Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
I don't think the Tories have began asking them tough questions about what went wrong and why though. They seem entirely incurious about why the Lib Dems are eating up parts of their former heartlands, nor why they are loathed by younger generations, and have lost people on higher incomes. In short they have nothing to offer social liberals, even those who in other ways should be more than open voting Tory.
That's not to say need to ape the Lib Dems or go back to early Cameron-era poses. It wouldn't work anyway as once bitten twice shy in that regard. But you do need to offer people who demographically used to be your voters something and show that you get why they're pissed off.
It's the opposite problem to the one Labour knows it has and is fairly relentless in trying to address (admittedly with variable results) with socially conservative voters. Thus there's a lot of crowded real estate there, and Reform are able to outbid anything the Tory Party might offer without falling into the trap of looking irresponsible.
Badenoch often appears to be doubling down having been radicalised by the state of Twitter these days into thinking right-wing conspiracism is the pulse of the nation.
I hadn't realised just how useless the UK F35s were compared to their US counterparts.
They can't use the UK's most capable air to air (Meteor) or air to surface (SPEAR) missiles, as Lockheed never integrated them into the airframe. And likely won't until the next decade.
Meteor has done the basic captive carry tests this year.
Spear 3 - which is still in development - is scheduled for full deployment on F35 in 2028, IIRC
Making the best aircraft in the world is something we should simply do as a nation.
We have the best engines, we have the best aero-dynamicists, and we used to have sprightly boffin engineers. I'm sure we can do so again.
My way to incentivize would be to make engineering degrees free to the students taking them. "No debts for young engineeers!"
I'd not argue with that, but my recipe would be to once again have all sorts of defence requirement mandates. 'We want a spud gun that can shoot around corners - you'll get ten designs'
FFS, I'm going to have to update my climate-roaster trajectory again.
1) Climate change isn't real. 2) Climate change is happening, but it's not caused by humans. 3) Climate change is our fault, but it's not worth doing anything about it because the Chinese won't 4) The Chinese have done so much on climate change they are destroying our domestic car and solar panel industries. We should put tariffs on them. 5) We are generating so much clean energy we're paying to wind farms to turn themselves off! Bastards! 6) We are generating so much clean energy we have to find the off switch for our gas power stations! Swine! 7) We didn't need any of these woke Net Zero targets in the first place - the renewable transition was going to happen anyway. Meddling lefties. 8) Why are we exporting so much of our energy to France? British Energy for British Pensioners!
I'm interested that the Metropolitan Police have closed their investigation viewing it as a "Civil Matter".
I don't see how the Sycamore Gap felling was "criminal damage" which has come to trial, and this one was not. Criminal damage can be intentional or reckless. That Met decision looks hasty. In both cases the destruction of the tree was by a party not entitled to do so (absent - maybe - the so far undisclosed terms of the lease held by the Toby Carvery, and exactly where the oak tree is located).
The Council had had a report done indicating a future lifetime of hundreds of years as recently as last December.
The Enfield Tree is assessed as far more important than the Sycamore.
For an appropriately strong response, the Met will have to reverse their decision, or perhaps the Council will need to forfeit the lease or threaten to do so. Toby Carvery are sloping their shoulders and hoping it will go away.
I'm fairly sure if you get anticipable periods of almost free energy, that will happen almost without the state really having to try (though this should not deter them from doing so!)
Which party is most against a digital ID system? I'm trying to work out who to vote for at the local elections, and that's the most important topic for me.
What’s digital id got to do with anything a local council does?
"For the first time, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has access to electronic banking after its first ATM was unveiled. Officials called it a "transformative" era of modern banking in the remote archipelago. For years, the nation's 12,000 residents have done all their banking in cash, with workers enduring long lines to withdraw their wages from the bank each pay day. Now they will be able to withdraw money at the swipe of a card, with five ATMs and 30 point-of-sale terminals installed."
A Pattern of Islands - lovely book by Arthur Grimble who as a rookie civil servant was sent out to administer the Gilbert and Ellice Islands as a British colony in1913
I hadn't realised just how useless the UK F35s were compared to their US counterparts.
They can't use the UK's most capable air to air (Meteor) or air to surface (SPEAR) missiles, as Lockheed never integrated them into the airframe. And likely won't until the next decade.
Meteor has done the basic captive carry tests this year.
Spear 3 - which is still in development - is scheduled for full deployment on F35 in 2028, IIRC
Neither will be deployed without the Block 4 upgrade, which we haven't even decided to fund for our F35s yet.
I'll be very surprised if either is operational on the F35 by 2028. Meteor has been flying on the Typhoon since 2018.
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
I hadn't realised just how useless the UK F35s were compared to their US counterparts.
They can't use the UK's most capable air to air (Meteor) or air to surface (SPEAR) missiles, as Lockheed never integrated them into the airframe. And likely won't until the next decade.
Meteor has done the basic captive carry tests this year.
Spear 3 - which is still in development - is scheduled for full deployment on F35 in 2028, IIRC
That is at least Yankee-doodle politics in part, because they don't want all their export customers to buy British or European missiles that are about the best in the world.
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
I don't think the Tories have began asking them tough questions about what went wrong and why though. They seem entirely incurious about why the Lib Dems are eating up parts of their former heartlands, nor why they are loathed by younger generations, and have lost people on higher incomes. In short they have nothing to offer social liberals, even those who in other ways should be more than open voting Tory.
That's not to say need to ape the Lib Dems or go back to early Cameron-era poses. It wouldn't work anyway as once bitten twice shy in that regard. But you do need to offer people who demographically used to be your voters something and show that you get why they're pissed off.
It's the opposite problem to the one Labour knows it has and is fairly relentless in trying to address (admittedly with variable results) with socially conservative voters. Thus there's a lot of crowded real estate there, and Reform are able to outbid anything the Tory Party might offer without falling into the trap of looking irresponsible.
Badenoch often appears to be doubling down having been radicalised by the state of Twitter these days into thinking right-wing conspiracism is the pulse of the nation.
The Conservative Party is precisely that, it is not meant to be a socially liberal party.
Though given it passed gay marriage with LD support, is not anti abortion, passed no fault divorce and did little to support marriage and mothers who wished to stay at home, under Boris massively expanded immigration until Rishi tightened the rules and did little to combat wokeism and let the police let off thieves who stole low value goods (which to his credit Starmer is reversing) arguably the problem was the Tories were too socially liberal, which is why they lost much of their support to Reform.
Indeed apart from Brexit and ending free movement and introducing whole life orders for the worst killers most of the last Tory government was socially liberal
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
Well it ain't going to be a Conservative and Labour government either is it. The choice is Tory and Reform or Labour and LD and possibly SNP too most likely as the alternative governments
I'm interested that the Metropolitan Police have closed their investigation viewing it as a "Civil Matter".
I don't see how the Sycamore Gap felling was "criminal damage" which has come to trial, and this one was not. Criminal damage can be intentional or reckless. That Met decision looks hasty. In both cases the destruction of the tree was by a party not entitled to do so (absent - maybe - the so far undisclosed terms of the lease held by the Toby Carvery, and exactly where the oak tree is located).
The Council had had a report done indicating a future lifetime of hundreds of years as recently as last December.
The Enfield Tree is assessed as far more important than the Sycamore.
For an appropriately strong response, the Met will have to reverse their decision, or perhaps the Council will need to forfeit the lease or threaten to do so. Toby Carvery are sloping their shoulders and hoping it will go away.
FFS, I'm going to have to update my climate-roaster trajectory again.
1) Climate change isn't real. 2) Climate change is happening, but it's not caused by humans. 3) Climate change is our fault, but it's not worth doing anything about it because the Chinese won't 4) The Chinese have done so much on climate change they are destroying our domestic car and solar panel industries. We should put tariffs on them. 5) We are generating so much clean energy we're paying to wind farms to turn themselves off! Bastards! 6) We are generating so much clean energy we have to find the off switch for our gas power stations! Swine! 7) We didn't need any of these woke Net Zero targets in the first place - the renewable transition was going to happen anyway. Meddling lefties. 8) Why are we exporting so much of our energy to France? British Energy for British Pensioners!
The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline · 1m Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell: “The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effect, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”
No, but they are looking for his replacement. Speculation whoever is going to replace him will end up shadowing him for the changeover period. How that works will be interesting
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
In order to recover meaningfully, Labour will need an aggressive policy u-turn. They haven’t got that in them. Even their welfare u-turn just upset everyone for a measly £5bn off the welfare bill which will still grow.
Yeah, all this talk of savage cuts is bull, it really means is the spend grows by about 26% over the life of this parliament not just under a third.
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
In order to recover meaningfully, Labour will need an aggressive policy u-turn. They haven’t got that in them. Even their welfare u-turn just upset everyone for a measly £5bn off the welfare bill which will still grow.
Yeah, all this talk of savage cuts is bull, it really means is the spend grows by about 26% over the life of this parliament not just under a third.
And the way they've done it seems remarkably stupid.
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
Well it ain't going to be a Conservative and Labour government either is it. The choice is Tory and Reform or Labour and LD and possibly SNP too most likely as the alternative governments
I wouldn't rule anything in or out currently to be honest. My observation is if the Conservatives go into Government with Reform, they will be at much as risk from losing parts of their core vote as the LDs were in 2010. Even though the LDs disintegrated in 2015, the writing was on the wall (for those who were willing to look which I wasn't at the time) as far back as 2011.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
I hadn't realised just how useless the UK F35s were compared to their US counterparts.
They can't use the UK's most capable air to air (Meteor) or air to surface (SPEAR) missiles, as Lockheed never integrated them into the airframe. And likely won't until the next decade.
Meteor has done the basic captive carry tests this year.
Spear 3 - which is still in development - is scheduled for full deployment on F35 in 2028, IIRC
That is at least Yankee-doodle politics in part, because they don't want all their export customers to buy British or European missiles that are about the best in the world.
It's reason 38 to pivot away from the USA.
IIRC the problem is not one of *carrying* the missile, which is a fairly simple issue nowadays as long as it fits in either the internal weapons bay or an external pylon (which makes them far less stealthy). The issue is integrating the electronics with that in the F35's cockpit, and the US have been reticent to let partner countries have access to that code since early-on in the project.
They used to say this was for security reasons; in reality it is more as you say: protectionism.
(I am still annoyed they cancelled the alternative F136 engine Rolls Royce developed with GE.)
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
Indeed I just told my District Councillor who turned up on my door a couple of hours ago that's why I won't be voting for his re-election.
Labour came around on Sunday too (and they seem the obvious ones to vote for on an anti-Reform basis). Am fully expecting Reform at some point. It's all to play for in the Lanchester and Burnhope council ward!
(Speaking of Reform, written off my backs of Labour in Runcorn at 2.5 though. 3.5 is now available but I'm certainly not adding to that one with the current polling...)
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
(Update: I need to go away and read the detailed reports, to see if I need to adjust my view. I'll go an have a look at the investigation report if available.
Are there any numbers on relative accident frequency per distance travelled with respect to the Busway and the Roads, or evidence that they are treated differently by walkers and riders?)
I hadn't realised just how useless the UK F35s were compared to their US counterparts.
They can't use the UK's most capable air to air (Meteor) or air to surface (SPEAR) missiles, as Lockheed never integrated them into the airframe. And likely won't until the next decade.
Meteor has done the basic captive carry tests this year.
Spear 3 - which is still in development - is scheduled for full deployment on F35 in 2028, IIRC
Making the best aircraft in the world is something we should simply do as a nation.
We have the best engines, we have the best aero-dynamicists, and we used to have sprightly boffin engineers. I'm sure we can do so again.
Unfortunately, ahem, not a few aero boffins end up doing crappy IT stuff or working in the Citeh. Is it still a career choice when there are only 1 or 2 employers?
A lot of the fun boffinry is now done on a computer, so sadly Whittle's old haunts ended up as just an urbex site (before demolition): http://www.ngte.co.uk/home.htm
The Conservatives’ problem *at present* (things may be quite different in 2029), is we’re looking at a 1923-type result.
Together, Labour and Lib Dem’s (natural coalition partners), would do as well as the Conservatives, back then. Reform would get a similar result to Labour.
The Conservatives are in the same position as the Liberals back then, having to choose who takes power. And pissing off a load of their voters, whichever side they choose.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
Indeed I just told my District Councillor who turned up on my door a couple of hours ago that's why I won't be voting for his re-election.
Labour came around on Sunday too (and they seem the obvious ones to vote for on an anti-Reform basis). Am fully expecting Reform at some point. It's all to play for in the Lanchester and Burnhope council ward!
(Speaking of Reform, written off my backs of Labour in Runcorn at 2.5 though. 3.5 is now available but I'm certainly not adding to that one with the current polling...)
Not had anyone round in Chester South. Only leaflets from Labour, Indy and Reform. Labour was just generic didn’t even say who the candidates are.
I expect one Indy to hold and as for the other seat it’s a toss up. I suspect Reform will win.
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Good question, but I disagree.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
I'm interested that the Metropolitan Police have closed their investigation viewing it as a "Civil Matter".
I don't see how the Sycamore Gap felling was "criminal damage" which has come to trial, and this one was not. Criminal damage can be intentional or reckless. That Met decision looks hasty. In both cases the destruction of the tree was by a party not entitled to do so (absent - maybe - the so far undisclosed terms of the lease held by the Toby Carvery, and exactly where the oak tree is located).
The Council had had a report done indicating a future lifetime of hundreds of years as recently as last December.
The Enfield Tree is assessed as far more important than the Sycamore.
For an appropriately strong response, the Met will have to reverse their decision, or perhaps the Council will need to forfeit the lease or threaten to do so. Toby Carvery are sloping their shoulders and hoping it will go away.
Yesterday, I read a comment by a member of the Trump administration complaining that Europe (in general) was not doing enough to support Starlink, and risked ending up dependent on China.
To which I thought Really? Do you not have any idea why the US might now be seen as a less reliable ally than they were in the past?
It is astonishing the extent to which members of the Trump administration don't seem to think that there might be consequences to pissing off ones (historic) allies.
I've had nothing for the election in Wiltshire from anyone but LDs, though fewer of those than usual, as despite having been held by Ind then Tories as recently as 6 years ago it is strongly LD now, so no need to swamp the area I guess.
Anecdotes from other areas show a varied situation which feels impossible to call - some Tories/Reform barely trying, some obviously very organised and motivated, LDs confident with Tories shifting between cautious optimism to despair depending on the moment, and no-one really sure if Reform are reaching a threshold of support which sees big gains even if they don't put boots on the ground.
If I had to guess I'd say NOC with Tories/LD fighting for top spot, and a healthy clutch of Reform seats. Labour might get nothing.
The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline · 1m Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell: “The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effect, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”
Yesterday, I read a comment by a member of the Trump administration complaining that Europe (in general) was not doing enough to support Starlink, and risked ending up dependent on China.
To which I thought Really? Do you not have any idea why the US might now be seen as a less reliable ally than they were in the past?
It is astonishing the extent to which members of the Trump administration don't seem to think that there might be consequences to pissing off ones (historic) allies.
Judging by online commentary, the intent is to force Europe to choose between China and the US.
It does not, of course, work like that. And Trump/Vance's active hostility make it just possible that Europe might actually choose.
Yesterday, I read a comment by a member of the Trump administration complaining that Europe (in general) was not doing enough to support Starlink, and risked ending up dependent on China.
To which I thought Really? Do you not have any idea why the US might now be seen as a less reliable ally than they were in the past?
It is astonishing the extent to which members of the Trump administration don't seem to think that there might be consequences to pissing off ones (historic) allies.
They think because the USA is so powerful that everyone should show them respect (and are not content with the level of deference they already received for being the most powerful nation on earth, they want more obvious displays), but also think showing strength means denigrating others and treating them like shit.
I like to think I do not rush to judgement, but the US government has made it clear it despises it's traditional allies as weak and pathetic, and that it owes them (us) no favourable treatment or even kindness. The rational response is for all of their 'allies' to separate from them as much as is possible.
Cosying up to the likes of China is not exactly a good solution to that, they are still worse than the USA by far, but the gap has narrowed alarmingly in terms of the practical benefits of being a friend to the USA.
The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline · 1m Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell: “The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effect, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”
Yesterday, I read a comment by a member of the Trump administration complaining that Europe (in general) was not doing enough to support Starlink, and risked ending up dependent on China.
To which I thought Really? Do you not have any idea why the US might now be seen as a less reliable ally than they were in the past?
It is astonishing the extent to which members of the Trump administration don't seem to think that there might be consequences to pissing off ones (historic) allies.
Judging by online commentary, the intent is to force Europe to choose between China and the US.
It does not, of course, work like that. And Trump/Vance's active hostility make it just possible that Europe might actually choose.
It also ignores the fact that UK + EU + EFTA + Canada + Australia + New Zealand + Taiwan + Japan + South Korea (i.e. TPP + UK + EEA) would be -by some margin- the biggest trade group in the world, and with an economy meaningfully larger than the US's.
The Conservatives’ problem *at present* (things may be quite different in 2029), is we’re looking at a 1923-type result.
Together, Labour and Lib Dem’s (natural coalition partners), would do as well as the Conservatives, back then. Reform would get a similar result to Labour.
The Conservatives are in the same position as the Liberals back then, having to choose who takes power. And pissing off a load of their voters, whichever side they choose.
In which case the best result for the Conservatives is a Labour and Liberal Democrat government after the next GE and hope a new leader like Jenrick could squeeze Reform back after Farage failed to beat Labour again and also to win back ex Tory LD voters who dislike Labour
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
Well it ain't going to be a Conservative and Labour government either is it. The choice is Tory and Reform or Labour and LD and possibly SNP too most likely as the alternative governments
I wouldn't rule anything in or out currently to be honest. My observation is if the Conservatives go into Government with Reform, they will be at much as risk from losing parts of their core vote as the LDs were in 2010. Even though the LDs disintegrated in 2015, the writing was on the wall (for those who were willing to look which I wasn't at the time) as far back as 2011.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
The Tories would leak far more voters to Reform going into government with Labour than they would leak voters to the LDs going into government with Reform and if they held the balance of power that would be the choice for Kemi
Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirms proposed tariffs are bigger than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s, even higher than in their upside scenario in the forecasts… says he’s focused on avoiding tariffs inflation rise “becoming ongoing inflation problem”.
OpenAI In Talks to Buy Windsurf for About $3 Billion
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Good question, but I disagree.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
Thank-you for the answer.
For busways, we do have other busways in a number of places which can be comparators, such as in West Manchester and Luton. I need to do a bit of digging.
(I'd argue that the very fact that Celia Ward felt that she had to go on the pavement because she through the road was too dangerous is an indicator that the setup is problematic. Safe cycling facilities, on or off road and designated, need to be everywhere - that is the acceptable level of provision.
The Active Travel England standard is "safe for anyone from 8 to 80".
Here in Ashfield, the policy is basically "cycle on the pavement", set by default in 1990s box-ticking-on-the-cheap days, as the roads are nasty if you are not very assertive - essentially a competent vehicular cyclist. I can't use most of the offroad cycling paths because they are mainly barriered off against cycling, so even off road it is usually footpaths.)
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
Indeed I just told my District Councillor who turned up on my door a couple of hours ago that's why I won't be voting for his re-election.
Labour came around on Sunday too (and they seem the obvious ones to vote for on an anti-Reform basis). Am fully expecting Reform at some point. It's all to play for in the Lanchester and Burnhope council ward!
(Speaking of Reform, written off my backs of Labour in Runcorn at 2.5 though. 3.5 is now available but I'm certainly not adding to that one with the current polling...)
Not had anyone round in Chester South. Only leaflets from Labour, Indy and Reform. Labour was just generic didn’t even say who the candidates are.
I expect one Indy to hold and as for the other seat it’s a toss up. I suspect Reform will win.
Don't think there are any elections in Chester South, nothing on our Council website
Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirms proposed tariffs are bigger than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s, even higher than in their upside scenario in the forecasts… says he’s focused on avoiding tariffs inflation rise “becoming ongoing inflation problem”.
Markets falling.
It were the traitor Powell's fault, he's an enemy of the Trump republic.
OpenAI In Talks to Buy Windsurf for About $3 Billion
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
It's at moments like this I wish I had no standards and chased trends.
Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.
I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.
Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.
But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......
Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.
It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.
OpenAI In Talks to Buy Windsurf for About $3 Billion
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
TBF, Cursor is a success. And Microsoft has Github CoPilot (and the right to scrape all those lovely Github probjects), and will I'm sure integrate it ever more closely into VS Code.
But you are right: $3bn for a relatively unsuccessful fork is a sign that there's WAY to much money whizzing around in AI/LLM land.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
Indeed I just told my District Councillor who turned up on my door a couple of hours ago that's why I won't be voting for his re-election.
Labour came around on Sunday too (and they seem the obvious ones to vote for on an anti-Reform basis). Am fully expecting Reform at some point. It's all to play for in the Lanchester and Burnhope council ward!
(Speaking of Reform, written off my backs of Labour in Runcorn at 2.5 though. 3.5 is now available but I'm certainly not adding to that one with the current polling...)
Not had anyone round in Chester South. Only leaflets from Labour, Indy and Reform. Labour was just generic didn’t even say who the candidates are.
I expect one Indy to hold and as for the other seat it’s a toss up. I suspect Reform will win.
Don't think there are any elections in Chester South, nothing on our Council website
Sorry. Chester-le-street south. We abbreviate it to Chester round here. We’re pretty adjacent to Dumbosaurus’s council ward. May even border it after the boundary changes
I've uploaded the still-rough third draft of my essay on Hyperliberalism: specifically, a review of the John Gray book "The New Leviathans", which introduces and explains the term. If you want to be a prereader, please "like" this comment and I'll add you to the discussion space.
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Good question, but I disagree.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
Thank-you for the answer.
For busways, we do have other busways in a number of places which can be comparators, such as in West Manchester and Luton. I need to do a bit of digging.
(Snip cycling stuff)
My *guess* is the fact the guided busses cannot swerve is a major contributory factor to many of these incidents.
Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.
I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.
Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.
But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......
Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.
It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.
Hi Max,
I'd just lack to apologise for what I said last week. I was wrong. Sorry.
OpenAI In Talks to Buy Windsurf for About $3 Billion
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
TBF, Cursor is a success. And Microsoft has Github CoPilot (and the right to scrape all those lovely Github probjects), and will I'm sure integrate it ever more closely into VS Code.
But you are right: $3bn for a relatively unsuccessful fork is a sign that there's WAY to much money whizzing around in AI/LLM land.
I've been testing out Cursor on a few personal projects and it's ok, I think trained on a big repo it would be pretty good. Windsurf is a pile of shit though, no way it's worth $3bn, Elon will be having a laugh at Altmann tonight I'm sure.
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Good question, but I disagree.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
Thank-you for the answer.
For busways, we do have other busways in a number of places which can be comparators, such as in West Manchester and Luton. I need to do a bit of digging.
(Snip cycling stuff)
My *guess* is the fact the guided busses cannot swerve is a major contributory factor to many of these incidents.
Tramways are perhaps also a good comparator. In Nottingham the tramways are a mixture of alongside roads, in roads, in corridors with pedestrians excluded and in corridors with pedestrians and cyclists alongside - but not directly alongside.
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I'd say try one.
I never found him at all easy, but perhaps I tried the wrong book. I found Arthur C Clarke far more accessible. And Asimov - but I found him less understanding of human character than Clarke.
Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.
I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.
Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.
But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......
Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.
It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.
Hi Max,
I'd just lack to apologise for what I said last week. I was wrong. Sorry.
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I can only speak to Iain M Banks. By and large I found his stuff creative and worth reading, though overhyped. As the Culture books are not chronological they can be read in any order, but the ones I enjoyed the most were The Player of Games, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
Well it ain't going to be a Conservative and Labour government either is it. The choice is Tory and Reform or Labour and LD and possibly SNP too most likely as the alternative governments
I wouldn't rule anything in or out currently to be honest. My observation is if the Conservatives go into Government with Reform, they will be at much as risk from losing parts of their core vote as the LDs were in 2010. Even though the LDs disintegrated in 2015, the writing was on the wall (for those who were willing to look which I wasn't at the time) as far back as 2011.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
The Tories would leak far more voters to Reform going into government with Labour than they would leak voters to the LDs going into government with Reform and if they held the balance of power that would be the choice for Kemi
Just for context - the JL Partners seat projections from earlier in the month:
Reform plus Conservative - 271 seats. Labour plus LD plus Speaker 289 seats. SNP 41 seats, Independents 20 (including East Ham apparently) Greens 5, PC 3, NI 18.
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Good question, but I disagree.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
Thank-you for the answer.
For busways, we do have other busways in a number of places which can be comparators, such as in West Manchester and Luton. I need to do a bit of digging.
(I'd argue that the very fact that Celia Ward felt that she had to go on the pavement because she through the road was too dangerous is an indicator that the setup is problematic. Safe cycling facilities, on or off road and designated, need to be everywhere - that is the acceptable level of provision.
The Active Travel England standard is "safe for anyone from 8 to 80".
Here in Ashfield, the policy is basically "cycle on the pavement", set by default in 1990s box-ticking-on-the-cheap days, as the roads are nasty if you are not very assertive - essentially a competent vehicular cyclist. I can't use most of the offroad cycling paths because they are mainly barriered off against cycling, so even off road it is usually footpaths.)
We've had some new cycling infrastructure put in. It was obviously stupid and we explained why when the proposals were put forward, but Highways are both a law unto themselves and live nowhere near the borough, so did it anyway.
Apart from taking a safe pedestrian route away and turning in to an exclusive cycleway (yeah, right) they have also crossed a lot of side roads using a raised speed hump.
Cars are supposed to give way to anyone crossing but when you are turning right into the side road it is very hard to see if there is anyone approaching, and a lot of drivers just assume if the crossing is clear at that second they can go. Cue conflict.
Personally, I continue to cycle on the road as it is safer, but it is now narrower and there is more resentment for 'getting in the way'.
Yesterday, I read a comment by a member of the Trump administration complaining that Europe (in general) was not doing enough to support Starlink, and risked ending up dependent on China.
To which I thought Really? Do you not have any idea why the US might now be seen as a less reliable ally than they were in the past?
It is astonishing the extent to which members of the Trump administration don't seem to think that there might be consequences to pissing off ones (historic) allies.
Routine populism, isn't it?
a) We are, by right, Top Nation. Therefore b) We are entitled to having our cake, eating it and having someone else pay.
The only novelty is seeing this play out in the actual Top Nation. Normally, it's somewhere lower down the pecking order who has something to complain about.
"Council fined millions after three busway deaths" (1)
and
"A crash between a fire engine and two buses has left 16 people injured, including children. The crash happened this afternoon (April 16) on the B1050 Station Road between Longstanton and Willingham. Cambridgeshire Police are at the scene, alongside other emergency services." (2)
The (mis)guided busway in Cambridge has been an absolute clusterfuck, with several deaths and injuries put down to it, and vast construction and legal costs. Hope the people injured in today's accident recover soon. The council have been absolutely desperate to sell it as being a success, but in reality it's been a barely-hidden scandal.
Oh, and I hope Ms Free gets good positive soon, and recovers well.
Second one doesn't have much to do with the guide-rails though.
AFAICT it does: the first bus was going along the busway, across a public road, when the collision with the fire engine happened (the picture on the BBC seems to show that (3))
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
I'm interested in the idea of that fence. Why? Especially now as the max speed is 30mph. And there is good separation from the shared path.
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Good question, but I disagree.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
Thank-you for the answer.
For busways, we do have other busways in a number of places which can be comparators, such as in West Manchester and Luton. I need to do a bit of digging.
(I'd argue that the very fact that Celia Ward felt that she had to go on the pavement because she through the road was too dangerous is an indicator that the setup is problematic. Safe cycling facilities, on or off road and designated, need to be everywhere - that is the acceptable level of provision.
The Active Travel England standard is "safe for anyone from 8 to 80".
Here in Ashfield, the policy is basically "cycle on the pavement", set by default in 1990s box-ticking-on-the-cheap days, as the roads are nasty if you are not very assertive - essentially a competent vehicular cyclist. I can't use most of the offroad cycling paths because they are mainly barriered off against cycling, so even off road it is usually footpaths.)
Bruce Schneier often says that a key characteristic of a good security system is that using it correctly should be the easiest and most obvious option.
OpenAI In Talks to Buy Windsurf for About $3 Billion
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
TBF, Cursor is a success. And Microsoft has Github CoPilot (and the right to scrape all those lovely Github probjects), and will I'm sure integrate it ever more closely into VS Code.
But you are right: $3bn for a relatively unsuccessful fork is a sign that there's WAY to much money whizzing around in AI/LLM land.
I've been testing out Cursor on a few personal projects and it's ok, I think trained on a big repo it would be pretty good. Windsurf is a pile of shit though, no way it's worth $3bn, Elon will be having a laugh at Altmann tonight I'm sure.
We use Cursor internally, sitting on top of a pretty large codebase, and what's amazing is how well it understands underlying object structures. It's also incredible for pulling together test suites.
It's a massive time saver... assuming you have good coders in the first place.
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I can only speak to Iain M Banks. By and large I found his stuff creative and worth reading, though overhyped. As the Culture books are not chronological they can be read in any order, but the ones I enjoyed the most were The Player of Games, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
FPT: On topic: Yesterday, a local TV station (KOMO 4) ran a story on local firefighters who had volunteered to go over to Ukraine to train Ukrainian counterparts. As one explained, the rescue techniques used are about the same, regardless of how a building was knocked down.
OpenAI In Talks to Buy Windsurf for About $3 Billion
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
TBF, Cursor is a success. And Microsoft has Github CoPilot (and the right to scrape all those lovely Github probjects), and will I'm sure integrate it ever more closely into VS Code.
But you are right: $3bn for a relatively unsuccessful fork is a sign that there's WAY to much money whizzing around in AI/LLM land.
I've been testing out Cursor on a few personal projects and it's ok, I think trained on a big repo it would be pretty good. Windsurf is a pile of shit though, no way it's worth $3bn, Elon will be having a laugh at Altmann tonight I'm sure.
We use Cursor internally, sitting on top of a pretty large codebase, and what's amazing is how well it understands underlying object structures. It's also incredible for pulling together test suites.
It's a massive time saver... assuming you have good coders in the first place.
Yeah - ultimately it’s like another level of code completion. Still needs a pilot (ha!)
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I can only speak to Iain M Banks. By and large I found his stuff creative and worth reading, though overhyped. As the Culture books are not chronological they can be read in any order, but the ones I enjoyed the most were The Player of Games, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
Though I'm no supporter of the Conservatives, the truth is parties need time to adapt to the reality of a crushing defeat and let's not call a spade a garden implement, the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July 2024 was historic in terms of seats lost and share of the vote.
The only consolation was they finished second on both measures thus remaining His Majesty's Official Opposition but beyond that there was very little from which comfort could be taken.
How should parties respond to defeats of that magnitude? The options are to become introspective or to start asking the tough questions about what went wrong and why it went wrong and then seek a new way forward. The Conservatives seem, to a point, to be doing the latter but consulting members on policy? It's an idea as long as the leadership is under no obligation to follow any of the policy suggestions.
At the moment, it has to be "back to basics" (as someone once said). What is the point of the Conservative Party? What differentiates it from Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens? Is it to be economically liberal and socially conservative? Is it to be a party of low tax and low spending and what does that mean at a time of huge demands on the public finances?
The Party is currently adrift relying on a core of older voters to prop it up in the polls - the demographics from last year are damning and remain desperate - the lead in the 65+ age poll was 20 points at the election, it's now 6 points (according to today's YouGov data). 20% of those voting Conservative last July have gone to Reform and while there are some encouraging signs among the 18-24 age group whether that will be sustained remains to be seen.
I don't envy Badenoch any more than I envied Hague in 1997 - it will be a thankless task but the rest she can hope to do is put the foundations in place in terms of principles and organisation before moving on - I think the next successful Conservative leader has to be completely untainted with the failures of the 2010-24 period.
Whehter that's a Katie Lam or another of the 2024 intake I'm not sure.
Whoever is Conservative leader will be going into some form of coalition Government with Reform. Starmer isn't going to make it, and there is no replacement. Their success will be measured against whether they become PM or fill the runner up role.
Being the "junior" partner in a coalition doesn't end well as the LDs can attest. I'm far from convinced a Reform-Conservative Government is a starter at this time however much those opposed to Labour may wish it otherwise. The Conservatives have no experience being the junior partner and the experience of traditional conservative parties going into Government with populist alternatives is at best mixed in Europe.
I also wouldn't write off Starmer at this stage - come back to me in a couple of years on that one.
Well it ain't going to be a Conservative and Labour government either is it. The choice is Tory and Reform or Labour and LD and possibly SNP too most likely as the alternative governments
I wouldn't rule anything in or out currently to be honest. My observation is if the Conservatives go into Government with Reform, they will be at much as risk from losing parts of their core vote as the LDs were in 2010. Even though the LDs disintegrated in 2015, the writing was on the wall (for those who were willing to look which I wasn't at the time) as far back as 2011.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
The Tories would leak far more voters to Reform going into government with Labour than they would leak voters to the LDs going into government with Reform and if they held the balance of power that would be the choice for Kemi
Just for context - the JL Partners seat projections from earlier in the month:
Reform plus Conservative - 271 seats. Labour plus LD plus Speaker 289 seats. SNP 41 seats, Independents 20 (including East Ham apparently) Greens 5, PC 3, NI 18.
SNP to be the kingmakers on this measure?
On that poll if Labour and LD have more than Reform and Conservatives that would likely be enough as involving the SNP would mean them pushing for indyref2 and the SNP don't vote on England only laws anyway
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I can only speak to Iain M Banks. By and large I found his stuff creative and worth reading, though overhyped. As the Culture books are not chronological they can be read in any order, but the ones I enjoyed the most were The Player of Games, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
The Player of Games looks fun.
Buying it now.
Use of Weapons is probably the high point in the series. Player of Games is a good introduction to the setting.
So presumably Sir Shifty now thinks a woman cant have a penis.
Of course a woman can have a penis.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
I should probably credit Stephen King with the inspiration for that line.
Not Iain Banks?
Confession time.
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I can only speak to Iain M Banks. By and large I found his stuff creative and worth reading, though overhyped. As the Culture books are not chronological they can be read in any order, but the ones I enjoyed the most were The Player of Games, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
The Player of Games looks fun.
Buying it now.
Definitely the best introduction to the 'M' versions.
The non 'M' books are variable, but if you want to try then start at the beginning.
Everyone says The Bridge was the best non 'M' although it does sit a little way between the two genres. I'm not 100% sure I'd agree but it is certainly interesting.
Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.
I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.
Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.
But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......
Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.
It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.
Thanks for all the good wishes. My pointy elbows are ready for the morning.
I could plot my path to health if I actually knew what the fuck was wrong with me. But while the docs have managed to establish that it wasn't a blood clot which caused sharp stabbing pains every time I breathed, they have yet to tell me what the cause is. This is despite 2 CT scans, an ECG, 2 blood tests, an X-ray and about a million BP and stethoscope readings.
OTOH I now have an 88-page judgment to read, some gleeful gloating along with my legal feminist friends who have been interveners in the case and for light relief Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet novels which are sharp and full of sly humour and acute observation. And plenty of time to do it. 😟
It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
That's a really interesting question.
We would need systems level comparisons as well as vehicle and passenger level to evaluating the whole thing, ie
Analysis per passenger distance carried. Comparison with the same buses on the road parts of their routes. Comparison with the same number (~8000 per day afaics) of people travelling by road routes. Comparison with equivalent busway systems. Ditto trams.
And so on.
Differential coverage is interesting to me. Two or three people are injured or killed on a railway, and it gets massive national coverage (apart perhaps from suicides) - but we have similar road deaths every week up and down the country, and it might make the local paper.
Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.
I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.
Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.
But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......
Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.
It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.
Comments
That's not to say need to ape the Lib Dems or go back to early Cameron-era poses. It wouldn't work anyway as once bitten twice shy in that regard. But you do need to offer people who demographically used to be your voters something and show that you get why they're pissed off.
It's the opposite problem to the one Labour knows it has and is fairly relentless in trying to address (admittedly with variable results) with socially conservative voters. Thus there's a lot of crowded real estate there, and Reform are able to outbid anything the Tory Party might offer without falling into the trap of looking irresponsible.
Badenoch often appears to be doubling down having been radicalised by the state of Twitter these days into thinking right-wing conspiracism is the pulse of the nation.
1) Climate change isn't real.
2) Climate change is happening, but it's not caused by humans.
3) Climate change is our fault, but it's not worth doing anything about it because the Chinese won't
4) The Chinese have done so much on climate change they are destroying our domestic car and solar panel industries. We should put tariffs on them.
5) We are generating so much clean energy we're paying to wind farms to turn themselves off! Bastards!
6) We are generating so much clean energy we have to find the off switch for our gas power stations! Swine!
7) We didn't need any of these woke Net Zero targets in the first place - the renewable transition was going to happen anyway. Meddling lefties.
8) Why are we exporting so much of our energy to France? British Energy for British Pensioners!
(Note that there was a similar article in Economist, concerned about the devastating impact cheap solar energy is going to have on grids. To be fair, they make a good point about how only rich households with panels will benefit, while poorer ones will still get screwed by expensive fossil fuels https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/02/13/cheap-solar-power-is-sending-electrical-grids-into-a-death-spiral)
The damage to Hadrian's Wall was assessed at iirc ~£1500.
I'll be very surprised if either is operational on the F35 by 2028.
Meteor has been flying on the Typhoon since 2018.
It's reason 38 to pivot away from the USA.
On a serious note, apparently 80% of UK housing is now too hot in the summer. That matches beautifully with when we will have lots of excess solar, so a UK aircon revolution? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/16/uk-homes-overheating-soars-study
Though given it passed gay marriage with LD support, is not anti abortion, passed no fault divorce and did little to support marriage and mothers who wished to stay at home, under Boris massively expanded immigration until Rishi tightened the rules and did little to combat wokeism and let the police let off thieves who stole low value goods (which to his credit Starmer is reversing) arguably the problem was the Tories were too socially liberal, which is why they lost much of their support to Reform.
Indeed apart from Brexit and ending free movement and introducing whole life orders for the worst killers most of the last Tory government was socially liberal
It can be done with radiators or UFH, but it's a little more complicated.
The misguided busway was *supposed* to be a cheap way of reusing an old railway line to provide a public transport service. In reality, some of the 'cheapness' over reopening as a railway was achieved by cutting safety: for instance by not fencing off the busway from the adjacent cyclepath, and by not having barrier crossings.
This is common amongst 'new' types of mass passenger transport: the proponents reduce costs by removing all the old and 'unnecessary' systems used on railways. It rarely ends well; it led to 23 deaths in the Lathren maglev crash twenty years ago, when the people developing that systems said collisions were impossible. (*)
And it wasn't even cheap. Worse, since it was built the council have spent many tens of millions on legal fees alone.
(3): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwynrrv27p2o
(*) The word 'Impossible' has a tendency to hit engineers in the gob shortly after they utter it.
To imagine every single Conservative voter would support going into Government with Reform is naive (and indeed polling suggests that to be the case) so there's a risk what's left of the Tory vote will splinter further if such a deal takes place.
Wes Streeting has come out and said he was wrong previously. Fair play to him.
Some of them keep them in glass jars on their bedside table.
They used to say this was for security reasons; in reality it is more as you say: protectionism.
(I am still annoyed they cancelled the alternative F136 engine Rolls Royce developed with GE.)
We don't fence off our roads, which are far more dangerous, complex environments, with thousands of vehicles moving in random directions at higher speed under the control of distracted drivers. Nor do we even have mandatory standards for buffers between pavement and road for new projects.
My local single carriageway bypass has a 1.2m wide shared walking/cycling path separated by a kerb from a national speed limit 35k AADT road. About 10 people were killed on it before they applied even modest restrictions to the drivers - 50mph average speed limit.
Railways - yes, but trains move at 60 to 100mph routinely.
This seems to be like an unjustified focus on second order risks. Put the investment into the ring road where Celia Ward was killed (not getting into our different views on this - we agree that the setup is problematic).
Labour came around on Sunday too (and they seem the obvious ones to vote for on an anti-Reform basis). Am fully expecting Reform at some point. It's all to play for in the Lanchester and Burnhope council ward!
(Speaking of Reform, written off my backs of Labour in Runcorn at 2.5 though. 3.5 is now available but I'm certainly not adding to that one with the current polling...)
Are there any numbers on relative accident frequency per distance travelled with respect to the Busway and the Roads, or evidence that they are treated differently by walkers and riders?)
A lot of the fun boffinry is now done on a computer, so sadly Whittle's old haunts ended up as just an urbex site (before demolition):
http://www.ngte.co.uk/home.htm
The Concorde engine test bay was LOUD.
Together, Labour and Lib Dem’s (natural coalition partners), would do as well as the Conservatives, back then. Reform would get a similar result to Labour.
The Conservatives are in the same position as the Liberals back then, having to choose who takes power. And pissing off a load of their voters, whichever side they choose.
I expect one Indy to hold and as for the other seat it’s a toss up. I suspect Reform will win.
The misguided bus route is 16 miles. In the 15 years since it opened, it has seen numerous collisions with vehicles, three cyclist/pedestrian deaths, several other injuries, bus crashes, and other incidents. It'd be interesting to see another 16-mile stretch of road, with a 30MPH speed limit, that has seen that many incidents with the little traffic it gets (a few busses an hour, rather than continuous traffic).
I thin it's because it is not one thing or the other. It is not a road as, when the busses are on the guided sections, they cannot swerve. So if someone does fall in front of the bus, you can only break, not swerve as you may in a car. In this, it is like a tram or a train. But it is not a tram or a train, so the safety systems and regulations that you would require for trams (minimal) or trains (massive) were thrown out.
In addition, the fact they are guided can lead to driver inattention; ISTR one bus crashed because the driver was not paying attention at about the same place as today's crash.
Also, IME from running, cycling and walking along it, pedestrians sometimes walk along the actual guided bus beams rather than the nice wide footpath alongside. I've yelled at a young man once who was doing exactly that, only to be told: "There's no busses today." Five minutes later, a bus came past me...
Three people have died, and many others injured in numerous incidents. *That* indicates something needs doing to improve the safety.
(As for Huntingdon: the 'setup' on that road is not problematic, as it is not a cycle path. It is reasonable, though not ideal, for pedestrians.)
Oak trees do have a habit of randomly dropping large limbs, so for really old ones the recommended procedure is to heavily prune it back to a pollard.
The Major Oak in Sherwood could do with this but there would be an outcry so they just prop it up instead.
No idea whether it was needed here. Probably not.
To which I thought Really? Do you not have any idea why the US might now be seen as a less reliable ally than they were in the past?
It is astonishing the extent to which members of the Trump administration don't seem to think that there might be consequences to pissing off ones (historic) allies.
Anecdotes from other areas show a varied situation which feels impossible to call - some Tories/Reform barely trying, some obviously very organised and motivated, LDs confident with Tories shifting between cautious optimism to despair depending on the moment, and no-one really sure if Reform are reaching a threshold of support which sees big gains even if they don't put boots on the ground.
If I had to guess I'd say NOC with Tories/LD fighting for top spot, and a healthy clutch of Reform seats. Labour might get nothing.
It does not, of course, work like that. And Trump/Vance's active hostility make it just possible that Europe might actually choose.
I like to think I do not rush to judgement, but the US government has made it clear it despises it's traditional allies as weak and pathetic, and that it owes them (us) no favourable treatment or even kindness. The rational response is for all of their 'allies' to separate from them as much as is possible.
Cosying up to the likes of China is not exactly a good solution to that, they are still worse than the USA by far, but the gap has narrowed alarmingly in terms of the practical benefits of being a friend to the USA.
“I have the heart of a small boy… I keep it in a jar on my desk.”
@faisalislam
Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirms proposed tariffs are bigger than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s, even higher than in their upside scenario in the forecasts… says he’s focused on avoiding tariffs inflation rise “becoming ongoing inflation problem”.
Markets falling.
Windsurf is a fork visual studio code (a free open source project from Microsoft) with code completion that isn't state of the art....are we now in the pets.com phase?
For busways, we do have other busways in a number of places which can be comparators, such as in West Manchester and Luton. I need to do a bit of digging.
(I'd argue that the very fact that Celia Ward felt that she had to go on the pavement because she through the road was too dangerous is an indicator that the setup is problematic. Safe cycling facilities, on or off road and designated, need to be everywhere - that is the acceptable level of provision.
The Active Travel England standard is "safe for anyone from 8 to 80".
Here in Ashfield, the policy is basically "cycle on the pavement", set by default in 1990s box-ticking-on-the-cheap days, as the roads are nasty if you are not very assertive - essentially a competent vehicular cyclist. I can't use most of the offroad cycling paths because they are mainly barriered off against cycling, so even off road it is usually footpaths.)
Debt is not a problem. Tariffs are worse than expected. Keeping an eye on inflation.
He’s not riding to the rescue of equities.
Nvidia down over 10% today.
It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.
But you are right: $3bn for a relatively unsuccessful fork is a sign that there's WAY to much money whizzing around in AI/LLM land.
I've uploaded the still-rough third draft of my essay on Hyperliberalism: specifically, a review of the John Gray book "The New Leviathans", which introduces and explains the term. If you want to be a prereader, please "like" this comment and I'll add you to the discussion space.
I'd just lack to apologise for what I said last week. I was wrong. Sorry.
'Henry VIII grew an old man. He kept him in the corner of the room and watered him daily'
Despite being (relatively) well read, I have never read any Iain Banks, whether with the "M" or otherwise.
When at University (30 years ago now, ouch), his books were probably the ones that most commonly graced my friend's bookshelves. Which is probably why I never read them.
So, great PB literati (no, not you @Leon), should I read them? And if so, what should I start with?
I never found him at all easy, but perhaps I tried the wrong book. I found Arthur C Clarke far more accessible. And Asimov - but I found him less understanding of human character than Clarke.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
https://jlpartners.co.uk/polaris-april-2025
Reform plus Conservative - 271 seats. Labour plus LD plus Speaker 289 seats. SNP 41 seats, Independents 20 (including East Ham apparently) Greens 5, PC 3, NI 18.
SNP to be the kingmakers on this measure?
Apart from taking a safe pedestrian route away and turning in to an exclusive cycleway (yeah, right) they have also crossed a lot of side roads using a raised speed hump.
Cars are supposed to give way to anyone crossing but when you are turning right into the side road it is very hard to see if there is anyone approaching, and a lot of drivers just assume if the crossing is clear at that second they can go. Cue conflict.
Personally, I continue to cycle on the road as it is safer, but it is now narrower and there is more resentment for 'getting in the way'.
a) We are, by right, Top Nation.
Therefore
b) We are entitled to having our cake, eating it and having someone else pay.
The only novelty is seeing this play out in the actual Top Nation. Normally, it's somewhere lower down the pecking order who has something to complain about.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/07/18/a-missed-opportunity/
BTW @rcs1000 when I try to link to the site I get this -
I’d say that goes double for road layouts.
It's a massive time saver... assuming you have good coders in the first place.
I need to go in and look at it, and I will.
Buying it now.
It is rapidly becoming a complete shitshow
JPow reckons it will take automotive supply chains years to recover
The non 'M' books are variable, but if you want to try then start at the beginning.
Everyone says The Bridge was the best non 'M' although it does sit a little way between the two genres. I'm not 100% sure I'd agree but it is certainly interesting.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5223082/nhs-fife-sandie-peggie-tribunal-supreme-court-ruling/
I could plot my path to health if I actually knew what the fuck was wrong with me. But while the docs have managed to establish that it wasn't a blood clot which caused sharp stabbing pains every time I breathed, they have yet to tell me what the cause is. This is despite 2 CT scans, an ECG, 2 blood tests, an X-ray and about a million BP and stethoscope readings.
OTOH I now have an 88-page judgment to read, some gleeful gloating along with my legal feminist friends who have been interveners in the case and for light relief Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet novels which are sharp and full of sly humour and acute observation. And plenty of time to do it. 😟
We would need systems level comparisons as well as vehicle and passenger level to evaluating the whole thing, ie
Analysis per passenger distance carried.
Comparison with the same buses on the road parts of their routes.
Comparison with the same number (~8000 per day afaics) of people travelling by road routes.
Comparison with equivalent busway systems.
Ditto trams.
And so on.
Differential coverage is interesting to me. Two or three people are injured or killed on a railway, and it gets massive national coverage (apart perhaps from suicides) - but we have similar road deaths every week up and down the country, and it might make the local paper.