This is a message to the fly-tippers blighting our towns and villages:
For too long, your actions have gone unpunished. That ends now.
We'll use drones and new tech to identify your vehicle. Then we'll crush it.
Is that even legal? What if you are still in the vehicle at the time they've identified it?
That lily livered pinko @Leon was suggesting the use of tasers on those who litter our fair land. Crushing them inside the vehicle they littered from seems a much more proportionate response.
Can't we just impose 100hrs community service picking up litter ?
Add a sufficiently large fine for those who can afford it, and the scheme might even pay for itself.
You've got to measure it in kilos to deliver results.
Btw that Britain Elects forecast for Runcorn has turnout at 55-68 which seems on the high side...?
My view is that Reform will fail to GOTV and that therefore Lab will win.
All the polls show a big enthusiasm gap- Reformers are much more likely to be "10/10 definitely voting for Farage". Find Out Now take that more at face value, hence their higher Reform score.
They may be right, or they may be wrong to do that. Tomorrow is the first real test.
Yes, but also no. Enthusiasm to vote at a local election or in a by-election can be different to enthusiasm to vote at a general election.
An unprecedented diplomatic crisis between 🇯🇵 and 🇬🇧 is ongoing. It all stems from the lackluster afternoon tea set sold at the World Expo’s UK booth. 125 million views on the tweet! More than Japan’s population. https://x.com/Msamalam/status/1917215066526470434
I thought it was traditional for the Pope to be a Catholic.
oh... and celibate.
It's definitional, is it not? The Pope is a Catholic and the Pope defines what Catholicism is. So Pope Donald could adjust Catholic doctrine to be compatible with his lifestyle, if required?
He is Presbyterian and evangelical aligned and would not be elected in the first place unless Catholic and celibate
This is a message to the fly-tippers blighting our towns and villages:
For too long, your actions have gone unpunished. That ends now.
We'll use drones and new tech to identify your vehicle. Then we'll crush it.
Is that even legal? What if you are still in the vehicle at the time they've identified it?
That lily livered pinko @Leon was suggesting the use of tasers on those who litter our fair land. Crushing them inside the vehicle they littered from seems a much more proportionate response.
Can't we just impose 100hrs community service picking up litter ?
Add a sufficiently large fine for those who can afford it, and the scheme might even pay for itself.
This is a message to the fly-tippers blighting our towns and villages:
For too long, your actions have gone unpunished. That ends now.
We'll use drones and new tech to identify your vehicle. Then we'll crush it.
Why crush rather than send to Ukraine or sell to buy more drones?
This is the impotent government's road to populism. Crime's out of control so we'll threaten ever more blood-curdling punishments – from small boats to shoplifting, and just a couple of days ago with bad cyclists. It didn't work the last 17 times we tried it but this time, things are different.
Yeah this is a stupid idea, it would be ridiculous for the environment secretary to be wastefully crushing vehicles that could just be sold, even if he has the power to do it.
He obviously heard about "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and didn't understand what "Reduce" meant....
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
Silly sod's a day early. He'll be knackered by the time the counts are finished.
JC did say something recently about the many cancelled elections having played into Reform's hands by allowing them to concentrate resources.
To an extent but on the other hand Electoral Calculus forecasts the Tories will win most councillors still tomorrow, whereas if Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk had held elections too then Reform would have won most council seats this week https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
An unprecedented diplomatic crisis between 🇯🇵 and 🇬🇧 is ongoing. It all stems from the lackluster afternoon tea set sold at the World Expo’s UK booth. 125 million views on the tweet! More than Japan’s population. https://x.com/Msamalam/status/1917215066526470434
Are we exporting afternoon tea now? There has been a massive expansion in London so now almost every hotel and even a few posh shops now sell tea, small cakes and children's sandwiches to tourists at £50 a pop.
I thought it was traditional for the Pope to be a Catholic.
oh... and celibate.
It's definitional, is it not? The Pope is a Catholic and the Pope defines what Catholicism is. So Pope Donald could adjust Catholic doctrine to be compatible with his lifestyle, if required?
He is Presbyterian and evangelical aligned and would not be elected in the first place unless Catholic and celibate
You'd think not, but then people said he'd never be elected US president, first time and this time!
I thought it was traditional for the Pope to be a Catholic.
oh... and celibate.
It's definitional, is it not? The Pope is a Catholic and the Pope defines what Catholicism is. So Pope Donald could adjust Catholic doctrine to be compatible with his lifestyle, if required?
He is Presbyterian and evangelical aligned and would not be elected in the first place unless Catholic and celibate
You'd think not, but then people said he'd never be elected US president, first time and this time!
The US Presidential election electorate is not restricted to celibate male RC cardinals like the Papal electorate
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
I am with postgrad students today. One of them is behind on his research because he is having to help his family out, who are back in the US. Both parents worked providing mental health services for the VA (Veterans' Affair). They've been fired as part of the Trump/Musk/Republican cuts and face financial problems. Is this what conservative voters actually wanted?
I don't know. Is it what they wanted? Did Trump voters expect Trump to do what he said, or did they think it would be like his first time round when comparatively little happened?
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
You’re first paragraph is nonsense, and undermines the plausibility of your second paragraph.
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
I thought it was traditional for the Pope to be a Catholic.
oh... and celibate.
It's definitional, is it not? The Pope is a Catholic and the Pope defines what Catholicism is. So Pope Donald could adjust Catholic doctrine to be compatible with his lifestyle, if required?
He is Presbyterian and evangelical aligned and would not be elected in the first place unless Catholic and celibate
Does not the very appointment of Mr Pants mean that Mr Chump has some Roman Catholic alignment?
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
This is a message to the fly-tippers blighting our towns and villages:
For too long, your actions have gone unpunished. That ends now.
We'll use drones and new tech to identify your vehicle. Then we'll crush it.
Is that even legal? What if you are still in the vehicle at the time they've identified it?
That lily livered pinko @Leon was suggesting the use of tasers on those who litter our fair land. Crushing them inside the vehicle they littered from seems a much more proportionate response.
Can't we just impose 100hrs community service picking up litter ?
Add a sufficiently large fine for those who can afford it, and the scheme might even pay for itself.
It must frustrate professional litter picker-uppers to have their vocation undermined by rentagob ministers using it as a punishment. Good old Fred keeping the park tidy will now be greeted with hostility and suspicion – was he done for fraud or theft? And look how he repeatedly skirts round that field next to the primary school, keeping 200 metres from the adjoining wall.
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
As for illegal e-bikes and scooters...
I've been out and about quite a bit more locally recently, and we have illegal "this is a bike" mopeds around, and a few e-scooters on the pavements, normally at walking pace.
None of them are haring around during the day like car or bus drivers, though I've been walking part of the time with my cycling gilet - which has the "I'm running Shrodinger's video camera" sign on it.
There are plenty of twats with noisy exhausts on their BMWs or warm hatchbacks, putting out the "look at me I have a micropenis" message.
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
As for illegal e-bikes and scooters...
I've been out and about quite a bit more locally recently, and we have illegal "this is a bike" mopeds around, and a few e-scooters on the pavements, normally at walking pace.
None of them are haring around during the day like car or bus drivers, though I've been walking part of the time with my cycling gilet - which has the "I'm running Shrodinger's video camera" sign on it.
There are plenty of twats with noisy exhausts on their BMWs or warm hatchbacks, putting out the "look at me I have a micropenis" message.
Round here they do about 60, usually on one wheel, frequently on the pavements.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
I think this is true to an extent, but it depends on where you live and which immigrants. Why has there been little outcry about the number of Ukranians? Partly because of the war, partly because 'they look like us" and have a similar culture. If Ukranians were Muslim and followed very restrictive forms of female dress, for instance, then there would be more reaction. Most people are nice, kind, friendly. Most people just want to get on with their lives. But it ought to be undeniable that adding 1 to 2 million people to a country without increasing the housing supply will make it harder to buy and rent a house. And yes much of the health service is depending on immigrants, but it is also true that adding 1-2 million more people will also increase the demand on the health service.
We must always beware of the simplistic answer. Thats what the Nazis did in in Germany and we all know how that ended up. Immigration isn't the root of all our problems any more than membership/non-membership of the EU is. But its equally childish not to question whether we have the balance right and whether we should do more on housing, jobs, the NHS and integration.
I thought it was traditional for the Pope to be a Catholic.
oh... and celibate.
It's definitional, is it not? The Pope is a Catholic and the Pope defines what Catholicism is. So Pope Donald could adjust Catholic doctrine to be compatible with his lifestyle, if required?
He is Presbyterian and evangelical aligned and would not be elected in the first place unless Catholic and celibate
You'd think not, but then people said he'd never be elected US president, first time and this time!
The US Presidential election electorate is not restricted to celibate male RC cardinals like the Papal electorate
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
Would you approve a band playing at Glastonbury who had called for, whether during a gig or anything, people to r@pe a woman or throw pigs heads at mosques?
Is it only something we have to allow free speech to prevail over because the target was Tory MPs?
Kneecap are fucking scumbags and of Glastonbury is an inclusive and progressive culture there should be no platform for such pricks.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
Would you approve a band playing at Glastonbury who had called for, whether during a gig or anything, people to r@pe a woman or throw pigs heads at mosques?
Is it only something we have to allow free speech to prevail over because the target was Tory MPs?
Kneecap are fucking scumbags and of Glastonbury is an inclusive and progressive culture there should be no platform for such pricks.
Glastonbury will have many, many older festival goers chanting along to 'F%ck the tories' who then went home to the golf club and voted Tory.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
Would you approve a band playing at Glastonbury who had called for, whether during a gig or anything, people to r@pe a woman or throw pigs heads at mosques?
Is it only something we have to allow free speech to prevail over because the target was Tory MPs?
Kneecap are fucking scumbags and of Glastonbury is an inclusive and progressive culture there should be no platform for such pricks.
Glastonbury will have many, many older festival goers chanting along to 'F%ck the tories' who then went home to the golf club and voted Tory.
Personally, I'd extend Starmer's car/van crushing idea from fly tippers to any vehicle that parks illegally or causes an obstruction. Harsh, I know. But it would only take a handful of well-publicised implementations to permanently solve the blight of illegal parking.
As for illegal e-bikes and scooters...
I've been out and about quite a bit more locally recently, and we have illegal "this is a bike" mopeds around, and a few e-scooters on the pavements, normally at walking pace.
None of them are haring around during the day like car or bus drivers, though I've been walking part of the time with my cycling gilet - which has the "I'm running Shrodinger's video camera" sign on it.
There are plenty of twats with noisy exhausts on their BMWs or warm hatchbacks, putting out the "look at me I have a micropenis" message.
Yesterday evening, two lads on illegal e-bikes doing wheelies down the lane. However, one of them said thank you when we stood to one side as they approached.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Partly its just luck of the draw. At my fittest, training four times a week I only just got my 5K time to 26 minutes and my half time to 54. I simply do not have the capacity to run distance much faster.
If you look at the london marathon elites - they tend to be very slight in the frame, with long legs.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
Not quite, from what I heard. Free speech includes the freedom to opine on what other people should and should not do, and demanding a say is exactly what free speech is. Glastonbury has the same right to tell him to go away, or to reflect on what he has said, or of course say nothing.
There is no such thing as the right to consequence-free free speech with which it is often confused.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Partly its just luck of the draw. At my fittest, training four times a week I only just got my 5K time to 26 minutes and my half time to 54. I simply do not have the capacity to run distance much faster.
If you look at the london marathon elites - they tend to be very slight in the frame, with long legs.
Running is a brutal way to separate people.
If you are in the jungle with just Mo Farah and a tiger appears, just start praying
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
I am with postgrad students today. One of them is behind on his research because he is having to help his family out, who are back in the US. Both parents worked providing mental health services for the VA (Veterans' Affair). They've been fired as part of the Trump/Musk/Republican cuts and face financial problems. Is this what conservative voters actually wanted?
It is certainly not what veterans want and I suspect getting on the wrong side of them is going to cause GOP a whole heap of trouble in coming years.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
I'd argue that Labour are being harsh partly because of Jo Cox, not necessarily because they are doing the obviously correct thing.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Apologies my previous post I realise now wasn’t quite accurate . It was Kelvin Mackenzie from GB News saying this is what Reform should do and push the government in that direction. Still he was an ardent Brexit pusher and is now moaning about a consequence of Brexit .
The EU was uncontrolled immigration.
I can’t think why Reform would prefer that they bias controlled immigration to white Christians rather than people from emerging markets
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Partly its just luck of the draw. At my fittest, training four times a week I only just got my 5K time to 26 minutes and my half time to 54. I simply do not have the capacity to run distance much faster.
If you look at the london marathon elites - they tend to be very slight in the frame, with long legs.
Running is a brutal way to separate people.
Having 31" legs and a largish 6'1 frame isn't optimal tbh, even when I am fit and weighing about 14 stone.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Top 0.2% for female athletes !
She won last year's Edinburgh marathon, and is a very fast Ironman triathlete. There are a few long-distance triathletes at the pool; all are nice guys and gals, and all are crazily awesome. And there's me, pottering away at sprint distances, 1/8th as long...
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
How tall are your shoes allowed to be? At what point do they become stilts? Are stilts banned?
Yes, there are rules as to what can and cannot be worn, especially for the elite competitors. World Athletics and Ironman set some of the rules. It's all irrelevant to me, as the metal in my ankle means it's really hard for me to get any trainers that don't cripple me, let alone super shoes.
One problem with a tall stack height is reduced stability around corners and less ankle support.
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
Did Clarkson say that on the BBC? I think you can pick and choose a bit here, but in the context of Farage having milkshake thrown over him, having someone suggest battery acid is up there with those doing time for inciting racial hatred after Southport. I think Clarkson's would be more likely taken as a joke, but equally its a stupid comment.
In the 1700s and 1800s, English and Irish developers laid out hundreds of garden squares, though there was no planning requirement that they do this, and though they never made any money on them. Why? https://x.com/SCP_Hughes/status/1917215767910817809
I tend to start talking enthusiastically about the causes I take an interest in while expressing delight that their cause is so close to their heart and explaining that I am already fully committed and reconsider those commitments annually. The moment you try to engage them in your cause and not their's they lose interest in you. It usually takes only seconds for them to switch off.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
I think this is true to an extent, but it depends on where you live and which immigrants. Why has there been little outcry about the number of Ukranians? Partly because of the war, partly because 'they look like us" and have a similar culture. If Ukranians were Muslim and followed very restrictive forms of female dress, for instance, then there would be more reaction. Most people are nice, kind, friendly. Most people just want to get on with their lives. But it ought to be undeniable that adding 1 to 2 million people to a country without increasing the housing supply will make it harder to buy and rent a house. And yes much of the health service is depending on immigrants, but it is also true that adding 1-2 million more people will also increase the demand on the health service.
We must always beware of the simplistic answer. Thats what the Nazis did in in Germany and we all know how that ended up. Immigration isn't the root of all our problems any more than membership/non-membership of the EU is. But its equally childish not to question whether we have the balance right and whether we should do more on housing, jobs, the NHS and integration.
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on the housing situation. The main effects on the housing situation are about property prices being too high, economic inequality between different parts of the country, problems with planning, and changes in household structures (more people living alone).
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on demand in the NHS, but the bigger problems are around the age profile of the country, underfunding of public health and mental health, COVID-19, and how we fund social care.
Yes, of course a country should have a considered policy around immigration, but the idea of immigration as the root cause of many things is scapegoating and distracts us from actually dealing with the big problems.
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
Did Clarkson say that on the BBC? I think you can pick and choose a bit here, but in the context of Farage having milkshake thrown over him, having someone suggest battery acid is up there with those doing time for inciting racial hatred after Southport. I think Clarkson's would be more likely taken as a joke, but equally its a stupid comment.
How much spare housing was available before we added 1-2 million more people? If it was not say 500,000 free houses/flats etc then can you not see how bad the impact can be? They all need to live somewhere.
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
The line between licensed jester/arsehole, and unacceptable provocateur is a fuzzy one.
Drawing it by political affiliation is plain wrong.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Partly its just luck of the draw. At my fittest, training four times a week I only just got my 5K time to 26 minutes and my half time to 54. I simply do not have the capacity to run distance much faster.
If you look at the london marathon elites - they tend to be very slight in the frame, with long legs.
Running is a brutal way to separate people.
If you are in the jungle with just Mo Farah and a tiger appears, just start praying
If a tiger appears, you’ve got nothing to worry about. A tiger that wants to eat you, you won’t see that until it’s too late surely.
It's quite hard to see anything but a Reform win here isn't it? Both the Labour party and the Tories are in a quagmire at the moment. Labour supporters will not be enthusiastic to vote and Tories...well, the old loyalties are gone, that's for sure.
Will it mean anything (other than making the bet for 10 Reform MPs by the end of the year)? Of course not. But people are pissed, frustrated and disappointed. A kick at the traditional ruling parties is the conventional response.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
How much spare housing was available before we added 1-2 million more people? If it was not say 500,000 free houses/flats etc then can you not see how bad the impact can be? They all need to live somewhere.
Depends what you mean by "spare". The UK housing stock has been increasing faster than the population and even the number of households. We have 26 million spare bedrooms. The issue is demand is concentrated in a few small parts of the country.
That's why you get the counter-intuitive situation in France, which has 8 million more houses than we do but slightly higher housing costs for poorer people and much more overcrowding. Building more houses is part of the solution, but not sufficient in itself, for fixing issues with housing.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
There feels like there is some difference between comments about a named individual and comments about a category. The former seems more deliberate?
When I was a councillor, chugging used to come up as an issue. And it has always intrigued and amused me that the Venn diagram of 'I hate charity fundraising in the street' and 'beggars are all scroungers' and 'it's better if the government gives less help and leaves it to charity' is close to unity.
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
Did Clarkson say that on the BBC? I think you can pick and choose a bit here, but in the context of Farage having milkshake thrown over him, having someone suggest battery acid is up there with those doing time for inciting racial hatred after Southport. I think Clarkson's would be more likely taken as a joke, but equally its a stupid comment.
Brand, a comedian, was clearly joking. (Maybe it was a bad joke, but it was clearly a joke.) Clarkson was exaggerating for effect, rhetorical hyperbole: I don’t know whether that counts as a joke or not. (Again, not comment on whether he should have said it.)
Clarkson made his comment on a live BBC programme, The One Show.
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
There feels like there is some difference between comments about a named individual and comments about a category. The former seems more deliberate?
In that case the Hester case is worse than the Kneecap case. Hester was talking about someone specific, Kneecap about a category.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
It's worse than that. It's a way of using immigrants as a human shield and exploiting people's fear of being accused of racism.
It's easy to see how ridiculous the argument is if you apply it to some other question:
- I think we have too much private debt. - So you're saying that borrowers are the source of all the problems? Why do you hate borrowers?
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
But it’s a problem if the cause of 95% of our problems goes neglected. Trump is trying to deport millions. At the end of doing that, will he have made a substantial difference to any of the US’s problems? No. If a Reform UK government came along and spent all its energy on tracking down every visa overstayer and deporting them, would that solve the UK’s problems?
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
Another extraordinary thrashing for the AG in the US in respect of 2 more people detained as alleged members of Tren de Aragua.
The court expressly did not address whether Trump's decision to invoke the Enemy Aliens Act was legal (although they went out of their way to make it clear that they were not to be taken as even implicitly accepting that). Instead, it focused on the question of whether there was any evidence that these 2 petitioners actually fell within Trump's declaration. And the answer was "no". Indeed the paucity of evidence was beyond embarrassing, assuming of course Bondi and her ilk were actually capable of such an emotion. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379.27.0.pdf
The US government is currently out of control. Attempts to bring them back under the rule of law are being made but having little effect. Its time some of the officials were remanded to make it clear that they do not have immunity.
When Frank Hester said that Diane Abbott should be shot, Kemi Badenoch said “You are interested in the story from last week, which has been apologised for and everyone has moved on… This is something that is pure media bubble speculation. It is not what the country cares about.”
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
People are inconsistent. The Tories were wrong over Hester.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
Yes, that's another good example, when Jo Brand said that it should have been battery acid thrown over Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister Theresa May said via her spokesman "The prime minister has consistently said politicians should be able to campaign without harassment, intimidation and abuse. It is for the BBC to explain why it was appropriate content to broadcast."
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
Did Clarkson say that on the BBC? I think you can pick and choose a bit here, but in the context of Farage having milkshake thrown over him, having someone suggest battery acid is up there with those doing time for inciting racial hatred after Southport. I think Clarkson's would be more likely taken as a joke, but equally its a stupid comment.
Brand, a comedian, was clearly joking. (Maybe it was a bad joke, but it was clearly a joke.) Clarkson was exaggerating for effect, rhetorical hyperbole: I don’t know whether that counts as a joke or not. (Again, not comment on whether he should have said it.)
Clarkson made his comment on a live BBC programme, The One Show.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
But it’s a problem if the cause of 95% of our problems goes neglected. Trump is trying to deport millions. At the end of doing that, will he have made a substantial difference to any of the US’s problems? No. If a Reform UK government came along and spent all its energy on tracking down every visa overstayer and deporting them, would that solve the UK’s problems?
Or, put another way, if you’ve got a solution to 5% of our problems, great, let’s do it. But don’t make it 70% of your manifesto pitch.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
It's worse than that. It's a way of using immigrants as a human shield and exploiting people's fear of being accused of racism.
It's easy to see how ridiculous the argument is if you apply it to some other question:
- I think we have too much private debt. - So you're saying that borrowers are the source of all the problems? Why do you hate borrowers?
William, people like your hero Donald Trump get accused of being racist because he *is* racist.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The US is currently trying this approach, give the ultras what they want. It doesn’t seem to be a pleasant experience for most people, it’s even hurting us in the UK, and the ultras still think they’re right.
How much spare housing was available before we added 1-2 million more people? If it was not say 500,000 free houses/flats etc then can you not see how bad the impact can be? They all need to live somewhere.
Depends what you mean by "spare". The UK housing stock has been increasing faster than the population and even the number of households. We have 26 million spare bedrooms. The issue is demand is concentrated in a few small parts of the country.
That's why you get the counter-intuitive situation in France, which has 8 million more houses than we do but slightly higher housing costs for poorer people and much more overcrowding. Building more houses is part of the solution, but not sufficient in itself, for fixing issues with housing.
Perhaps we should ask the Chinese to help out.
The former deputy head of China's statistics bureau, He Keng, admitted two years ago that the most "extreme estimate" is that there are now enough vacant homes for 3 billion people.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
I agree on coal, but I'd guess that Drax could switch back to coal with minimal hassle (I don't know whether there's more to it than simply switching the fuel).
Comments
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/30/baldwin-eden-callaghan-sunak-failed-yet-great-pms-canada/ (£££)
https://x.com/Msamalam/status/1917215066526470434
He obviously heard about "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and didn't understand what "Reduce" meant....
JC did say something recently about the many cancelled elections having played into Reform's hands by allowing them to concentrate resources.
You also won’t find even a single cigarette butt in Central Park.
Self-soiling seems to be a particularly British problem, as drivers from back from Normandy into Kent can also attest.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
None of them are haring around during the day like car or bus drivers, though I've been walking part of the time with my cycling gilet - which has the "I'm running Shrodinger's video camera" sign on it.
There are plenty of twats with noisy exhausts on their BMWs or warm hatchbacks, putting out the "look at me I have a micropenis" message.
Most people are nice, kind, friendly. Most people just want to get on with their lives. But it ought to be undeniable that adding 1 to 2 million people to a country without increasing the housing supply will make it harder to buy and rent a house.
And yes much of the health service is depending on immigrants, but it is also true that adding 1-2 million more people will also increase the demand on the health service.
We must always beware of the simplistic answer. Thats what the Nazis did in in Germany and we all know how that ended up. Immigration isn't the root of all our problems any more than membership/non-membership of the EU is. But its equally childish not to question whether we have the balance right and whether we should do more on housing, jobs, the NHS and integration.
The fact that celibate male RC cardinals have never* elected a complete amoral shit doesn't mean they won't this time
*I don't actually know whether this is true
Is it only something we have to allow free speech to prevail over because the target was Tory MPs?
Kneecap are fucking scumbags and of Glastonbury is an inclusive and progressive culture there should be no platform for such pricks.
I was just chatting to an acquaintance at the pool, who did the London marathon at the weekend. She said she had had a bad race, and got a blister under a toenail. When I asked her her time, she said "2 hours, 43 minutes."
Her 'bad' time is half my best ever. And she's only a decade younger than me...
But I'm also in awe of her. How do they manage to run that fast?
If you look at the london marathon elites - they tend to be very slight in the frame, with long legs.
Running is a brutal way to separate people.
There is no such thing as the right to consequence-free free speech with which it is often confused.
When Kneecap suggested Tory MPs should be killed, Kemi Badenoch said ""Now footage shows one of them saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP'. After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution."
This isn't even whataboutism because Labour were equally harsh in both cases. It's only Tories that are so blatantly hypocritical.
My particular favourite of the genre was Jo Brand and the Farage battery acid comment.
It equally gives me the right to permanently boycott any pub willing to give racist / sexist idiots a stage for even a few minutes.
Both those items are things free speech zealots hate - because what they really want is force people to listen to their views
Kipchoge set to run the London Marathon in the Nike Alphafly 4 — plus more super shoes to watch
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/gear/shoes/a64575538/london-marathon-2025-super-shoes/
The 2025 London Marathon wasn’t just about record-breaking runs — it was a showcase of the fastest, lightest, and most innovative shoes ever built.
https://marathonhandbook.com/the-shoes-that-won-the-2025-london-marathon/
I can’t think why Reform would prefer that they bias controlled immigration to white Christians rather than people from emerging markets
Sam Dumitriu
@Sam_Dumitriu
On chugging.
My latest in @SpectatorLife
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1917480732512989538
I have spent far too many hours trying to find those shoes for my kids because that’s all they ever wanted, shoes with flashing lights in them.
When Jeremy Clarkson said that public sector strikers should be shot in front of their families, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "That's obviously a silly thing to say and I'm sure he didn't mean that. I didn't see the remark but I'm sure it's a silly thing to say."
One problem with a tall stack height is reduced stability around corners and less ankle support.
https://x.com/SCP_Hughes/status/1917215767910817809
Great thread.
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on demand in the NHS, but the bigger problems are around the age profile of the country, underfunding of public health and mental health, COVID-19, and how we fund social care.
Yes, of course a country should have a considered policy around immigration, but the idea of immigration as the root cause of many things is scapegoating and distracts us from actually dealing with the big problems.
Drawing it by political affiliation is plain wrong.
Will it mean anything (other than making the bet for 10 Reform MPs by the end of the year)? Of course not. But people are pissed, frustrated and disappointed. A kick at the traditional ruling parties is the conventional response.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
That's why you get the counter-intuitive situation in France, which has 8 million more houses than we do but slightly higher housing costs for poorer people and much more overcrowding. Building more houses is part of the solution, but not sufficient in itself, for fixing issues with housing.
Clarkson made his comment on a live BBC programme, The One Show.
We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...)
we have zero coal-fire power stations left.
We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
It's easy to see how ridiculous the argument is if you apply it to some other question:
- I think we have too much private debt.
- So you're saying that borrowers are the source of all the problems? Why do you hate borrowers?
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
The court expressly did not address whether Trump's decision to invoke the Enemy Aliens Act was legal (although they went out of their way to make it clear that they were not to be taken as even implicitly accepting that). Instead, it focused on the question of whether there was any evidence that these 2 petitioners actually fell within Trump's declaration. And the answer was "no". Indeed the paucity of evidence was beyond embarrassing, assuming of course Bondi and her ilk were actually capable of such an emotion.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172835379.27.0.pdf
The US government is currently out of control. Attempts to bring them back under the rule of law are being made but having little effect. Its time some of the officials were remanded to make it clear that they do not have immunity.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
But my level of certainty is such that I am only on this at £7.50.
There are only 1.4bn Chinese.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpq7y8vl55yo
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans).
...
In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/wheels-for-wellbeing-position-statement-active-travel-routes-and-water-hazard/
@KevinASchofield
Spokesman for Kemi Badenoch insists “she is staying on” as Tory leader regardless of how bad the party does in the local elections.