Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
No a lot of what you brand culture war didn't have broad political consensus....you just thought you could ramrod it through and most of the population said fuck off.....immigration for example...yes broad political consensus among politicians....the actual population of the country not so much
What's you're suggesting is that the culture war was prosecuted by the Conservatives against... themselves? It was under that government that immigration went over 1 million and you got a massive increase in small boats.
But the original question was around some fairly innocuous changes to road layouts and access, and speed limits, which did have broad political consensus. It's quite telling that you have to rely on immigration.
The original comment was not about road layouts and access or speed limits. It was a general statement that it was the right starting culture wars. That statement was because a lot on the right disagree with liberal progressives and apparently that when we disagree its starting a culture war. Go vote for independence so we can be rid of scrofulous scots please
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
FWIW Edinburgh's had LTNs since the 18th Century; even Pompeii had modal filters to avoid clogging up their markets with traffic,
It's a question of democratic legitimacy rather than the merits of the policy. Edinburgh having an LTN is fine if you know you can vote out the council and do something different if you don't like it or if it doesn't work, but doing it by stealth in an unaccountable way is a different matter.
... and that's exactly how it works, in Edinburgh and in Wales. The governments remain fully accountable and can be voted out. As Matt pointed out, there was full party consensus behind Wales' 20mph limits, similar in Edinburgh for LTNs.
You just don't like the results of these elections, or indeed the consensus.
It was entirely inevitable when commentators who start out mostly normal get more and more extreme to chase the rush of their supporters, and eventually people once beyond the pale will seem appealing to your fans and take some of the attention.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
No a lot of what you brand culture war didn't have broad political consensus....you just thought you could ramrod it through and most of the population said fuck off.....immigration for example...yes broad political consensus among politicians....the actual population of the country not so much
What's you're suggesting is that the culture war was prosecuted by the Conservatives against... themselves? It was under that government that immigration went over 1 million and you got a massive increase in small boats.
But the original question was around some fairly innocuous changes to road layouts and access, and speed limits, which did have broad political consensus. It's quite telling that you have to rely on immigration.
The original comment was not about road layouts and access or speed limits. It was a general statement that it was the right starting culture wars. That statement was because a lot on the right disagree with liberal progressives and apparently that when we disagree its starting a culture war. Go vote for independence so we can be rid of scrofulous scots please
We're not quite energy independent of England yet (21 TWh of electricity exports v 1.3 TWh of imports). Once we achieve that it will be very tempting.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
No a lot of what you brand culture war didn't have broad political consensus....you just thought you could ramrod it through and most of the population said fuck off.....immigration for example...yes broad political consensus among politicians....the actual population of the country not so much
What's you're suggesting is that the culture war was prosecuted by the Conservatives against... themselves? It was under that government that immigration went over 1 million and you got a massive increase in small boats.
But the original question was around some fairly innocuous changes to road layouts and access, and speed limits, which did have broad political consensus. It's quite telling that you have to rely on immigration.
The original comment was not about road layouts and access or speed limits. It was a general statement that it was the right starting culture wars. That statement was because a lot on the right disagree with liberal progressives and apparently that when we disagree its starting a culture war. Go vote for independence so we can be rid of scrofulous scots please
We're not quite energy independent of England yet (21 TWh of electricity exports v 1.3 TWh of imports). Once we achieve that it will be very tempting.
I think popes are selected more than people realise on what the cardinals want them to do. So Francis was chosen to reach out to a laity alienated from the institution because of multiple scandals: Benedict was chosen to sort out the administration, which was left in a big mess by his predecessor.
I suspect the theme of the next papacy will be evangelisation. The cardinals will want a pope who talks a lot about God and who will have a focus on education of both priests and laity. If that's the case, Tagle should be a front runner as evangelisation is his speciality. Turkson could also be a strong candidate.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
No a lot of what you brand culture war didn't have broad political consensus....you just thought you could ramrod it through and most of the population said fuck off.....immigration for example...yes broad political consensus among politicians....the actual population of the country not so much
What's you're suggesting is that the culture war was prosecuted by the Conservatives against... themselves? It was under that government that immigration went over 1 million and you got a massive increase in small boats.
But the original question was around some fairly innocuous changes to road layouts and access, and speed limits, which did have broad political consensus. It's quite telling that you have to rely on immigration.
The original comment was not about road layouts and access or speed limits. It was a general statement that it was the right starting culture wars. That statement was because a lot on the right disagree with liberal progressives and apparently that when we disagree its starting a culture war. Go vote for independence so we can be rid of scrofulous scots please
We're not quite energy independent of England yet (21 TWh of electricity exports v 1.3 TWh of imports). Once we achieve that it will be very tempting.
Please go
Do you really want a Scottish Prime Minister to do to England what Trudeau should have done to Trump?
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Sounds like Bates Motel. Not sure you'll need 10 nights.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Only a thick skinned, wealthy risk taker would want to go to US now..🤑
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
It does seem to be about more than just the Brooklynisation of Paris and bearded startup scum founders on Brompton bikes :
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
It was an estate in central Sutton where I was shot at. Only an airgun but I was lucky the idiot couldn't shoot straight. First pellet hit a lamp post my dog was peeing up. Second one whizzed past my ear into a wall. There are also firearms on the estate and I saw a crossbow. Roundshaw between Sutton and Croydon is dire. Sutton and Croydon centres are both worse than they were a few decades ago.
On the positive side the Kings Cross area is much better.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
FWIW Edinburgh's had LTNs since the 18th Century; even Pompeii had modal filters to avoid clogging up their markets with traffic. It's basic town planning.
And look what happened to ancient Rome. Do you want that to happen to us too?
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
It was an estate in central Sutton where I was shot at. Only an airgun but I was lucky the idiot couldn't shoot straight. First pellet hit a lamp post my dog was peeing up. Second one whizzed past my ear into a wall. Roundshaw between Sutton and Croydon is dire. Sutton and Croydon centres are both worse than they were a few decades ago.
On the positive side the Kings Cross area is much better.
I don't know Sutton at all. I wonder if outer London has worsened while inner London has improved? I've lived almost entirely in zone 2.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
That I think is the 130 days a Presidential Appointment can have without needing to go through scrutiny by congress.
I'd expect a Presidential Pardon, otherwise he will be held criminally responsible at state level for much of what he has done.
Congress? Scrutiny? That is LOL.
Next door's cat is better at scrutiny of the executive than this current shower of spineless performing seals.
Hmm> Perhaps it's the Senate.
130 days in 365 is a hard limit for "Special Employees" like Musk.
To change category at that level he is subject to disclosure requirements, and I think Senate Ratification - and Musk would not want to disclose things such as tax and business arrangements, conflicts of interest etc, especially to Democratic Senators on National TV.
I'll certainly agree that it has been noticeably soft this time, as Trump has turned the Republican Party into a Trump crime family operation. However certain individuals chosen by Trump ran away rather than face the ratification process. Matt Gaetz?
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
Wasn't there a grain of truth in this, that Oxford had come with a poorly thought out scheme that suggested restricted use of various key roads depending on the time of the day, forcing the driver to go out of the city, on to the ring road and then back in. The result of which could turn a few minute drive into something significantly more under some scenarios.
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
Bookings from Europe to America are right down from last year. We don't know if it's tourism to Disney or business trips, but far fewer are travelling.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
Well given no one seems hysterical about it anymore I can only assume the fears such things would be made mandatory was completely overblown and without foundation.
I'm all for being cautious of overreach in important matters, but really, come on, who actually wants the dystopia you lay out?
I asked my tame AI about possible new popes and they had this to say:
If I had to make an educated guess (with caveats!), I'd say **Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer SJ** or **Cardinal Pietro Parolin** might be leading contenders. Both have close ties with Pope Francis and possess a deep understanding of the Church's governance and doctrine.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
Wasn't there a grain of truth in this, that Oxford had come with a poorly thought out scheme that suggested restricted use of various key roads depending on the time of the day, forcing the driver to go out of the city, on to the ring road and then back in. The result of which could turn a few minute drive into something significantly more under some scenarios.
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
That grain of truth, of basically a poorly thought out scheme, does not seem in line with a conspiracy that we will all be legally prevented from moving more than 15 minutes from our homes. The old maxim about assuming stupidity not malice with such a scheme seems more likely.
There hasn't been any gentrification in central or north-central Sutton or in Croydon. There's an "apartment" block near the site of the old Granada cinema in Sutton, plus a thin block near East Croydon station, both of which are probably quite nice when you get inside, but the operative word is "station" in both cases and I doubt residents walk about on local streets much.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
That I think is the 130 days a Presidential Appointment can have without needing to go through scrutiny by congress.
I'd expect a Presidential Pardon, otherwise he will be held criminally responsible at state level for much of what he has done.
Congress? Scrutiny? That is LOL.
Next door's cat is better at scrutiny of the executive than this current shower of spineless performing seals.
Hmm> Perhaps it's the Senate.
130 days in 365 is a hard limit for "Special Employees" like Musk.
To change category at that level he is subject to disclosure requirements, and I think Senate Ratification - and Musk would not want to disclose things such as tax and business arrangements, conflicts of interest etc, especially to Democratic Senators on National TV.
I'll certainly agree that it has been noticeably soft this time, as Trump has turned the Republican Party into a Trump crime family operation. However certain individuals chosen by Trump ran away rather than face the ratification process. Matt Gaetz?
An extreme case to be sure - and shows just how loony that appointment was given the ones who got through unscathed.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
banging on about 15 minute cities is the most reliable leading indicator of someone about to descend down the rabbit hole of low information social media brainrot
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
Wasn't there a grain of truth in this, that Oxford had come with a poorly thought out scheme that suggested restricted use of various key roads depending on the time of the day, forcing the driver to go out of the city, on to the ring road and then back in. The result of which could turn a few minute drive into something significantly more under some scenarios.
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
That grain of truth, of basically a poorly thought out scheme, does not seem in line with a conspiracy that we will all be legally prevented from moving more than 15 minutes from our homes. The old maxim about assuming stupidity not malice with such a scheme seems more likely.
Yes, but that's social media for you. I think the slides got leaks and then a few goes around the tw@tterverse and it turns into exposed, secret government / WEF scheme to control us all. Not Oxford council are a load of absolute morons who didn't think through potential impact of a scheme properly.
I don't think it helped that at the same time, a number of councils really went all in on low traffic neighborhood stuff.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
Wasn't there a grain of truth in this, that Oxford had come with a poorly thought out scheme that suggested restricted use of various key roads depending on the time of the day, forcing the driver to go out of the city, on to the ring road and then back in. The result of which could turn a few minute drive into something significantly more under some scenarios.
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
That's an LTN, not a 15-minute city. Almost all new-build estates are LTNs, the idea being to stop people rat-running through residential neighbourhoods.
(A 15 minute city can actually be enormous, depending on what mode you are using to measure with. The whole of Inverness is accessible by bicycle from the station in that time, for example).
There hasn't been any gentrification in central or north-central Sutton or in Croydon. There's an "apartment" block near the site of the old Granada cinema in Sutton, plus a thin block near East Croydon station, both of which are probably quite nice when you get inside, but the operative word is "station" in both cases and I doubt residents walk about on local streets much.
Errr: are you kidding?
The area around East Croyden train station is massively gentrified compared to when my sister first moved there; The transport links are better, and there's the whole Box Park thing.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
Wasn't there a grain of truth in this, that Oxford had come with a poorly thought out scheme that suggested restricted use of various key roads depending on the time of the day, forcing the driver to go out of the city, on to the ring road and then back in. The result of which could turn a few minute drive into something significantly more under some scenarios.
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
That's an LTN, not a 15-minute city. Almost all new-build estates are LTNs, the idea being to stop people rat-running through residential neighbourhoods.
(A 15 minute city can actually be enormous, depending on what mode you are using to measure with. The whole of Inverness is accessible by bicycle from the station in that time, for example).
I know, but it all got chucked into together after a rinse around the tw@tterverse because this original scheme would have really restricted your ability to easily get out of your own local neighbourhood at certain times, which was then merged in with the WEF want everybody controlled in their own 15 minute bubbles.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
banging on about 15 minute cities is the most reliable leading indicator of someone about to descend down the rabbit hole of low information social media brainrot
I live in a "15 minute city" or as normal people call it "a small town".
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
The idea of a 15 minute city is simply that they should be planned so that nowhere is more than 15 minutes from a shop, an ATM, etc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
Wasn't there a grain of truth in this, that Oxford had come with a poorly thought out scheme that suggested restricted use of various key roads depending on the time of the day, forcing the driver to go out of the city, on to the ring road and then back in. The result of which could turn a few minute drive into something significantly more under some scenarios.
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
That's an LTN, not a 15-minute city. Almost all new-build estates are LTNs, the idea being to stop people rat-running through residential neighbourhoods.
(A 15 minute city can actually be enormous, depending on what mode you are using to measure with. The whole of Inverness is accessible by bicycle from the station in that time, for example).
I know, but it all got chucked into together after a rinse around the tw@tterverse because this original scheme would have really restricted your ability to get out of your own local neighbourhood at certain times, which was then merged in with the WEF want everybody controlled in their own 15 minute bubbles.
That's why the WEF need 5G and vaccines. They work together like a canine shock collar on anyone who walks more than 15 minutes to the pub.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
FWIW Edinburgh's had LTNs since the 18th Century; even Pompeii had modal filters to avoid clogging up their markets with traffic. It's basic town planning.
And look what happened to ancient Rome. Do you want that to happen to us too?
The time to worry about that was 150 years ago. It's a bit late now.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
I bought a new watch recently, and spent a while reading watch forums (big, expensive mistake). It's universally agreed in such circles than you can wear a fancy watch walking around New York, LA or Paris, but it's best avoided in London.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
I bought a new watch recently, and spent a while reading watch forums (big, expensive mistake). It's universally agreed in such circles than you can wear a fancy watch walking around New York, LA or Paris, but it's best avoided in London.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
I think there have been changes in crime e.g. 1980s, lots of stealing of cars for joyriding, break into your car for the stereo, lots of burglary to nick your telly, VCR, stereo. Now most of those consumer electronics aren't worth anything, while everybody carries around £1000 phone and people were wearing their watches that the criminals are much more aware of how much some are worth. So the criminals don't break into your house, they just nick it from you in the street.
Cars became more difficult to steal in 2000s, but now with the relay spoofing / key reprogramming, they are easy to nick again. Also, now very easy to replace the VIN and criminals can get hold of legit V5 documents of cars that aren't on the road, enabling cloning and turning the nicked car into appearing legit.
What has changed and changes perception is the police are now absolutely crap at solving crime, if they even try to. Which leads to people thinking well I am on my own here, the plod aren't going to do jack for me if my watch get nicked, so I am not going to risk it.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
I bought a new watch recently, and spent a while reading watch forums (big, expensive mistake). It's universally agreed in such circles than you can wear a fancy watch walking around New York, LA or Paris, but it's best avoided in London.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
I think there have been changes in crime e.g. 1980s, lots of stealing of cars for joyriding, break into your car for the stereo, lots of burglary to nick your telly, VCR, stereo. Now most of those consumer electronics aren't worth anything, while everybody carries around £1000 phone and people were wearing their watches that the criminals are much more aware of how much some are worth. So the criminals don't break into your house, they just nick it from you in the street.
Cars became more difficult to steal in 2000s, but now with the relay spoofing / key reprogramming, they are easy to nick again. Also, now very easy to replace the VIN and criminals can get hold of legit V5 documents of cars that aren't on the road, enabling cloning and turning the nicked car into appearing legit.
What has changed and changes perception is the police are now absolutely crap at solving crime, if they even try to. Which leads to people thinking well I am on my own here, the plod aren't going to do jack for me if my watch get nicked, so I am not going to risk it.
I think you are absolutely right that the police become absolutely invisible. Police stations have closed, and the number of times you see police officers on the street has collapsed. The court system system has insane delays, that mean that hardly anything ever makes it to trial.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
I bought a new watch recently, and spent a while reading watch forums (big, expensive mistake). It's universally agreed in such circles than you can wear a fancy watch walking around New York, LA or Paris, but it's best avoided in London.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
I think there have been changes in crime e.g. 1980s, lots of stealing of cars for joyriding, break into your car for the stereo, lots of burglary to nick your telly, VCR, stereo. Now most of those consumer electronics aren't worth anything, while everybody carries around £1000 phone and people were wearing their watches that the criminals are much more aware of how much some are worth. So the criminals don't break into your house, they just nick it from you in the street.
Cars became more difficult to steal in 2000s, but now with the relay spoofing / key reprogramming, they are easy to nick again. Also, now very easy to replace the VIN and criminals can get hold of legit V5 documents of cars that aren't on the road, enabling cloning and turning the nicked car into appearing legit.
What has changed and changes perception is the police are now absolutely crap at solving crime, if they even try to. Which leads to people thinking well I am on my own here, the plod aren't going to do jack for me if my watch get nicked, so I am not going to risk it.
I think you are absolutely right that the police become absolutely invisible. Police stations have closed, and the number of times you see police officers on the street has collapsed. The court system system has insane delays, that mean that hardly anything ever makes it to trial.
Basically, it's a huge mess.
A fashionable theory in fighting crime in the 2000s was that having police walk the street was inefficient in terms of their ability to react to events. Much better to have them in cars waiting to react to incoming calls. The plastic plods were suppose to make police presence more felt day to day, but everybody knows they have very limited powers.
I am not sure the research the first was based upon was very sound. Its a bit like saying employ all doctors in A&E, that will mean they are best placed to react to emergencies, but then there is no proactive investigation of conditions before they get to needing A&E.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
I bought a new watch recently, and spent a while reading watch forums (big, expensive mistake). It's universally agreed in such circles than you can wear a fancy watch walking around New York, LA or Paris, but it's best avoided in London.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
Maybe. I don't own a watch but I know somebody who is active in this space and he knows a lot more about expensive watches than he does about London. So perhaps it's just ignorance/paranoia.
He added that the FDA is also eliminating the remaining six synthetic dyes on the market from the U.S. food supply by the end of the year, specifically red dye 40, yellow dye 5, yellow dye 6, blue dye 1, blue dye 2 and green dye 2. It is also requesting food companies to phase out red dye 3 by the end of next year, which is sooner than the 2027 to 2028 deadline previously announced, according to Makary.
There hasn't been any gentrification in central or north-central Sutton or in Croydon. There's an "apartment" block near the site of the old Granada cinema in Sutton, plus a thin block near East Croydon station, both of which are probably quite nice when you get inside, but the operative word is "station" in both cases and I doubt residents walk about on local streets much.
Errr: are you kidding?
The area around East Croyden train station is massively gentrified compared to when my sister first moved there; The transport links are better, and there's the whole Box Park thing.
Yes I don't know Sutton but I'm pretty sure that Croydon is marginally less of a shithole than it used to be.
He added that the FDA is also eliminating the remaining six synthetic dyes on the market from the U.S. food supply by the end of the year, specifically red dye 40, yellow dye 5, yellow dye 6, blue dye 1, blue dye 2 and green dye 2. It is also requesting food companies to phase out red dye 3 by the end of next year, which is sooner than the 2027 to 2028 deadline previously announced, according to Makary.
Is Labour’s breakfast club rollout a poorly disguised bribe?
At first glance, it appears to be a much-needed step towards universal social provision, writes John Rentoul. In reality, it is a way of currying favour among voters – using taxpayers’ money
What does that even mean? Surely any policy could be seen as a bribe if you look at it in the right way. More police, more buses, more steel mills – are they bribes too? What of raising pensions or cutting taxes where actual cash changes hands?
Breakfast clubs would not be my priority but this is desperate stuff.
Breakfast for all schoolchildren would be a massive priority for me. Every child should start the day with a hearty breakfast to give them the energy to learn and grow. I would also ideally want them all to have a nutritious cooked lunch guaranteed for free every day.
I think feeding schoolchildren is as important as the lessons. Not only the physical benefits but to have them all sitting, eating and interacting twice a day in a quasi social setting and exposing to vegetables and other foods they might not get at home will have long term benefits.
I’m far from a bleeding heart liberal but this is something that’s v important to me.
But no school kids want to eat the crap they dish out. I know I didn't when a kid even if it was supposedly burger and chips the burger tasted like it was made of dog food...the bun was stale the chips were soggy
At my school the iced buns we had for dessert were burger buns with icing! Filth
School food has improved considerably since the boiled gristle, overboiled freezer burnt diced veg and rehydrated mash.
It's so easy to mock people who question 15-minute cities and say we probably believe vaccines contain little cameras with feeds straight to Bill Gates's laptop, and that Hillary Clinton ritually kills children when she's not turning into a lizard. Nobody would want their neighbours the Joneses to suspect them of believing stuff like THAT, right? But who seriously believes that the continuing technological revolution will leave most existing freedoms intact for most of the population and that it definitely and "obviously" won't involve de facto compulsory mass chipping or "BMI" to use what will probably soon become a fashionable term? The trajectory that things are on doesn't exactly look tasty. Social conditions have changed much more in the past quarter-century than they did in the previous one, and the trajectory is for them to change much more in the next one than in the previous five or 10. But oh wait, it's about cycling to a bakery for some ciabatta and getting back to the "apartment" within 15 minutes, and who but a misery gutted loon would have a problem with that?
There hasn't been any gentrification in central or north-central Sutton or in Croydon. There's an "apartment" block near the site of the old Granada cinema in Sutton, plus a thin block near East Croydon station, both of which are probably quite nice when you get inside, but the operative word is "station" in both cases and I doubt residents walk about on local streets much.
Errr: are you kidding?
The area around East Croyden train station is massively gentrified compared to when my sister first moved there; The transport links are better, and there's the whole Box Park thing.
The transport links have always been good. It's halfway to Gatwick and on the way to Brighton. Sure, some of the residents in newish blocks near the station will go to Box Park for a choice of fast food. But what about 200 metres away? Mostly the area around the station is all about the station. Most probably rarely make it as far as the Whitgift...or the "other" station. Allders shut too.
It's so easy to mock people who question 15-minute cities and say we probably believe vaccines contain little cameras with feeds straight to Bill Gates's laptop, and that Hillary Clinton ritually kills children when she's not turning into a lizard. Nobody would want their neighbours the Joneses to suspect them of believing stuff like THAT, right? But who seriously believes that the continuing technological revolution will leave most existing freedoms intact for most of the population and that it definitely and "obviously" won't involve de facto compulsory mass chipping or "BMI" to use what will probably soon become a fashionable term? The trajectory that things are on doesn't exactly look tasty. Social conditions have changed much more in the past quarter-century than they did in the previous one, and the trajectory is for them to change much more in the next one than in the previous five or 10. But oh wait, it's about cycling to a bakery for some ciabatta and getting back to the "apartment" within 15 minutes, and who but a misery gutted loon would have a problem with that?
The bit I'm failing to understand is why there would be any votes whatsoever in restricting peoples' movement.
On topic, sort of: If my quick search was correct, the Chinese cardinals will not vote in the conclave. Which is too bad because "Emperor" Xi has a say in choosing Chinese bishops and so, indirectly, cardinals.
(If they did vote, it would allow for many fun conspiracy theories.)
Explosions have taken place at a Russian ammunition depot east of Moscow, the country's defence ministry has said. The blasts occurred in an ammunition warehouse at a defence facility in the western Vladimir region on Tuesday. The site is believed to be a key ammunition storage site for the Russian army. Russia's military blamed the blast on ammunition which had detonated after the storage building caught fire due to a "violation of safety requirements".
Explosions have taken place at a Russian ammunition depot east of Moscow, the country's defence ministry has said. The blasts occurred in an ammunition warehouse at a defence facility in the western Vladimir region on Tuesday. The site is believed to be a key ammunition storage site for the Russian army. Russia's military blamed the blast on ammunition which had detonated after the storage building caught fire due to a "violation of safety requirements".
Bit difficult to deny anything was wrong, given the size of the mushroom cloud - and fragments of ammunition landing tens of kilometres away...
When you can see vast numbers crates of ammo open to commercial satellite imagery, it's maybe might be time to reconsider storage in a handful of giant depots?
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election. There followed a culture war, which still poisons the Conservative well. IMO it peaked when Mark Harper incorporated known conspiracy theories into his Government policy, and the report from the Leader of the House documenting that these were conspiracy theories (around LTNs as "control mechanisms").
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
I'd say that they are going to be up shit creek without a paddle for quite some time yet.
Are people still afraid of 10 minute cities or whatever it was that was apparently scaring people for about 5 minutes last year?
There is a reason for people feeling uncomfortable with 15 minute cities....there seems an assumption in the concept that people should work, shop, entertain themselves within 15 minutes of their home....most people realise life doesn't work that way and they are worried the 15 minutes starts to become more mandatory than advisory
Well given no one seems hysterical about it anymore I can only assume the fears such things would be made mandatory was completely overblown and without foundation.
I'm all for being cautious of overreach in important matters, but really, come on, who actually wants the dystopia you lay out?
My village is essentially a 15-minute city, designed a couple of decades before it came up. Aside from the new West development (*), nowhere is more than 15 or 20 minutes' walk (for an able-bodied person) from the supermarket, GP surgery, library, sports centre etc. There are five children's playgrounds scattered about, a country park, etc, etc. It is fairly well self-contained, and IMO lacks only one thing: employment opportunities. There is a business park, but that is relatively small and the vast majority of people commute out of the village.
(*) Too new to have had the shops and facilities built yet, and parts of which will be quite a way from the supermarket, doctor's surgery etc.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
The Met initially told The Telegraph it would take no further action over the signs, saying that although it had received complaints about some placards, “to date the images and signs are from historic events, did not take place in London, or do not constitute a criminal offence”.
However, the force changed its position after being presented with evidence from this newspaper that threatening signs had been displayed in central London on Saturday
From the same police force who claimed but Jihad has multiple meanings when shown video.
The first part was such bullshit, photos / video was all over the internet that was clearly from the event on Saturday.
Sarah Vine KC told The Telegraph that the hangman placards “clearly cross the line of criminality” and suggested that police would have “no difficulty in making a decision to charge the responsible person” if the situation were reversed.
The MET have form. They were blind to all sorts of signs and speeches at the Palestine protests. They had to be shamed in to even lifting a finger after the fact, claiming they couldn't do anything on the day because might inflame tensions. But some Iranian bloke turns up with a sign saying Hamas are terrorists and he is in the paddy wagon in 2 seconds.
Are these signs really an incitement to murder, though, especially as no individual is named? Pace the KC, has any ‘immediate violence’ been visited on terfs? The signs are offensive, no doubt, but are they criminal?
A fairly handy guide to such things is substituting words.
“The only good X, is a dead X.”
Try that for groups you like, or care about.
That is a guide to whether the slogan is offensive. Yes, it is offensive, and I already said that. Is it, however, as the barrister claimed, incitement to ‘immediate violence’ or murder?
Fox: What's interesting is that I heard VP Vance has become a major part of the trade negotiations. He's going to be part and parcel with Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, and they are scrambling to do deals https://x.com/factpostnews/status/1914779287078445146
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
Politicians always lie in a tight spot, but there used to be an art to it, saying something in a way that people hearing it quickly will assume one thing, but could actually mean something else, thus providing plenty of wiggle room.
Another quiet day - another eye injection with Eylea. I took the interesting route and walked to the hospital (it will be the cycle next time) for a 9am appointment. So 6 miles walking today, which is not yet "Postman on Pilgrimage" territory, but it will do for now.
I think that finally the "pedestrian priority at road junctions" rules are beginning to sink in around here, 3 years later - despite the lack of any serious education campaign. But it's still a game of "Yes, I DO insist on my right to make you wait whilst I cross this road"; we still need all our traffic islands reprofiled so that they are places for slowing down not speeding up.
I feel that I have been poked in the eye by Laurel or Hardy. They were doing the "chest hair" in 1929.
Cardinals not voting at 80 seems a good precedent for the House of Lords.
One interesting number - my Doc said she was expected to around 30 patients for eye injections today.
As a pedestrian, I'm still not confident this is a good idea because I can't be sure what drivers will do, or if a cyclist will whizz round a car that has stopped. If I take a chance on motorists doing the right thing, and am wrong, it will be me in A&E and knowing I had right of way won't be much comfort.
There really needed to have been a major public information campaign but we are run by lawyers who assume changing the rules is enough.
Something else, though. Even the Highway Code is confusing about who has right of way at junctions because it says one thing to pedestrians and another to motorists.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
Bookings from Europe to America are right down from last year. We don't know if it's tourism to Disney or business trips, but far fewer are travelling.
Casino ? Are you there ? Are you ok ?
Yes, I'm fine, thanks. And no, I wasn't there: I went to watch Air Crash Investigation, then talk to my wife, and then went to bed.
All of that was much better use of my time than debating a straw man on whether visitor numbers were down to the US, or not - which I wasn't even contesting.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
It was an estate in central Sutton where I was shot at. Only an airgun but I was lucky the idiot couldn't shoot straight. First pellet hit a lamp post my dog was peeing up. Second one whizzed past my ear into a wall. There are also firearms on the estate and I saw a crossbow. Roundshaw between Sutton and Croydon is dire. Sutton and Croydon centres are both worse than they were a few decades ago.
On the positive side the Kings Cross area is much better.
It's difficult for an old city of millions not to have areas that go slightly backwards over a decade or two, compared to others. It's the nature of the beast: run-down areas become cheap, and developers see the chance to upgrade or rebuild, selling to wealthier people - the area becomes gentrified. In the meantime, other areas become poorer. Then, in a few decades, the cycle will start again with other areas.
I don't go into London much now, but it's pleasant how much better the Mile End / Stepney area is (including back streets) than when I went to uni there in the early 1990s.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
I bought a new watch recently, and spent a while reading watch forums (big, expensive mistake). It's universally agreed in such circles than you can wear a fancy watch walking around New York, LA or Paris, but it's best avoided in London.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
I think there have been changes in crime e.g. 1980s, lots of stealing of cars for joyriding, break into your car for the stereo, lots of burglary to nick your telly, VCR, stereo. Now most of those consumer electronics aren't worth anything, while everybody carries around £1000 phone and people were wearing their watches that the criminals are much more aware of how much some are worth. So the criminals don't break into your house, they just nick it from you in the street.
Cars became more difficult to steal in 2000s, but now with the relay spoofing / key reprogramming, they are easy to nick again. Also, now very easy to replace the VIN and criminals can get hold of legit V5 documents of cars that aren't on the road, enabling cloning and turning the nicked car into appearing legit.
What has changed and changes perception is the police are now absolutely crap at solving crime, if they even try to. Which leads to people thinking well I am on my own here, the plod aren't going to do jack for me if my watch get nicked, so I am not going to risk it.
I think you are absolutely right that the police become absolutely invisible. Police stations have closed, and the number of times you see police officers on the street has collapsed. The court system system has insane delays, that mean that hardly anything ever makes it to trial.
Basically, it's a huge mess.
A few months ago, the staff in the Co-Op just down the road from me caught a shoplifter. I happened to go in shortly afterwards, and there was a police van and two police cars in attendance.
The area's police station is in the village and, if rumour is correct, currently manned full-time (it used to be unmanned...)
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
No I haven’t. There’s already evidence of it happening, and not just in the Guardian.
Yes, you have - and it's telling you jump straight to the Guardian.
Liberals are extraordinary resistant to any idea they've got it wrong and might be part of the problem. Extraordinarily so.
I don't hate them - I don't hate anyone, really - but I do see it as my job to shake you out of your absurd complacency. Because right now you're fuelling this with your obstinacy.
I'll stop when I see some evidence of circumspection or nuance on your part rather than the tired old cliché stuff we've all heard a million times before which tells us you're just not capable of fresh thinking.
“International arrivals to the United States are falling, with the biggest drops reported among western European, Central American and Caribbean travellers.
“Compared to 2024, the total number of global visitors by air, sea and land declined by 3.3% in 2025. March was particularly negative, with an 11.6% drop compared to the same month last year.
“Last month's traffic took a tumble from almost every region worldwide, with the worst results from western Europe (-17.2%), the Caribbean (-26%), central America (-26%) and Africa (12.4%).”
I think, Casino, it is you who is being complacent.
You do have to be a bit careful comparing March 2024 vs 2025, as Easter was in March last year.
You do: but I've crossed the Atlantic several times in the last few months, and I've been able to get air miles tickets without problems, which was almost unknown last year. Anecdotally, the flights are a lot emptier.
Oh I am not saying that things aren't down. I am sure general Trump being POTUS, constant negative stories (some real, some fake), expensive cost of US these days, and also some regression to the mean as people went mental in 2023-2024 doing tourist stuff that they couldn't do during COVID.
I note the dollar is down 9% so far this year against a basket of currencies. The US has become cheaper for visitors.
Have you been since COVID.....its f##king eye wateringly expensive. A 10% reduction doesn't touch the sides on things like increase in hotel costs, same with food, etc.
I think that is world-wide. We've spent the weekend in Cardiff at a show. The hotel was £250 for two nights without breakfast. The cost of food in the hotel and local bar was very high. The old credit card took a hammering. It was a nice relief to only pay £7 entry for the St Fagans Museum!!
Western countries certainly have seen significant increases, but US has absolutely exploded, particularly touristy places e.g. 50% increase in 3 years in Miami, plus classic US charges on top of charges on top of charges e.g. Vegas is insanity for this now, you have your room fee, then your mandatory resort fee (now $50-60 / night alone), than your parking, then your WiFi, then your tourist tax...
Meanwhile, I just booked a hotel in New Mexico for ten nights for about $500. Sure I’ll be sleeping with the roaches.
Or your are going to become good mates with MS13...
I once stayed in a very cheap hotel on the outskirts of Seattle....there was a gang shoot out in the parking lot the night I arrived. Seems like everybody knew it was a location a gang dealt drugs out of other than me.
Met some in vegas when I was wandering around they seemed nice enough even escorted me back to the main drag
"I've had a few guns pointed at me and shit like that."
Strangely had more guns pointed at me in the uk
I have had more guns pointed and fired at me in South London than in the USA - probably mainly because I've never been to the USA and would be unlikely to get in if ever wanted to. Nonetheless there's more street gun crime in the USA than in Britain - and several countries are far worse than both.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
I'd be interested to know which areas you have in mind. Our area and its environs (SE14/4/8/15) are unambiguously better than they were 40 years ago. I've lived in London in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, E and SE postcodes, and every neighbourhood I've lived in has become more gentrified over time. Not that I'm saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they certainly haven't gone downhill.
It was an estate in central Sutton where I was shot at. Only an airgun but I was lucky the idiot couldn't shoot straight. First pellet hit a lamp post my dog was peeing up. Second one whizzed past my ear into a wall. There are also firearms on the estate and I saw a crossbow. Roundshaw between Sutton and Croydon is dire. Sutton and Croydon centres are both worse than they were a few decades ago.
On the positive side the Kings Cross area is much better.
It's difficult for an old city of millions not to have areas that go slightly backwards over a decade or two, compared to others. It's the nature of the beast: run-down areas become cheap, and developers see the chance to upgrade or rebuild, selling to wealthier people - the area becomes gentrified. In the meantime, other areas become poorer. Then, in a few decades, the cycle will start again with other areas.
I don't go into London much now, but it's pleasant how much better the Mile End / Stepney area is (including back streets) than when I went to uni there in the early 1990s.
It’s an odd mix. The areas of outer London where I used to live have a lot more rented property, flats, bedsits and HMOs than the largely settled community of young and middle aged families, that it was when I first moved there at the end of the ‘80s. So the housing stock isn’t as well looked after, and many of the residential streets look more tatty than they did back then. On the other hand there are now far more cafes and restaurants and if you judge from the retail centre you’d think the place is buzzing. The population is higher and presumably people are eating out a lot more, living more densely and with reduced ability to cook at home. Which, despite insane rents, must mean a fair amount of disposable income knocking about.
(I think that should be readable even to free tier gpt users). But its final conclusion :
"In conclusion, while Pietro Parolin and Luis Antonio Tagle remain the logical front-runners – echoing both expert opinion and betting odds – the conclave’s secrecy and the Church’s divisions ensure that nothing is guaranteed. There is a real possibility the next pope could be someone just outside the spotlight, like Erdő or Zuppi (or an even bigger surprise). For those looking at betting value, candidates whose odds underestimate their broad acceptability (Erdő, Zuppi) or whose narrative could catch fire in the Sistine Chapel (perhaps Turkson or Pizzaballa) are worth consideration. As one Vatican watcher aptly put it, “the path from here to the white smoke will be winding” – making this papal election not only a momentous spiritual decision but also a fascinating puzzle for Vaticanologists and bettors alike."
So... that's useful. In a way.
Interesting. The Chat GPT version is 5,000 words compared to mine which has 1,100!
I work in market research and we sometimes find people who have used Chat GPT to answer open ended survey questions. The dead giveaway is that Chat GPT, always gives huge amounts of information that you didn't ask for. Obviously we exclude any respondents who use AI.
I felt a bit of an idiot this morning as TSE said only mugs bet on this sort of election and I'd already submitted the article. Stick to small stakes though
One key question imo is how to weight nationality. Is it still safe to put a line through non-Italian cardinals?
No just the UK that suffers with big infrastructure getting bogged down by long running legal challenges. 12 years of legal challenges for a tunnel.
The record-breaking tunnel being built from Denmark to Germany
Denmark and Germany signed an agreement to build the tunnel back in 2008, but the scheme was delayed by opposition from ferry operators and German conservation groups concerned about the ecological impact.
One such environmental group, Nabu (The Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union), argued that this area of the Baltic is an important habitat for larvae and harbour porpoises, which are sensitive to underwater noise. However in 2020 their legal challenge was dismissed by a federal court in Germany, which green-lighted construction to go ahead.
It's so easy to mock people who question 15-minute cities and say we probably believe vaccines contain little cameras with feeds straight to Bill Gates's laptop, and that Hillary Clinton ritually kills children when she's not turning into a lizard. Nobody would want their neighbours the Joneses to suspect them of believing stuff like THAT, right? But who seriously believes that the continuing technological revolution will leave most existing freedoms intact for most of the population and that it definitely and "obviously" won't involve de facto compulsory mass chipping or "BMI" to use what will probably soon become a fashionable term? The trajectory that things are on doesn't exactly look tasty. Social conditions have changed much more in the past quarter-century than they did in the previous one, and the trajectory is for them to change much more in the next one than in the previous five or 10. But oh wait, it's about cycling to a bakery for some ciabatta and getting back to the "apartment" within 15 minutes, and who but a misery gutted loon would have a problem with that?
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
No a lot of what you brand culture war didn't have broad political consensus....you just thought you could ramrod it through and most of the population said fuck off.....immigration for example...yes broad political consensus among politicians....the actual population of the country not so much
What's you're suggesting is that the culture war was prosecuted by the Conservatives against... themselves? It was under that government that immigration went over 1 million and you got a massive increase in small boats.
But the original question was around some fairly innocuous changes to road layouts and access, and speed limits, which did have broad political consensus. It's quite telling that you have to rely on immigration.
The original comment was not about road layouts and access or speed limits. It was a general statement that it was the right starting culture wars. That statement was because a lot on the right disagree with liberal progressives and apparently that when we disagree its starting a culture war. Go vote for independence so we can be rid of scrofulous scots please
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
Bookings from Europe to America are right down from last year. We don't know if it's tourism to Disney or business trips, but far fewer are travelling.
Casino ? Are you there ? Are you ok ?
Yes, I'm fine, thanks. And no, I wasn't there: I went to watch Air Crash Investigation, then talk to my wife, and then went to bed.
All of that was much better use of my time than debating a straw man on whether visitor numbers were down to the US, or not - which I wasn't even contesting.
Sorry, you all became rather boring.
You wrote, “This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.” What was that if not contesting that visitor numbers to the US are down?
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
There were consequences for Nixon. He was ultimately driven from office in disgrace and lived out the rest of his life a sad, pathetic and broken figure even as he tried to rebuild his image by speaking tours.
Clinton I will give you. But we could instance Roosevelt. Or Disraeli. Or William Pitt the Younger. Politicians have always lied when it is in their interest and when they are sure they can get away with it. What's different about Trump is he genuinely seems to have constructed an alternative reality in his head that he lives in (remember 2017's 'alternative facts')?
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
There were consequences for Nixon. He was ultimately driven from office in disgrace and lived out the rest of his life a sad, pathetic and broken figure even as he tried to rebuild his image by speaking tours.
Clinton I will give you. But we could instance Roosevelt. Or Disraeli. Or William Pitt the Younger. Politicians have always lied when it is in their interest and when they are sure they can get away with it. What's different about Trump is he genuinely seems to have constructed an alternative reality in his head that he lives in (remember 2017's 'alternative facts')?
And he’s built a cult who believe his lies, aided by media polarisation and social media algorithms.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
Politicians always lie in a tight spot, but there used to be an art to it, saying something in a way that people hearing it quickly will assume one thing, but could actually mean something else, thus providing plenty of wiggle room.
Trump lying is like everything Trump, no class.
There is also a distinction between "I am going to say something which isn't actually false, but is misleading because it's incomplete" and "I am going to say something knowing it is false".
The first is what we all do- not just politicians. It's there in the classic police caution; you don't have to say anything. The second is generally taboo; it's the thing that actually brought Boris down.
Maybe the first is no better than the second, but that requires a moral clarity that few of us possess or would be comfortable living under.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
There were consequences for Nixon. He was ultimately driven from office in disgrace and lived out the rest of his life a sad, pathetic and broken figure even as he tried to rebuild his image by speaking tours.
Clinton I will give you. But we could instance Roosevelt. Or Disraeli. Or William Pitt the Younger. Politicians have always lied when it is in their interest and when they are sure they can get away with it. What's different about Trump is he genuinely seems to have constructed an alternative reality in his head that he lives in (remember 2017's 'alternative facts')?
It is not just that it is in his head, there are plenty of people doing that, what is remarkable is his success in transmitting the alternative reality to many millions of Americans, and as the 2017 quote shows that was his intent all along.
Why anybody wants to listen to Evan Davis talk about heat pumps every week is another matter. I think podcasting might have peaked !!!
The article frames it as the Right having gone a bit off the rails in their politicising opposition to technologies which may be framed as addressing climate change. Such are not political. He's co-presenting with the chair of the Heat Pump Federation, aiui as non-political content.
I'd view this BBC decision as an unnecessary glass-jaw on the part of the BCC, caving in where not necessary. In their place I'd just view it as a non-political side-gig, like an after-dinner speech - or if he was hosting a podcast about public footpaths or Youth Hostels. The BBC should be defending their presenter, instead, and standing for open debate in the marketplace of ideas.
However, despite initially being given approval to go ahead with the non-BBC project, bosses told Davis the podcast risked exposing him to accusations of political bias.
“As the series has gone on – in fact as the world has progressed over the last few months – they have become concerned that anything like this trying to inform people about heat pumps can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as somehow treading on areas of public controversy,” he told followers of the podcast’s YouTube channel.
That things like heat pumps and electric cars have become politicised highlights how disasterous it's been to have a government targets based approach to achieving net-zero.
I think it's more to do with desperation on the tribal political right, and their need for a culture war to save their backsides; it is a measure of self-serving political cynicism. The approach has worked very well over perhaps 3 decades (1990-2020), as a political consensus.
I'd make a comparison with the 20mph speed limits in Wales. In the Senedd back in 2020-2021 the proposal had cross-party support, and the Conservatives were demanding that Labour were too slow in implementing the Labour Party manifesto commitment.
They swapped opinions when they were washed up politically, and needed a way of trying to save the next Election.
It runs across many questions, and has potentially ended the possibility of my support for Conservatives (speaking as a former member whilst there was a hope of levelling-up) for life.
Takes two sides for a war....what you describe as a culture war is the left wing you are on saying lets do this and sensible people going do fuck off....pushing back on arsehole suggestions isn't the right starting a culture war its just the right telling you that you have strange ideas than makes you dicks
That's Trump's logic for blaming Ukraine for the invasion.
The point is these measures used to have broad political consensus, implemented by councils and governments of all stripes and backed up by solid evidence. It's only since the Conservatives went all Magna Carta that they have become party political.
FWIW Edinburgh's had LTNs since the 18th Century; even Pompeii had modal filters to avoid clogging up their markets with traffic. It's basic town planning.
Since you brought up the 20mph example, the broad political consensus is to have 30mph for normal roads and faster for other roads, with 20mph being very exceptional use cases like outside schools. That has been the broad consensus for a very long time.
Making 20mph universal was never a broad consensus.
Leavitt: "I think most recognize the U.S. Is a great place to do business, a beautiful place to visit and they should come here because it is a much safer country than four years ago under the previous president."
Narrator: People are literally being deported for having phone messages being mean about Trumpski or snatched off the street with no due process.
They’re losing control of the narrative on this, and it serves them right. They’ve spent years telling everyone Democrat-run cities (and most of Europe) are hellholes and no go areas running with blood.
They're really not.
Outside of Bluesky and the Twittersphere (which is what you, as a liberal centrist, mean when you refer to 'control of the narrative') this will be wildy popular.
I don't think Liberals understand just how far the Overton window has shifted on illegal migration, nor how far out of step they are with public sympathies.
The inevitable handful of hard luck cases just won't swing it anymore. Not when you've spent years trying to stop anyone from being deported.
Eh? Obama deported ~5 million people.
And managed to do so without scaring Germans or Australians off going to Disneyworld with the kids or on city breaks to New York.
This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.
You've drunk the Koolaid.
Bookings from Europe to America are right down from last year. We don't know if it's tourism to Disney or business trips, but far fewer are travelling.
Casino ? Are you there ? Are you ok ?
Yes, I'm fine, thanks. And no, I wasn't there: I went to watch Air Crash Investigation, then talk to my wife, and then went to bed.
All of that was much better use of my time than debating a straw man on whether visitor numbers were down to the US, or not - which I wasn't even contesting.
Sorry, you all became rather boring.
You wrote, “This is silly. No Germans or Australians are avoiding city breaks or Disneyworld because they fear getting deported with their kids.” What was that if not contesting that visitor numbers to the US are down?
You'd need to prove to me that (a) it was those types of visitor that accounted for the fall and (b) it was directly attributable to Trump's deportation policy. Since you can do neither it's not the killer point you think it is.
You're jumping to the conclusion you want to reach, which is that you want Trump punished in the pocket for implementing an illiberal policy and that you hope subsequently forced to change course.
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
I disagree. “It’s all coming down” is a fair comment
WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
Weirdly with Trump more occurences seems to make things easier - rather than 'Oh my god, it's happened again, now you've got to go' it's 'This has already come up, so who the hell cares?'
It just seems to be accepted that having a President completely off his rocker is the new normal.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
Trump discovered long ago that lying has no negative consequences.
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
Nixon is a better call than Clinton on that one. The internal checks and balances Trump has been destroying (eg Inspectors General = oversight divisions of an agency) were substantially brought in after Nixon. Trump wants to do whatever he wants as a dictator, so he started with things like that and Presidential Immunity from prosecution under criminal law.
Comments
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-22/musk-says-he-ll-pull-back-significantly-from-doge-in-may
You just don't like the results of these elections, or indeed the consensus.
But goodness knows why people were saying on here the other day that London has improved. There are pockets of the city which have been going downhill since the 1980s.
Like some kind of congressman?"
Taylor Swift got here first.
I'd expect a Presidential Pardon, otherwise he will be held criminally responsible at state level for much of what he has done.
I suspect the theme of the next papacy will be evangelisation. The cardinals will want a pope who talks a lot about God and who will have a focus on education of both priests and laity. If that's the case, Tagle should be a front runner as evangelisation is his speciality. Turkson could also be a strong candidate.
Next door's cat is better at scrutiny of the executive than this current shower of spineless performing seals.
from Shanghai to Bogota:
https://www.ucem.ac.uk/whats-happening/articles/15-minute-city/#Heading 2
Kashgarisation of the urban world maybe?
On the positive side the Kings Cross area is much better.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not been previously reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/info-hegseths-yemen-signal-texts-came-generals-secure-messages-rcna198838
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKb4y7gQoXc
It is only in the minds of the terminally insane that this has been transformed into the idea that people will be prevented from traveling to other areas. It's from the same minds who thought governments would keep Covid era restrictions.
130 days in 365 is a hard limit for "Special Employees" like Musk.
To change category at that level he is subject to disclosure requirements, and I think Senate Ratification - and Musk would not want to disclose things such as tax and business arrangements, conflicts of interest etc, especially to Democratic Senators on National TV.
I'll certainly agree that it has been noticeably soft this time, as Trump has turned the Republican Party into a Trump crime family operation. However certain individuals chosen by Trump ran away rather than face the ratification process. Matt Gaetz?
But then it became this was trial to the blueprint to some crazy conspiracy theory....
I'm all for being cautious of overreach in important matters, but really, come on, who actually wants the dystopia you lay out?
If I had to make an educated guess (with caveats!), I'd say **Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer SJ** or **Cardinal Pietro Parolin** might be leading contenders. Both have close ties with Pope Francis and possess a deep understanding of the Church's governance and doctrine.
dyor!
I don't think it helped that at the same time, a number of councils really went all in on low traffic neighborhood stuff.
(A 15 minute city can actually be enormous, depending on what mode you are using to measure with. The whole of Inverness is accessible by bicycle from the station in that time, for example).
The area around East Croyden train station is massively gentrified compared to when my sister first moved there; The transport links are better, and there's the whole Box Park thing.
That's not a great look for Britain, and I suspect it was different (at least relative to the other cities) twenty years ago.
Cars became more difficult to steal in 2000s, but now with the relay spoofing / key reprogramming, they are easy to nick again. Also, now very easy to replace the VIN and criminals can get hold of legit V5 documents of cars that aren't on the road, enabling cloning and turning the nicked car into appearing legit.
What has changed and changes perception is the police are now absolutely crap at solving crime, if they even try to. Which leads to people thinking well I am on my own here, the plod aren't going to do jack for me if my watch get nicked, so I am not going to risk it.
Basically, it's a huge mess.
I am not sure the research the first was based upon was very sound. Its a bit like saying employ all doctors in A&E, that will mean they are best placed to react to emergencies, but then there is no proactive investigation of conditions before they get to needing A&E.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/22/fda-announces-food-dye-ban.html
In the weird wacky world we live in, the US are going to end up with stricter rules on this stuff than UK / EU.
It's laughable.
(If they did vote, it would allow for many fun conspiracy theories.)
When you can see vast numbers crates of ammo open to commercial satellite imagery, it's maybe might be time to reconsider storage in a handful of giant depots?
(*) Too new to have had the shops and facilities built yet, and parts of which will be quite a way from the supermarket, doctor's surgery etc.
Trump: You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now… Groceries have come down. It’s all coming down
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1914799956164272235
https://x.com/GreekAnalyst/status/1914680553879613915
Fox: What's interesting is that I heard VP Vance has become a major part of the trade negotiations. He's going to be part and parcel with Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, and they are scrambling to do deals
https://x.com/factpostnews/status/1914779287078445146
Trump: Oh, I really don’t know. I’ll have to ask the Attorney General. But we did release the RFK and JFK files…
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1914794868364165478
He's not the first, of course. One could argue that the rot started with Clinton (or Nixon, take your pick), but it has reached new depths. He just talks utter shit, and a portion of the population just accept it.
Trump lying is like everything Trump, no class.
There really needed to have been a major public information campaign but we are run by lawyers who assume changing the rules is enough.
Something else, though. Even the Highway Code is confusing about who has right of way at junctions because it says one thing to pedestrians and another to motorists.
All of that was much better use of my time than debating a straw man on whether visitor numbers were down to the US, or not - which I wasn't even contesting.
Sorry, you all became rather boring.
I don't go into London much now, but it's pleasant how much better the Mile End / Stepney area is (including back streets) than when I went to uni there in the early 1990s.
The area's police station is in the village and, if rumour is correct, currently manned full-time (it used to be unmanned...)
We need more Musk!
The record-breaking tunnel being built from Denmark to Germany
Denmark and Germany signed an agreement to build the tunnel back in 2008, but the scheme was delayed by opposition from ferry operators and German conservation groups concerned about the ecological impact.
One such environmental group, Nabu (The Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union), argued that this area of the Baltic is an important habitat for larvae and harbour porpoises, which are sensitive to underwater noise. However in 2020 their legal challenge was dismissed by a federal court in Germany, which green-lighted construction to go ahead.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy70y2x3xj6o
Taxi revenues up 177% after POS becomes mandatory
In early 2024, Point of Sale (POS) systems became mandatory for local taxis. Guess what happened next?
Declared revenues of Greek taxis went up 177% in just the first 8 months of 2024, from €18M last year to €50M this year.
Clinton I will give you. But we could instance Roosevelt. Or Disraeli. Or William Pitt the Younger. Politicians have always lied when it is in their interest and when they are sure they can get away with it. What's different about Trump is he genuinely seems to have constructed an alternative reality in his head that he lives in (remember 2017's 'alternative facts')?
Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for them...
The first is what we all do- not just politicians. It's there in the classic police caution; you don't have to say anything. The second is generally taboo; it's the thing that actually brought Boris down.
Maybe the first is no better than the second, but that requires a moral clarity that few of us possess or would be comfortable living under.
NEW THREAD
Making 20mph universal was never a broad consensus.
You're jumping to the conclusion you want to reach, which is that you want Trump punished in the pocket for implementing an illiberal policy and that you hope subsequently forced to change course.
That isn't going to happen.