙄🙄
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
So they'll get higher prices but they wont get any more jobs.
And there certainly will not be any manufacturing jobs for these unskilled Trump voters you keep talking about.
Not if they only buy American goods and products.
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
If you are only buying American goods you will be buying fewer more expensive goods.
And 100% tariffs only stop you importing from China, there will be other countries who produce the goods at a price above China but well below the price it would cost in the USA
Every other nation also has a 10% tariff and of course if production goes to other nations not the US from China Trump would of course just whack up tariffs on imports from those nations again too
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
It'll turn out to be either Russian or American...
The one thing they said is it is coming from Japan...now i thought that was a bit weird, as i didn't think Japan had much coal and that is about as far away as possible from the UK.
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
They won't support paying the higher prices this implies though.
Average hourly wage in the US: $24.10, while in China it was around $3.60 (2022 figures).
The more they buy American goods, the less the tariffs rise hits them too
I know we did this the other day, but if US manufacturers could compete prior to tarrifs they would have done, so the price of the replacement US produced goods will be higher than the pre tariff prices. So the consumer is still paying more regardless. They get hit by the tariff either directly (by buying Chinese) or indirectly (by buying higher priced untariffed US goods).
It is a lose lose deal.
If you bought US goods before the price you pay will be unchanged
Then put a big CO2 tariff on imported steel (runs away LOLing...)
There's a serious point for the net-zero true believers - imports from the most heavily CO2 producing countries should probably be "carbon tariffed" according to some formula or other so that you're not putting domestic production at a competitive disadvantage.
& We've seen how well that goes down with the money men recently.
That's going to happen. The CBAM from 2027.
(Should've been in place from the start).
Yes, that's the way to do it. It's just a shame it's taking so long to implement. But no doubt the usual suspects will find some reason why this, too, is a non-starter for mitigating climate change while putting forward no alternative plans.
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
To be fair there is a valid argument that says climate change is real and there's nothing that can now be done to stop it without causing mass impoverishment and a dramatic "cull" of the human species, so we should move speedily to mitigation.
Not saying I agree, but it's a valid debating point.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
I know. It's just nice to give credit to someone, when you can, whom you disagree with generally. Of course my view on the matter of climate charge is with you and @BatteryCorrectHorse.
Just nice to see someone applying logic correctly, particularly from this segment of the political spectrum.
If this is about the UK's high energy costs then moneyweek has a good article explaining that the high costs are mainly due to marginal pricing based on gas fuelled power stations. UK needs more electricity storage, to reduce reliance on gas for short-term back-up and move more generators off marginal pricing.
That seems spot on to me. In which case, are our high energy prices due to use of fossil fuels (gas). Also aren't renewables cheaper than fossil fuels unless you argue that we already have a gas power plant whereas we have to build solar or wind installations.
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
If the blast furnaces stop burning, irreparable (well very expensive and time consuming to repair) damage is done. Isn't the argument today that the Chinese have sabotaged the furnaces?
Kemi's idea of replacing them with electric arc furnaces is not a great one mind. I am at the Tata Port Talbot site once a month and the whole place is like the Marie Celeste. The arc furnaces will not be operational there for years.
Steve Bray has been cleared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of “flouting a police ban on playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit music through speakers outside Parliament in March last year.”
Oh FFS....
Last time I was in London, I went to Westminster wondering if I'd see anybody famous and all I saw was Steve Bray. Oh well.
The point about the anti net zero crowd is that the planet is burning so we shouldn’t even bother.
The man it seems most likely to be pragmatic on this is one Keir Starmer.
No, the point is China and India and Saudi still produce massive amounts of coal and oil and other fossil fuels and that would be the case even if we produced no emissions at all while our industry collapsed.
Yes we can invest in renewables too, as to be fair China is now but not hammer existing industry with carbon tax
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
To be fair there is a valid argument that says climate change is real and there's nothing that can now be done to stop it without causing mass impoverishment and a dramatic "cull" of the human species, so we should move speedily to mitigation.
Not saying I agree, but it's a valid debating point.
There is but that’s not the point I was making. It’s that people that used to be climate change deniers now strongly insist we cancel net zero. I think that their position is essentially the same but they have just lost the original argument.
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
If the blast furnaces stop burning, irreparable (well very expensive and time consuming to repair) damage is done. Isn't the argument today that the Chinese have sabotaged the furnaces?
Kemi's idea of replacing them with electric arc furnaces is not a great one mind. I am at the Tata Port Talbot site once a month and the whole place is like the Marie Celeste. The arc furnaces will not be operational there for years.
That wasn't my point that is a separate issue.
I was wondering why they are being weird about saying when / where the delivery is coming from. You would think having taken action, they would want to reassure we now have the situation under control, coal will arrive in x days, etc.
It is also the confusing take of today they continued to say even if we do nationalise it, we are going to look to offload it ASAP to a private entity but no Chinese companies allowed. But we know nobody wanted it last time.
I really don't understand why they don't just say we are going to nationalise it, it is the only way forward and it is vital for national security.
Then put a big CO2 tariff on imported steel (runs away LOLing...)
There's a serious point for the net-zero true believers - imports from the most heavily CO2 producing countries should probably be "carbon tariffed" according to some formula or other so that you're not putting domestic production at a competitive disadvantage.
& We've seen how well that goes down with the money men recently.
I see I’ve been beaten to the CBAM point, but this is important. The EU led the way on carbon credits, and it’s now leading the way (with the UK in lockstep) on CBAM. It’s not a tariff, because it simply equalises the carbon credit cost of imported vs homemade emissions.
The good thing about climate change mitigation, and the reason why “let’s not bother” isn’t a serious policy position, is that every bit of mitigation no matter how small will likely save lives and economic cost. 2C warming is less dangerous than 2.5C which is less catastrophic than 3C which is less apocalyptic than 4C and so on.
And climate change is already way more costly to the world economy than mitigation (and that equation gets worse every year), so it’s an economic win-win.
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
To be fair there is a valid argument that says climate change is real and there's nothing that can now be done to stop it without causing mass impoverishment and a dramatic "cull" of the human species, so we should move speedily to mitigation.
Not saying I agree, but it's a valid debating point.
Mitigation = reducing carbon emissions Adaptation = preparing infrastructure for the effects Damage = the bit we didn't manage to mitigate or adapt for
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
To be fair there is a valid argument that says climate change is real and there's nothing that can now be done to stop it without causing mass impoverishment and a dramatic "cull" of the human species, so we should move speedily to mitigation.
Not saying I agree, but it's a valid debating point.
I don't think anyone claims that we can stop climate change. Mitigation is the best we can do, alongside adaptation to cope with the effects that can't feasibly be mitigated.
Labour are alienating their own voters on the EU issue....a bit part of their polling challenges would go away if THEY WERE IN ALIGNMENT WITH THEIR VOTERS BY DROPPING THEIR RED LINES 🙄🙄🙄🙄
No, Labour wants to win another majority, for which it needs redwall seats to stay Labour and not go Reform and southern marginal Leave voting seats to stay Labour and not go Tory. Rejoining the EEA and restoring free movement and rejoining the customs union so we can't do our own trade deals means Labour loses those seats and its majority. Just a third of 2019 Conservative to 2024 Labour switchers and 2024 Labour to now Reform switchers think Starmer has not gone far enough in getting closer to the EU again on that poll even if 54% of 2024 Labour voters overall think he needs to get closer to the EU.
So at best it would end up with a minority goverment propped up by the LDs and SNP and Greens which would force Starmer to rejoin the customs union and get closer to the EEA anyway but at the expense of Labour's majority
Labour are alienating their own voters on the EU issue....a bit part of their polling challenges would go away if THEY WERE IN ALIGNMENT WITH THEIR VOTERS BY DROPPING THEIR RED LINES 🙄🙄🙄🙄
There are 47% or so, who currently support either the Conservatives or Reform. The government does not want to get those voters choosing one or the other, to stop them, or else, voting tactically for each other.
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
To be fair there is a valid argument that says climate change is real and there's nothing that can now be done to stop it without causing mass impoverishment and a dramatic "cull" of the human species, so we should move speedily to mitigation.
Not saying I agree, but it's a valid debating point.
Mitigation = reducing carbon emissions Adaptation = preparing infrastructure for the effects Damage = the bit we didn't manage to mitigate or adapt for
Yeah, I mean adaption really.
Building flood defenses, fitting air con to all buildings, etc...
Steve Bray has been cleared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of “flouting a police ban on playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit music through speakers outside Parliament in March last year.”
Oh FFS....
Last time I was in London, I went to Westminster wondering if I'd see anybody famous and all I saw was Steve Bray. Oh well.
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
If the blast furnaces stop burning, irreparable (well very expensive and time consuming to repair) damage is done. Isn't the argument today that the Chinese have sabotaged the furnaces?
Kemi's idea of replacing them with electric arc furnaces is not a great one mind. I am at the Tata Port Talbot site once a month and the whole place is like the Marie Celeste. The arc furnaces will not be operational there for years.
Electric arc furnaces still saved thousands of Port Talbot jobs
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
If the blast furnaces stop burning, irreparable (well very expensive and time consuming to repair) damage is done. Isn't the argument today that the Chinese have sabotaged the furnaces?
Kemi's idea of replacing them with electric arc furnaces is not a great one mind. I am at the Tata Port Talbot site once a month and the whole place is like the Marie Celeste. The arc furnaces will not be operational there for years.
Electric arc furnaces still saved thousands of Port Talbot jobs
Long term, have they? Or are Tata going to take the government money, build them with that, but then never turn them on?
I see the rate of boat people arriving is up year on year. A headache that won't go away for the government and of course the system is so jammed up will continue to require loads of hotel rooms for many years to come.
The crack cocaine of immigration. As more towns see hotels or blocks of flats full of the boat people, and them hanging around their quiets villages, anti immigrant sentiment will rise.
It’s everything the public dislike about immigration crystallised into a short, sharp hit. Anti immigration parties wouldn’t have been believed if they had made it up, & there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop it
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
I just don't see why impoverishment with the highest electricity prices in Europe is the way to go..🤨 China has over a 1000 coal fired power stations (with more to come) and are there really going to be EV's whizzing around Cape Town with their rolling blackouts? 🤨🧐
Why are the government being so weird about delivery of new supplies for the blast furnace? The morning round of media was this weird i can't tell you nothing about the delivery, commercially sensitive. Its coal, not gold bars or nuclear warheads.
It'll turn out to be either Russian or American...
Well, that would be outrageous.
We shouldn't be buying from a Fascist regime run by openly criminal elements that threatens all of its neighbours.
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
They won't support paying the higher prices this implies though.
Average hourly wage in the US: $24.10, while in China it was around $3.60 (2022 figures).
The more they buy American goods, the less the tariffs rise hits them too
I know we did this the other day, but if US manufacturers could compete prior to tarrifs they would have done, so the price of the replacement US produced goods will be higher than the pre tariff prices. So the consumer is still paying more regardless. They get hit by the tariff either directly (by buying Chinese) or indirectly (by buying higher priced untariffed US goods).
It is a lose lose deal.
If you bought US goods before the price you pay will be unchanged
(actually it may now go up, as the price of competition has also increased)
Which poster was it that said they thought Labour had stolen the Tory clothes on their economic stewardship aims? Was it one @Casino_Royale? I hope he might expand on that.
Steve Bray has been cleared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of “flouting a police ban on playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit music through speakers outside Parliament in March last year.”
Oh FFS....
Last time I was in London, I went to Westminster wondering if I'd see anybody famous and all I saw was Steve Bray. Oh well.
He really needs help.
Well, he certainly could use a break. Perhaps Scott could take a couple of shifts for him?
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
They won't support paying the higher prices this implies though.
Average hourly wage in the US: $24.10, while in China it was around $3.60 (2022 figures).
The more they buy American goods, the less the tariffs rise hits them too
I know we did this the other day, but if US manufacturers could compete prior to tarrifs they would have done, so the price of the replacement US produced goods will be higher than the pre tariff prices. So the consumer is still paying more regardless. They get hit by the tariff either directly (by buying Chinese) or indirectly (by buying higher priced untariffed US goods).
It is a lose lose deal.
If you bought US goods before the price you pay will be unchanged
Well that is true, but there are a couple of issues with that:
a) Most people, especially the poor, will be buying the cheaper imports. For example the poor MAGAs will have been paying $1 for Trump caps and will now be paying $2. Only the rich MAGA are paying $50 for the US made MAGA caps. So the poor will be hit with massive inflation.
b) Some goods were never produced in the US because they can't compete so you had to buy Chinese goods. If you now move to US goods (because they can compete after tariffs) they will still cost you more.
Although your statement is correct, it is academic.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
I just don't see why impoverishment with the highest electricity prices in Europe is the way to go..🤨 China has over a 1000 coal fired power stations (with more to come) and are there really going to be EV's whizzing around Cape Town with their rolling blackouts? 🤨🧐
China is currently building more renewable energy capacity than fossil fuel power stations. In 2024, China added around 180 GW of utility-scale solar and 159 GW of wind power, totaling 339 GW of renewables under construction—nearly twice the rest of the world’s combined total. For comparison, while coal power construction hit a 10-year high in 2024 with 66.7 GW of new capacity approved, the scale of renewable additions significantly outpaces fossil fuels. Renewables now make up over 50% of China’s installed power capacity, though fossil fuels, especially coal, still account for about 62% of actual electricity generation due to grid preferences and reliability concerns.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
This will immediately descend into straightforward corruption: You scratch my back & I’ll scratch yours...
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
So why don't those people who think they would be better off working in a factory actually get a job in a factory ?
Now some will be in rural areas where there are few or no factories and that's not going to change.
But most will simply not have the skillset needed.
And that is a failure of partly themselves and partly of the US education/training system.
What was the point in training them to do something Chinese workers have been trained for decades to do - with great manual dexterity - for a small fraction of the cost required of an American? Who would possibly put money into that?
Not Trump's tame billionaires for sure.
There will be plenty of vacancies for skilled workers in US manufacturing, and the US economy generally, right now.
That is what the US government should be focussing on.
Most Trump voters do not have the level of high skill required for the non automated manufacturing jobs still on offer in the US.
Many of their fathers worked on mass production line jobs though robots or Chinese workers now do
So they'll end up blaming Trump for not bringing back the past because those jobs are not going to come back.
No they support Trump whacking cheap Chinese imports with tariffs to bring some of the production of those goods back to the US
So they'll get higher prices but they wont get any more jobs.
And there certainly will not be any manufacturing jobs for these unskilled Trump voters you keep talking about.
Not if they only buy American goods and products.
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
If you are only buying American goods you will be buying fewer more expensive goods.
And 100% tariffs only stop you importing from China, there will be other countries who produce the goods at a price above China but well below the price it would cost in the USA
Every other nation also has a 10% tariff and of course if production goes to other nations not the US from China Trump would of course just whack up tariffs on imports from those nations again too
Production is not going back to the USA. It's a complete fantasy.
There is a great article in the NYTimes today about an American businessman who owns factories in South-East Asia producing grilling accessories and kitchen items. When asked about moving production back to the USA, his response is that this is very risky because:
(1) How can he outfit an American factory given the hefty tariffs that now hit imports of equipment and machinery from around the world ? (2) How can he hire enough people in an era of mass deportation of immigrants in the USA ? (3) Presidents are elected for four years & factories take at least that long to recover the costs of building. If a new President changes the rules, then he'll be stuck with a loss-making factory in the USA, while his competitors could use lower-wage countries to make their goods.
A tweet from John Burn-Murdoch just after the GE responding to claims that Sunak should have delayed the election until the good economic news started to filter through. It’s possible the current govt may have the same problem. Is this an argument against front loading the bad stuff?
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
This will immediately descend into straightforward corruption: You scratch my back & I’ll scratch yours...
Well yes, if there are only two. If there are 15, not so much. I could not be bothered to enumerate all the permutations.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
Solutions for a high trust society...
Examiners are trained differently to instructors. Part of the problem is you can make lots more money as an instructor than an examiner. And the regular re-qualifications are harder, IIRC.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
Solutions for a high trust society...
Examiners are trained differently to instructors. Part of the problem is you can make lots more money as an instructor than an examiner. And the regular re-qualifications are harder, IIRC.
It's also a conflict of interest. Fail someone else's pupil so they need to continue with lessons.
Steve Bray has been cleared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of “flouting a police ban on playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit music through speakers outside Parliament in March last year.”
Oh FFS....
Last time I was in London, I went to Westminster wondering if I'd see anybody famous and all I saw was Steve Bray. Oh well.
He really needs help.
Well, he certainly could use a break. Perhaps Scott could take a couple of shifts for him?
There is no doubt he is the hardest "working" man in politics.
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
I just don't see why impoverishment with the highest electricity prices in Europe is the way to go..🤨 China has over a 1000 coal fired power stations (with more to come) and are there really going to be EV's whizzing around Cape Town with their rolling blackouts? 🤨🧐
Total non sequitur.
UK energy prices: highest in Europe due to marginal price of gas generation and a poor transmission system. And shit household insulation.
Swedish energy prices: lowest in Europe, with a largely green grid from nuclear, hydro and wind.
Highest energy prices in Europe are in CEE and SE Europe, which is heavily dependent on coal and imported gas.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
This will immediately descend into straightforward corruption: You scratch my back & I’ll scratch yours...
Well yes, if there are only two. If there are 15, not so much. I could not be bothered to enumerate all the permutations.
Actually, recently retired pensioners is a resource the Civil Service doesn't use. There are senior people who use the chumocracy to get consultancy work, or contracts for their business, of course, but not ordinary civil servants. For example, the DWP struggles to staff jobcentres over the summer, partly due to the numbers of staff on term-time-only contracts. It would seem simple to get some retirees back for a few weeks, but it doesn't occur to them to do it. I have just retired and would consider it, as I don't usually travel in the summer.
I see the rate of boat people arriving is up year on year. A headache that won't go away for the government and of course the system is so jammed up will continue to require loads of hotel rooms for many years to come.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
What there might be, is a better way of managing the slots that do exist, and not allowing the people who run the bots a risk-free profit at public expense.
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to get the DfT Perm Sec into the SOS's office and tell him to have a solution by this time next week. In the meantime, maybe they should suspend bookings.
Suspending bookings would aggravate the shortage.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
Indeed, a long term solution is required and all the above are possible. Indeed, suitable. There will be issues with Civil Service pensions and "abatement" but they are not insurmountable and indeed I imagine a fair number of retirees would like a day a week or so.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
Here is another idea off the top of my head. Mostly, test candidates drive with their instructors to the test centre. The instructors then sit around for an hour and then drive home. Why not have instructor A examine pupil B while instructor B examines pupil A, for instance? Again, this in effect increases the number of examiners and hence slots.
This will immediately descend into straightforward corruption: You scratch my back & I’ll scratch yours...
Well yes, if there are only two. If there are 15, not so much. I could not be bothered to enumerate all the permutations.
Actually, recently retired pensioners is a resource the Civil Service doesn't use. There are senior people who use the chumocracy to get consultancy work, or contracts for their business, of course, but not ordinary civil servants. For example, the DWP struggles to staff jobcentres over the summer, partly due to the numbers of staff on term-time-only contracts. It would seem simple to get some retirees back for a few weeks, but it doesn't occur to them to do it. I have just retired and would consider it, as I don't usually travel in the summer.
I see the rate of boat people arriving is up year on year. A headache that won't go away for the government and of course the system is so jammed up will continue to require loads of hotel rooms for many years to come.
It’s gonna explode. Powder keg awaits matchstick
There is another problem with migrant hotels. Sooner or later Nigel Farage will notice that either more money is paid to house homeless migrants than homeless Britons, or Angela Rayner's new houses are given straight to the migrants to get them out of the hotels.
Decades ago, this inflamed racial tensions in London. New council estates were handed over to immigrants and not locals on the waiting list. Nothing to do with woke, but simply need – immigrant families (the clue is in the name) had more children than native newly-married couples, so had higher priority.
You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.
I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.
Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.
Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.
I know. It's just nice to give credit to someone, when you can, whom you disagree with generally. Of course my view on the matter of climate charge is with you and @BatteryCorrectHorse.
Just nice to see someone applying logic correctly, particularly from this segment of the political spectrum.
Even the most impeccable logic, founded on top of a fallacy, isn't particularly sound, though.
Listening to Today and they are talking about the problem with bots taking all tue driving test slots.
Chair of the Transport committee just said that they need a new website for booking to stop this but it will take 5 years.
Would any of our resident tech people explain to an analogue caveman like myself how it takes 5 years to build such a site and can they not buy existing ones off the shelf used by other countries and tweak it?
Seems absolutely bonkers that it takes 5 years.
Nope - I could use DVLAs preferred tool and give them a system within 6 months fully tested - and probably in a lot less time.
But the fix is simple - cancelled appointments go back into a pool and are available to everyone - don’t let instructors change the id on a test
Or add another question to the current system "What is your driving licence number?" And state that only someone with that licence can use that appointment, and heavily publicise that restriction. It would take less than a day to implement.
And that would help how? The problem is there are not enough test slots because there are not enough examiners. It is the same as with popular concerts. Arenas won't magically get bigger if you ban Ticketmaster. There won't be more driving tests available if you ban bots.
It helps because it means you don’t have someone booking appointments (as a tout) trying to make money from it.
If you can’t make money from it the touts would stop booking appointments because they wouldn’t be able to sell them to for £200 more.
Now granted it would screw up a few honest driving instructors but it’s a necessary evil.
The lack of test examiners is completely separate to the fact people can currently operate as touts - and while more examiners would reduce the market value of a test it won’t fix the problem that people can currently profit from it
At my youngest’s driving test (which he passed, fortunately!) I was chatting to one of the examiners who told me that on one day earlier in the week no one had turned up to take any of the booked slots.
Obviously completely anecdotal, but something is going seriously wrong in the system if examiners (or students) are letting paid for tests go unused.
Yes, the current situation is absurd. After months of trying, my step daugher has finally managed to get a test date, and that was only by hitting the apply button at precisely the moment the next tranche of dates was released. Meanwhile, as you say, examiners are wasting their time waiting for people who don't show, probably because they don't exist or have unknowingly had a test booked in their name.
The process has been incredibly frustrating for her and others that I know who have had similar difficulties.
Congratulations to your son, by the way!
Doesn't every provisional driving license haven a unique number ? Aren't they required for booking a test ?
Just to be clear, I am not targeting people that have always believed climate change to be a hoax and are now saying net zero should be cancelled.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
I just don't see why impoverishment with the highest electricity prices in Europe is the way to go..🤨 China has over a 1000 coal fired power stations (with more to come) and are there really going to be EV's whizzing around Cape Town with their rolling blackouts? 🤨🧐
Total non sequitur.
UK energy prices: highest in Europe due to marginal price of gas generation and a poor transmission system. And shit household insulation.
Swedish energy prices: lowest in Europe, with a largely green grid from nuclear, hydro and wind.
Highest energy prices in Europe are in CEE and SE Europe, which is heavily dependent on coal and imported gas.
You're bright enough to know that this is, at a huuuuuuuge stretch, a biased and partial answer to the question of why British energy bills are so high.
Perhaps you might want to consider why it is, if you're actually right, that well-intentioned dissembling needs to be deployed constantly to support your argument.
Comments
There also comes a point where over 100% tariffs on Chinese goods imports means it makes more sense to produce those goods for the US market in the US
But the implication of that position is that we need to start spending significant cash on things like flood defences and look seriously at some of the more extreme scenarios. If we blast through 2.5C, 3C, 3.5C... things could get ugly fast.
There is a great deal of uncertainty around climate change, but facebook warriors only ever consider the upside risk of it not being as bad as we think.
Just nice to see someone applying logic correctly, particularly from this segment of the political spectrum.
Which suggests a 51% Labor 49% Coalition result and still a small swing to the Coalition but Labor scrape back in
WRT the TM analogy, info from someone who worked there is that pitches included the estimated increase in revenue from retaining a % of tickets for the secondary market.
An example of this in action would be T20 matches at the oval in past years, difficult to find decent seats together on the website in advance, but on the day an abundance of tickets for less than face + admin fees available from touts outside the tube station or officially for sale on the gate at face value. You might suspect that these were never listed then dumped on the day, a practice reported in some TV investigations.
There are not enough test slots because they are taken up by the rip off merchants. My solution removes the rip off merchants.
EDIT Just seen Malmebury's post
Just turn off the portal which allows businesses to block book driving lessons. 60 seconds.
It is a lose lose deal.
And 100% tariffs only stop you importing from China, there will be other countries who produce the goods at a price above China but well below the price it would cost in the USA
The process has been incredibly frustrating for her and others that I know who have had similar difficulties.
Congratulations to your son, by the way!
Then we have ocean heat content which is even more monotonic and ruler-straight because the ocean smooths out the ENSO cycle.
UK needs more electricity storage, to reduce reliance on gas for short-term back-up and move more generators off marginal pricing.
Since booked tests can be transferred, dodgy instructors are using their own student’s driving licence numbers to book tests & then selling them on.
(Could be wrong about this obviously - the lack of transparency into the workings of the system is one of the problems - it prevents outsiders from seeing what’s going on & demanding change.)
ii. frankly enormous leaps in battery technology or
iii. Shutting down all of our industry.
Net "quite low" sure. But net zero seems extraordinarily difficult given we're susceptible to gloom laden winter highs in particular which removes tonnes gigawatt hours of wind and solar production.
Another route would be to heavily invest in nuclear - but going wind/solar means gas is the better counterfit so I can't really see a nuclear/wind/solar fit.
I think somewhere like France or South Korea where they seem able to build nuclear has a more realistic prospect of net zero than us to be frank.
https://www.mining-technology.com/news/green-steel-hydrogen/?cf-view
Then put a big CO2 tariff on imported steel (runs away LOLing...)
It will sit there and refresh the test booking page for you until it finds a test that meets your criteria & will book it for you fast enough to beat the bots. You need to already have a test booked, so it doesn’t get rid of the need to be up at 6am on a Monday morning, but you have a good change of finding a more suitable cancellation to swap with your booked test.
I used it to book tests for all of my children.
I now tend to think of the actual science behind man-made global warming as somewhat moot. If we are warming up because of man-made CO2, not only will global action probably not work, UK actions will certainly not work, and many have been actively harmful - moving production to coal burning China and switching oil and gas supply away from domestic and toward LNG tankers from Saudi and the US. If it isn't happening in the way suggested, of course the privations involved are even more perverse.
The battle now is between people who want the world (and particularly our rainy corner of it) to go back to the dark ages, and those who don't.
I think the fundamental issue here is that once you’re that deeply unpopular, everything is a negative ratchet. You’re blamed for the bad, but not credited for the good.
The trick is to not become possibly the most disliked government in British political history.
https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1811373320035528933?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
& We've seen how well that goes down with the money men recently.
Oh FFS....
(Should've been in place from the start).
She was helped by a split and implausible opposition, sure, but we seem to have one of those as well.
Forget bots and block bookings. They are a symptom of the problem which is not enough slots.
The government is said to be recruiting more examiners, but is also said to be doing this very slowly. It could offer more money; it could fast track instructors to become examiners; offer part-time jobs; it could try to attract back retired examiners. All these are supply side reforms because that is where the bottleneck is.
I am targeting people that used to claim climate change was a hoax and apparently now believe in it they just don’t want to actually do anything about it.
For example, Richard Tice who was a climate change denier now strongly insists he believes in climate change but hates any solution that is proposed.
Boris Johnson from taking office to about a month past the start of covid.
But you don't offer any short term solutions while that happens. I would say, as you can't book a test anyway, suspending it for a while will cause zero problems, and then block the
My taxi drivers are right wing and they excoriate Starmer for this, reasoning that taking money off old folk, the disabled and the poor is *not* what a Labour government should be doing, and I am hard-pressed to disagree.
Incidentally, the politician that Starmer now most resembles isn't Blair or Corbyn or Thatcher... it's Clegg.
Keir Clegg. Nick Starmer. Pick one.
https://www.bestforbritain.org/april_2025_poll_uk_eu_relationship_reset?fbclid=IwY2xjawJpzNNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHrn6VJOLx3rYLmvPuy79wkGt5c4PqXrbxoj12flkVx3JPaQVNlr5ne-DmACM_aem_AO2InVwUXMaer2Fxw9WwMA
Not saying I agree, but it's a valid debating point.
In which case, are our high energy prices due to use of fossil fuels (gas). Also aren't renewables cheaper than fossil fuels unless you argue that we already have a gas power plant whereas we have to build solar or wind installations.
Kemi's idea of replacing them with electric arc furnaces is not a great one mind. I am at the Tata Port Talbot site once a month and the whole place is like the Marie Celeste. The arc furnaces will not be operational there for years.
The man it seems most likely to be pragmatic on this is one Keir Starmer.
Yes we can invest in renewables too, as to be fair China is now but not hammer existing industry with carbon tax
When you say mitigation, what does that involve?
I was wondering why they are being weird about saying when / where the delivery is coming from. You would think having taken action, they would want to reassure we now have the situation under control, coal will arrive in x days, etc.
It is also the confusing take of today they continued to say even if we do nationalise it, we are going to look to offload it ASAP to a private entity but no Chinese companies allowed. But we know nobody wanted it last time.
I really don't understand why they don't just say we are going to nationalise it, it is the only way forward and it is vital for national security.
The good thing about climate change mitigation, and the reason why “let’s not bother” isn’t a serious policy position, is that every bit of mitigation no matter how small will likely save lives and economic cost. 2C warming is less dangerous than 2.5C which is less catastrophic than 3C which is less apocalyptic than 4C and so on.
And climate change is already way more costly to the world economy than mitigation (and that equation gets worse every year), so it’s an economic win-win.
Adaptation = preparing infrastructure for the effects
Damage = the bit we didn't manage to mitigate or adapt for
So at best it would end up with a minority goverment propped up by the LDs and SNP and Greens which would force Starmer to rejoin the customs union and get closer to the EEA anyway but at the expense of Labour's majority
Building flood defenses, fitting air con to all buildings, etc...
It’s everything the public dislike about immigration crystallised into a short, sharp hit. Anti immigration parties wouldn’t have been believed if they had made it up, & there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop it
We shouldn't be buying from a Fascist regime run by openly criminal elements that threatens all of its neighbours.
Or from the Russians, for the matter of that.
a) Most people, especially the poor, will be buying the cheaper imports. For example the poor MAGAs will have been paying $1 for Trump caps and will now be paying $2. Only the rich MAGA are paying $50 for the US made MAGA caps. So the poor will be hit with massive inflation.
b) Some goods were never produced in the US because they can't compete so you had to buy Chinese goods. If you now move to US goods (because they can compete after tariffs) they will still cost you more.
Although your statement is correct, it is academic.
With thanks to Grok, Elon Musk's AI
https://x.com/timmyvoe/status/1911710610514993447?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
There is a great article in the NYTimes today about an American businessman who owns factories in South-East Asia producing grilling accessories and kitchen items. When asked about moving production back to the USA, his response is that this is very risky because:
(1) How can he outfit an American factory given the hefty tariffs that now hit imports of equipment and machinery from around the world ?
(2) How can he hire enough people in an era of mass deportation of immigrants in the USA ?
(3) Presidents are elected for four years & factories take at least that long to recover the costs of building. If a new President changes the rules, then he'll be stuck with a loss-making factory in the USA, while his competitors could use lower-wage countries to make their goods.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/business/trumps-tariffs-us-imports.html
Which is very different.
UK energy prices: highest in Europe due to marginal price of gas generation and a poor transmission system. And shit household insulation.
Swedish energy prices: lowest in Europe, with a largely green grid from nuclear, hydro and wind.
Highest energy prices in Europe are in CEE and SE Europe, which is heavily dependent on coal and imported gas.
Ah, I see you made the same point subsequently.
Decades ago, this inflamed racial tensions in London. New council estates were handed over to immigrants and not locals on the waiting list. Nothing to do with woke, but simply need – immigrant families (the clue is in the name) had more children than native newly-married couples, so had higher priority.
Aren't they required for booking a test ?
Perhaps you might want to consider why it is, if you're actually right, that well-intentioned dissembling needs to be deployed constantly to support your argument.