In about four hours I will be landing at one of the most dangerous airports in the world
😶
Tegucigalpa?
Edit: it is certainly dangerous to take off not sure about landing. Mountain range at the end of the runway.
Never been. Looks *exciting*
Old Hong Kong was incredible
Bhutan airport is seriously dicey - or so it feels
Flying up and out of the Copper Canyon in Mexico in a tiny prop plane is quite an experience. The thermals are intense. 😬
I missed the old Hong Kong airport by about 6 years. Went there in 2005.
We were racing to land there ahead of a tropical storm hitting. Did the corner - but then went vertical as the pilot throught better of it. Then spent 24 hours on the runway at Taiwan, without being allowed to disembark. Longest I have ever stayed on the same plane.
This is the second time this Minister has been sent out to spin a load of nonsense, and he is terrible at it. Sophie Ridge basically calls him an outright liar
Sophy Ridge is right - the claim that the Winter Fuel payment is back because the economy is stronger does not stand up to scrutiny. As she shows here...
Indeed. Sometimes (usually?) governments are better to defend U-turns by simply saying something like 'politics is also about listening; there was clearly more opposition on this than we expected; we've heard the arguments, are persuaded by them and have changed our mind".
Winter Fuel Allowance is a nonsense but I don't think U Turns, or scrapping policies that aren't working out, are bad in principle. Governments have two possible explanations:
(1) The circumstances have changed so we have changed - as the government is claiming here. (2) We got it wrong. We've listened. We've fixed it.
I don't think it matters very much as long as people are happy that the policy is being changed. The important thing is to focus on the benefit of the change.
There is on the whole no such thing as unwanted free money. As every welfare state finds out daily.
Oh I agree. The reinstated WFA does essentially nothing to improve pensioner poverty. The one not-bad-thing I suppose is it will cost a relatively small amount of money in the scheme of things.
Rachel Reeves forgot the wise words of the 17th century French finance minister: "The art of taxation is to pluck the most feathers from the goose for the fewest squawks." Reeves got lots of squawks and not many feathers.
Public spending, or TME, runs at about £45,000 per household (source: OBR). This is, to say the least, to most people a gigantic sum. The achievement by which most (not all - see the PSBR) of this is raised by taxation is a recurring miracle of goose feather plucking. I amd my household are not poor, but even so it feels incomprehensible how it is done.
In about four hours I will be landing at one of the most dangerous airports in the world
😶
Bournemouth ?
Even worse
I’ve just been looking at videos of the approach, as aircraft land. The view from the cockpit
I shouldnae have done that
With all of your flying how many 'emergencies' have you been involved in. I don't know whether I am unlucky, because my travel is significantly less than yours, but I have had 2:
An aborted take off. Not very dramatic but a good set of brakes, but chaos afterwards.
An emergency landing which involved a fly past the tower and meeting a lot of nice firemen when we left the plane.
PS I have had an emergency landing in a field when being taught to fly a glider, because the winch launch went wrong, but I don't count that.
We have experienced 2 aborted landings at Heathrow, and the loss of an engine on a Qantas 747 on a direct flight from Heathrow to Sydney after refueling in Bangkok
The pilot informed us, and said that he was to release fuel and could only land back at Bangkok after a couple of hours of this which when we did were followed by fire engines and ambulances before coming to a halt in an apparently safe area
We were taken to a 5 star hotel, where we spent one and half nights before meeting the same captain at the departure gate as our replacement plane approached it's stance with 5 engines, the captain informing us that the inboard engine would be removed and installed on our faulty 747
I was in a 2-seater and the pilot asked if I wanted to try a loop the loop. I did. We got about halfway through before the pilot had to take back control promptly.
Similar experience to me when the winch launch of the glider went wrong. We were taking off and I thought 'I have really got the hang of this. This is the easiest one yet. Very gentle compared to the earlier ones'. At which point the instructor said 'I'm taking over'. The gear changes had gone wrong and we were far too low to loop back to the airfield and landed in a farmer's field. I played no part in the landing. which went very well.
My most bizarre experience was in Russia - flying in to Saratov (on Some bizarre Tupolev jet). We aborted landing first time around - and for second attempt all of the cabin crew ran down to the back of the plane - presumably to help balance the trim... I don't know what I might have felt if I was sober...
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
If AI leads to mass unemployment it would be funded by a robot tax
The unemployment will be in thought / clerical work and that’s not going to be taxable because good luck working out where the server the AI was running on for that transaction is?
All companies which have announced net job losses would be assumed to have done so by AI and would therefore have the robot tax imposed on them automatically, no need to trace any servers.
If we get to mass unemployment forget free market capitalism, that would be dead, the government will get more and more statist with each job replaced by AI as no party could get elected otherwise
This is the second time this Minister has been sent out to spin a load of nonsense, and he is terrible at it. Sophie Ridge basically calls him an outright liar
Sophy Ridge is right - the claim that the Winter Fuel payment is back because the economy is stronger does not stand up to scrutiny. As she shows here...
Indeed. Sometimes (usually?) governments are better to defend U-turns by simply saying something like 'politics is also about listening; there was clearly more opposition on this than we expected; we've heard the arguments, are persuaded by them and have changed our mind".
Winter Fuel Allowance is a nonsense but I don't think U Turns, or scrapping policies that aren't working out, are bad in principle. Governments have two possible explanations:
(1) The circumstances have changed so we have changed - as the government is claiming here. (2) We got it wrong. We've listened. We've fixed it.
I don't think it matters very much as long as people are happy that the policy is being changed. The important thing is to focus on the benefit of the change.
There is on the whole no such thing as unwanted free money. As every welfare state finds out daily.
Oh I agree. The reinstated WFA does essentially nothing to improve pensioner poverty. The one not-bad-thing I suppose is it will cost a relatively small amount of money in the scheme of things.
Rachel Reeves forgot the wise words of the 17th century French finance minister: "The art of taxation is to pluck the most feathers from the goose for the fewest squawks." Reeves got lots of squawks and not many feathers.
Public spending, or TME, runs at about £45,000 per household (source: OBR). This is, to say the least, to most people a gigantic sum. The achievement by which most (not all - see the PSBR) of this is raised by taxation is a recurring miracle of goose feather plucking. I amd my household are not poor, but even so it feels incomprehensible how it is done.
PAYE and VAT are both good at making us not notice.
An interesting plane fact is that I think they used to quite often re-fuel while the passengers were still on board the aircraft. Now that would be regarded as a bad idea wrt health and safety.
Do you support or oppose extending Winter Fuel Payment to most pensioners?
✅ Support 69% ❌ Oppose 10% 🤷♂️ Don't know 21%
[Find Out Now, 9th June, N=1,005]
Does this change make you more or less likely to vote Labour?
📈 More likely 10% 📉 Less likely 16% ➖ No difference 74%
Lmao, well done big Rach
Depends if that 10% voted Labour last year and are now voting elsewhere and if that 16% never voted Labour anyway
True - and it's almost pointless to ask now.
The difference comes in four years time. It was a clear negative, and appears to have been the one issue that was defining the Government. At the next election this isn't going to be an easy attack line that had festered for the whole parliament.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
Ten minutes of George Osborne and Ed Balls discussing the politics and logistics of Boris and Jenrick.
Senior Cameroon Tories are not dismissing it out of hand and acknowledging that he would likely pull the party together, while being popular with large parts of the electorate. More in sorrow than anger but it is on the table for discussion, if not quite implementation. Yet.
Boris Johnson returning to lead the Tories would be a glorious victory for anyone wanting to see the formerly Conservative and formerly Unionist Party finally reduced to rump status.
Tony Blair - a political titan of his age. Completely reshaped his party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after he stepped down. Margaret Thatcher - a political titan of several ages. Completely reshaped her party and won three elections with two of them landslides. Not brought back as leader despite the decline after she stepped down.
Boris Johnson - the self-titled World King. Bolloxed up Brexit by accidentally winning it (crumbs!), reduced his party to a minority by sacking his own MPs as not being Conservative enough (including Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson - cripes!). Won an election with a chunky majority and then proceeded to not actually have a plan for what to do in government. Hounded out of office for one scandal too far.
If they bring him back then they truly are finished. Do it. DO IT!
Crap. Boris is the only Tory leader option who beats Reform and Labour in the recent MoreinCommon poll.
When Thatcher or Blair left neither the Conservatives or Labour were polling in third place
It's about more than polling. You have to be able to actually do the job - and Johnson is a lazy, narcissistic, corrupt liar. He is untrustworthy, divisive, vindictive, small-minded, short-sighted, cowardly and mean. He thinks, and his supporters think, he can get away with all that because he has a nice turn of phrase. It won't work for the same reason that it didn't work last time - plus there's now a lot of water under the bridge; people know him better. Of course, for some, blind eyes will always be turned but that's not a great basis on which to form strategy.
And he's 61 in a couple of weeks but looks older. His cheerful buffoon act was marginally tolerable in 2008 when he was just into his forties and a city mayor; it looks sad and desperate acting like a twenty-something when you're almost collecting your pension.
Your character analysis of Boris is absurdly spiteful. He’s a flawed man but also a gifted man. He can be generous funny kind and very clever; he is also narcissistic, foolish, silly, easily distracted, and overly libidinous. A libertine is probably the best word for him
He might have been a good or even great prime minister in the right circumstances. His response to Ukraine shows the potential. But he was exactly the wrong man for something like Covid, especially when he’d made so many lifelong enemies via Brexit - all determined to bring him down
He needs to step away now, tho. I agree on that
Boris! had a lot of talents which could have shone through. He is a brilliant bullshit artist, so fantastic at selling something and getting people excited and motivated.
I can see the appeal to the tories of bringing Johnson back. Pitting Olukemi Olufunto against Nigel Paul is the epitome of bringing piss to shit fight. And it's watery piss, not one of those reeking, misty, orangey old man pisses you do after a vegan dal makhani and ten hours of sleep.
Johnson would be just as good as Farage at dominating the news cycle and probably even better and more convincing at promising gewgaws, that he has no intention of delivering, to moronic chavs in places where even the seagulls have heart disease from eating chips.
Johnson might be decent if he hires a competent chief executive figure to actually run government while he handles the PR and occasionally gets involved in things he's worked up about, like Ukraine. Not an arrogant crank like Cummings, but someone like the people who ran TfL for him while he was Mayor of London.
God knows we haven't had a competent and effective PM in many years so that's what we may be reduced to, at any rate if we want to get rid of Starmer without letting Reform in.
It's why his Mayorality sort of worked. He could appoint competent minions who were happy to do the technical stuff while he did the gladhanding. Deputy Mayors aren't a threat to the Mayor.
It didn't work for Boris as PM, because his minions (the Cabinet) were also his rivals and potential successors. So they couldn't be too competent.
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Do you support or oppose extending Winter Fuel Payment to most pensioners?
✅ Support 69% ❌ Oppose 10% 🤷♂️ Don't know 21%
[Find Out Now, 9th June, N=1,005]
Does this change make you more or less likely to vote Labour?
📈 More likely 10% 📉 Less likely 16% ➖ No difference 74%
Lmao, well done big Rach
Depends if that 10% voted Labour last year and are now voting elsewhere and if that 16% never voted Labour anyway
I support this measure and its implementation makes me less likely to vote for the government that did it. Welcome to the great British voter.
The data tables that were just posted, are even starker. The people who MOST support the measure, and also those LEAST likely to move to Labour (but they are also people mostly people who didn't vote Labour in 2024, so it's not unexpected).
In about four hours I will be landing at one of the most dangerous airports in the world
😶
Bournemouth ?
Even worse
I’ve just been looking at videos of the approach, as aircraft land. The view from the cockpit
I shouldnae have done that
With all of your flying how many 'emergencies' have you been involved in. I don't know whether I am unlucky, because my travel is significantly less than yours, but I have had 2:
An aborted take off. Not very dramatic but a good set of brakes, but chaos afterwards.
An emergency landing which involved a fly past the tower and meeting a lot of nice firemen when we left the plane.
PS I have had an emergency landing in a field when being taught to fly a glider, because the winch launch went wrong, but I don't count that.
It feels like tempting fate but - with all my travels - the worst aircraft experience I’ve had is really severe turbulence (which is pretty terrifying; that said)
The scariest flight experience of all was a microlight flight up the south face of Annapurna in Nepal. Followed by paragliding in the Dolomites
This is where I am scheduled to land shortly
“This is what landing at one of Europes most difficult airports look like. Atlantic Airways Airbus A319 touching down in Vagar, Faroe Islands 🇫🇴 - a place I fondly remember. #aviation”
I wasn't too bothered by my emergency landing or emergency takeoff, but I also have once experienced severe turbulence and that was scary. Most of it was just very bumpy, but then we had a really violent moment. Stuff everywhere.
Regarding non airline flights: My one helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon was pretty tame. My glider flights were also except for the emergency landing in a field which went well and also having a go in an acrobatic glider which was fun. My bucket list fight in a Pitt Special was the most dramatic flight. Unfortunately my stomach could only stand so much. Two rolls, followed by 2 barrel rolls finished me off so I didn't get the full experience. Glad I did it, but don't want to do it again.
They’ve just warned us on this plane - about to take off - about some stiff turbulence coming our way. Great. I hate turbulence
Your bucket list flight sounds horrific. Bravo on completing it, I shan’t be copying. The older I get the more I realise I am incredibly lucky to still be alive, given the insane risks I’ve taken - in many different ways - all around the world
I don’t need to add to them with pointless but exciting acrobatics in a plane…. I’d be testing God’s patience methinks
Before being allowed to vote everyone should have to barrel roll a Pitt Special, ski the Tortin and somersault a catamaran while out on the wire. The last one wasn't voluntary, but these are huge memories for me.
Before each vote? Or once and then you're set for life? Do postal voters just get to write about such events?
In about four hours I will be landing at one of the most dangerous airports in the world
😶
Bournemouth ?
Even worse
I’ve just been looking at videos of the approach, as aircraft land. The view from the cockpit
I shouldnae have done that
With all of your flying how many 'emergencies' have you been involved in. I don't know whether I am unlucky, because my travel is significantly less than yours, but I have had 2:
An aborted take off. Not very dramatic but a good set of brakes, but chaos afterwards.
An emergency landing which involved a fly past the tower and meeting a lot of nice firemen when we left the plane.
PS I have had an emergency landing in a field when being taught to fly a glider, because the winch launch went wrong, but I don't count that.
We have experienced 2 aborted landings at Heathrow, and the loss of an engine on a Qantas 747 on a direct flight from Heathrow to Sydney after refueling in Bangkok
The pilot informed us, and said that he was to release fuel and could only land back at Bangkok after a couple of hours of this which when we did were followed by fire engines and ambulances before coming to a halt in an apparently safe area
We were taken to a 5 star hotel, where we spent one and half nights before meeting the same captain at the departure gate as our replacement plane approached it's stance with 5 engines, the captain informing us that the inboard engine would be removed and installed on our faulty 747
I was in a 2-seater and the pilot asked if I wanted to try a loop the loop. I did. We got about halfway through before the pilot had to take back control promptly.
Similar experience to me when the winch launch of the glider went wrong. We were taking off and I thought 'I have really got the hang of this. This is the easiest one yet. Very gentle compared to the earlier ones'. At which point the instructor said 'I'm taking over'. The gear changes had gone wrong and we were far too low to loop back to the airfield and landed in a farmer's field. I played no part in the landing. which went very well.
My most memorable flight was in the 80s when I was about 6 years old. Our flight from Tenerife or Gran Canaria tried to land 3 times at Luton Airport and had to pull out each time due to heavy fog. Landed at Gatwick instead and had a horrible coach journey to Luton that seemed to take about 10 hours. Must have been just before they installed GPS or whatever systems they use to land in fog.
My most horrendous flight experience was the time where they'd run out of chicken so I had to have fish.
I was once on an Air India 747 that did an emergency stop halfway through it's takeoff. The subsequent 48 hour delay did at least give me the chance to have my first proper shower in weeks. It turned out I hadn't got a tan in India after all.
OT - the Northern Irish independence strand has tended to be aligned with the loyalist tradition rather than the republican one. So I'd think a majority of them would come down against union with the Irish Republic. Not that there is likely to be a referendum anytime soon. Those have rather gone out of fashion.
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Are you getting this from City AM? Tried to read but paywalled.
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Are you getting this from City AM? Tried to read but paywalled.
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Tories tied with Labour there at least for Kemi as main opposition to Reform, no point at all in a Reform deal there and Reform would not be interested anyway as on those numbers Reform win an overall majority with no need for the Tories.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
As I said, democracy ultimately neither created the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Bombs, terrorism, war and guns did
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Tories tied with Labour there at least for Kemi as main opposition to Reform, no point at all in a Reform deal there and Reform would not be interested anyway as on those numbers Reform win an overall majority with no need for the Tories.
The seat result in a situation like this would come down to how far Reform are surging in the red wall, Wales and inner London versus the Blue Wall, Outer London, SW and East. Probably sees Labour as opposition based on city strongholds but not certain
OT - the Northern Irish independence strand has tended to be aligned with the loyalist tradition rather than the republican one. So I'd think a majority of them would come down against union with the Irish Republic. Not that there is likely to be a referendum anytime soon. Those have rather gone out of fashion.
I think the most likely trigger for a change in the state of the Six Counties is a successful iScotland referendum. Could happen if SKS needs the SNP to form a coalition.
A partial reunification that only leaves Antrim and Down under the occupying forces in a 30/2 split might be a transitional stage that makes sense.
David Frum: "If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control. Or he might suspend voting until, in his opinion, order has been restored. Either way, blue-state seats could be rendered vacant for some time.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
As I said, democracy ultimately neither created the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Bombs, terrorism, war and guns did
That was a hundred years ago.
This is the same kind of language that extreme Afrikaaners came out with before the end of apartheid, referencing the Boer War and even earlier conflicts. In the end, they just accepted it and moved on.
Ireland is not the dirt-poor backwater of embedded mystical popery that they like to imagine.
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
I never threw it at you, it was a polite request. I’m interested in it, especially as people are claiming the state pension is not sustainable at its current level.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
David Frum: "If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control. Or he might suspend voting until, in his opinion, order has been restored. Either way, blue-state seats could be rendered vacant for some time.
I wonder if it'll all kick off in London when he gets his state visit. Probably not, on balance, he's seen as more of Tartuffe style comedic grotesque in the UK.
It would be top entertainment to see the Battle of Los Angeles re-enacted in SW1 while SKS tries to strike the balance between unctuous flattery of Trump and restoring order while tumour king is slowly dying in the corner and grinning inanely.
My most horrendous flight experience was the time where they'd run out of chicken so I had to have fish.
I was once on an Air India 747 that did an emergency stop halfway through it's takeoff. The subsequent 48 hour delay did at least give me the chance to have my first proper shower in weeks. It turned out I hadn't got a tan in India after all.
Worst flight was flying into Alderney, in about the maximum wind speed at which the pilot could/would fly. We came in low across the cliffs at the South-Western end of the island with the 12 seater plane swaying, rolling and pitching.
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
If AI leads to mass unemployment it would be funded by a robot tax
The unemployment will be in thought / clerical work and that’s not going to be taxable because good luck working out where the server the AI was running on for that transaction is?
All companies which have announced net job losses would be assumed to have done so by AI and would therefore have the robot tax imposed on them automatically, no need to trace any servers.
If we get to mass unemployment forget free market capitalism, that would be dead, the government will get more and more statist with each job replaced by AI as no party could get elected otherwise
What’s to stop a company from simply upping sticks and moving to avoid the tax ?
David Frum: "If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control. Or he might suspend voting until, in his opinion, order has been restored. Either way, blue-state seats could be rendered vacant for some time.
I wonder if it'll all kick off in London when he gets his state visit. Probably not, on balance, he's seen as more of Tartuffe style comedic grotesque in the UK.
It would be top entertainment to see the Battle of Los Angeles re-enacted in SW1 while SKS tries to strike the balance between unctuous flattery of Trump and restoring order while tumour king is slowly dying in the corner and grinning inanely.
With Leon interviewing people on Whitehall like a manic Martin Brundle. "It's a race war!".
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
I never threw it at you, it was a polite request. I’m interested in it, especially as people are claiming the state pension is not sustainable at its current level.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
Without a world Government the money doesn’t exist because it will be shifted to wherever the lowest tax rates are
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
If AI leads to mass unemployment it would be funded by a robot tax
The unemployment will be in thought / clerical work and that’s not going to be taxable because good luck working out where the server the AI was running on for that transaction is?
All companies which have announced net job losses would be assumed to have done so by AI and would therefore have the robot tax imposed on them automatically, no need to trace any servers.
If we get to mass unemployment forget free market capitalism, that would be dead, the government will get more and more statist with each job replaced by AI as no party could get elected otherwise
What’s to stop a company from simply upping sticks and moving to avoid the tax ?
We are already having jobs replaced by AI too.
Governments globally would be doing the same, given on this scenario AI would have created mass unemployment worldwide far more than the number replaced now by AI
Some of you may recall my insistence that GDP, or even GDP per capita, is not a good indicator of electoral success nor of happiness etc. Here is a video supporting that:
David Frum: "If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control. Or he might suspend voting until, in his opinion, order has been restored. Either way, blue-state seats could be rendered vacant for some time.
That is my expectation. It would be good if there were free and fair elections next year but I don't feel there are good grounds for expecting them at the moment.
As usual, with Northern Ireland, the bit that has been missed is that a non trivial percentage of *Nationalist* voters say, in all polls, they would vote against unification.
Even during the “Armalite & Ballot Box” days, a chunk of SF voters was always anti.
There are very few Unionist voters for unification, in contrast.
Pretty startling in a way, and the reasons for it have not been investigated with scientific polling. Guesses included benefits (better in the U.K.) and abortion. Maybe even plain not wanting to change.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
As I said, democracy ultimately neither created the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Bombs, terrorism, war and guns did
That was a hundred years ago.
This is the same kind of language that extreme Afrikaaners came out with before the end of apartheid, referencing the Boer War and even earlier conflicts. In the end, they just accepted it and moved on.
Ireland is not the dirt-poor backwater of embedded mystical popery that they like to imagine.
The terrorist war between the IRA and UVF and LVF wasn't 100 years ago, it only ended just over 25 years ago and even now splinter factions are still planting the odd bomb. Orange Order parades still get large attendance, including young people leading the marching, based on fervent defiance of Popery and Dublin.
Not all Afrikaaners have accepted ANC South Africa either, indeed Orania is a rapidly growing white Afrikaner only separatist enclave in South Africa
Working as I do at a University I naively expected paternal leave to be generous. I was wrong. The university jumps through every hoop possible for women, but good old dads just get two weeks. Pathetic. There is apparently some sort of Dad strike planned this week to get a better deal.
Anyone whose partner has had a cesarean will now that 6 weeks is around the time for them to get fully mobile again, so 6 weeks ought to be the default paternal leave. Its not much to ask in the modern world of sexual equality.
Sure.
And all these incremental rights come at a cost to the taxpayer and/or business
Freshwater Strategy (who are not exactly 'stable' in VI!) Have this month's poll out in City AM, only figures on show are the interesting Reform 32 Con 21 Lab 21 (6 to 8 Jun) It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
Tories tied with Labour there at least for Kemi as main opposition to Reform, no point at all in a Reform deal there and Reform would not be interested anyway as on those numbers Reform win an overall majority with no need for the Tories.
The seat result in a situation like this would come down to how far Reform are surging in the red wall, Wales and inner London versus the Blue Wall, Outer London, SW and East. Probably sees Labour as opposition based on city strongholds but not certain
London is the only UK region where the main 2 parties are still Labour and the Tories
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
I never threw it at you, it was a polite request. I’m interested in it, especially as people are claiming the state pension is not sustainable at its current level.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
Without a world Government the money doesn’t exist because it will be shifted to wherever the lowest tax rates are
And, as we have seen with Trump, if you have agreements between nations they can just be torn up on a whim.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
You seem to believe that democracy is held by everyone on both side to be the final arbiter in Northern Ireland.
“We deny the right of The People to do wrong” - the Anti-Treaty slogan.
It was in the early 90s. with the fall of the Berlin Wall, that everyone started their lip service to democracy. Hell, we had MPs in the House of Commons, in the 80s, telling us that East Germany was more democratic than actual voting. Because free childcare.
Same thing in NI - suddenly, everyone was couching their arguments in terms of democracy, instead of Historic Right.
Weasel-wording in this poll. A 'reunited' Ireland would mean the Republic rejoining the UK.
A separate united Ireland would be an entirely new thing.
In entire time that 'countries', as we now define and conceptualise them have existed, there has never been a nation state consisting of the entirety of Ireland and nothing else. Never.
Autistic pedantry, I know, but I can't help but wonder if the phrasing is deliberate and tendentious with a specific agenda.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
As I said, democracy ultimately neither created the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Bombs, terrorism, war and guns did
That was a hundred years ago.
This is the same kind of language that extreme Afrikaaners came out with before the end of apartheid, referencing the Boer War and even earlier conflicts. In the end, they just accepted it and moved on.
Ireland is not the dirt-poor backwater of embedded mystical popery that they like to imagine.
Coming from NI, it is inevitable that there will be violence in the event of
- Unification - Rejection of unification - Independence - No change - Joining the Federation - Joining the Culture
The amount and level of it depends on how well it’s sold. If you are lucky, it will be two angry old blokes and a rusty pistol.
As usual, with Northern Ireland, the bit that has been missed is that a non trivial percentage of *Nationalist* voters say, in all polls, they would vote against unification.
Even during the “Armalite & Ballot Box” days, a chunk of SF voters was always anti.
There are very few Unionist voters for unification, in contrast.
Pretty startling in a way, and the reasons for it have not been investigated with scientific polling. Guesses included benefits (better in the U.K.) and abortion. Maybe even plain not wanting to change.
The dynamic between Gerry (from the Republic) and his father in law Joe (from Derry) in Derry Girls is very funny, and I would imagine is rooted in actual attitudes among some Northern Irish Catholics/Nationalists.
Some of you may recall my insistence that GDP, or even GDP per capita, is not a good indicator of electoral success nor of happiness etc. Here is a video supporting that:
We're not allowed to swear on here any more, but I'd really suggest that no-one clicks on that link to give the 'lovely' fellow who wrote it, and the 'superb' magazine it is in, any click kudos.
We're not allowed to swear on here any more, but I'd really suggest that no-one clicks on that link to give the 'lovely' fellow who wrote it, and the 'superb' magazine it is in, any click kudos.
Working as I do at a University I naively expected paternal leave to be generous. I was wrong. The university jumps through every hoop possible for women, but good old dads just get two weeks. Pathetic. There is apparently some sort of Dad strike planned this week to get a better deal.
Anyone whose partner has had a cesarean will now that 6 weeks is around the time for them to get fully mobile again, so 6 weeks ought to be the default paternal leave. Its not much to ask in the modern world of sexual equality.
Sure.
And all these incremental rights come at a cost to the taxpayer and/or business
But they often add to productivity. Several European nations with lower working hours have better mental health, lower levels of relationship breakdown, and much better productivity, overall, than the U.K.
In about four hours I will be landing at one of the most dangerous airports in the world
😶
Bournemouth ?
Even worse
I’ve just been looking at videos of the approach, as aircraft land. The view from the cockpit
I shouldnae have done that
With all of your flying how many 'emergencies' have you been involved in. I don't know whether I am unlucky, because my travel is significantly less than yours, but I have had 2:
An aborted take off. Not very dramatic but a good set of brakes, but chaos afterwards.
An emergency landing which involved a fly past the tower and meeting a lot of nice firemen when we left the plane.
PS I have had an emergency landing in a field when being taught to fly a glider, because the winch launch went wrong, but I don't count that.
It feels like tempting fate but - with all my travels - the worst aircraft experience I’ve had is really severe turbulence (which is pretty terrifying; that said)
The scariest flight experience of all was a microlight flight up the south face of Annapurna in Nepal. Followed by paragliding in the Dolomites
This is where I am scheduled to land shortly
“This is what landing at one of Europes most difficult airports look like. Atlantic Airways Airbus A319 touching down in Vagar, Faroe Islands 🇫🇴 - a place I fondly remember. #aviation”
I wasn't too bothered by my emergency landing or emergency takeoff, but I also have once experienced severe turbulence and that was scary. Most of it was just very bumpy, but then we had a really violent moment. Stuff everywhere.
Regarding non airline flights: My one helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon was pretty tame. My glider flights were also except for the emergency landing in a field which went well and also having a go in an acrobatic glider which was fun. My bucket list fight in a Pitt Special was the most dramatic flight. Unfortunately my stomach could only stand so much. Two rolls, followed by 2 barrel rolls finished me off so I didn't get the full experience. Glad I did it, but don't want to do it again.
They’ve just warned us on this plane - about to take off - about some stiff turbulence coming our way. Great. I hate turbulence
Your bucket list flight sounds horrific. Bravo on completing it, I shan’t be copying. The older I get the more I realise I am incredibly lucky to still be alive, given the insane risks I’ve taken - in many different ways - all around the world
I don’t need to add to them with pointless but exciting acrobatics in a plane…. I’d be testing God’s patience methinks
Before being allowed to vote everyone should have to barrel roll a Pitt Special, ski the Tortin and somersault a catamaran while out on the wire. The last one wasn't voluntary, but these are huge memories for me.
Before each vote? Or once and then you're set for life? Do postal voters just get to write about such events?
"Voting was [a] risk."
Just once. I don't want to be seen as unreasonable.
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK’s youngest female terror suspect A British schoolgirl was groomed and radicalised by an American white supremacist – and failed by those who were supposed to protect her
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler.
She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children’s home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority.
... Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists.
By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/25/rhianan-rudd-british-female-terror-suspect/ (£££)
See also the grooming of Shemima Begum, a less sympathetic figure, and also the Prevent guidelines on the far right that some have been railing against in the last day or two.
From that synopsis, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the authorities 'failed' her: in reality there was probably little they could do to someone who was evidently rather broken quite early in life. I'm guessing the family and upbringing are much more responsible? (*)
I can't read the article: what would the article's writers have done differently?
(*) This might well be wrong...
The authorities eg Prevent intervened quickly. The genesis was in a broken marriage, then her mother getting into a "prison penfriend" scheme with a neo-Nazi in a US prison, and him or an associate eventually ended up coming to the UK and groomed her daughter. There are a couple of neo-Nazis involved, and other aspects. Social media involved. One of the blokes from the USA has taken up with one of mum's friends who was contributing to the care for the daughter, and is now abroad with him - defending him to the Telegraph.
(AFAICS it was in Bolsover and Chesterfield - so Derby CC as service provider, and only the referral children's home was Notts - so strange geography from the Telegraph.)
So mum was naive, it's about unwise contact with prisoners, consequences / bounce back from broken relationships, social media, complexity of cases, and perhaps availability of resources for services to catch things early.
It's a bizarre story.
My son has a friend the same age (10/11). His mum is a single parent, and the kid has two much older siblings, both out of school. The friend is often absent from school, because, apparently, he sleeps in. The mother evidently finds it hard to cope; the school had to fill in the application form for her son to go to secondary school, and she often phones me asking (e.g.) what day school starts for the new term. He was riding a mile to school, including over what passes for a hill in this area, on a bike that was far too small for him, and which had half a seat and non-working brakes (*).
He's a lovely kid, but very shy and sensitive; about as far from being a tearaway as you can imagine. His mum absolutely adores him, and she's a pleasant, friendly lady to chat to.
I obviously don't see everything, but I see the school doing a lot to try and help him. AFAIAA no-one in the household works.
I feel very sorry for the kid, and if he succeeds in life, as I hope he does, it will say much positive about his character. If he was to end up being a criminal or worse, I wouldn't see it as being the state's fault. He's having a very poor start in life due to his family situation. I don't particularly blame his mother, and I have no idea where his father is (who apparently left when the kid was a baby).
The whole situation seems messed up, and I don't know what anyone can do to really help. I can only hope that mess does not continue into the next generation.
In case anyone thinks otherwise, they're British WWC.
(*) I tried fixing the bike, but it was utterly borken. It needed nuking from orbit. A few weeks ago I bought him a small adult second-hand bike that should see him through for a few years - I had to take the handlebars and seat down to their minimum. He still refuses to wear a helmet, though...
Thank you for helping him where you could.
Thanks. Actually, I think the regular playdates help him more. He's been coming here since well before Covid (*), and he was so shy and sensitive that, until he was seven or eight, when it came time for him to leave and I'd ask him if he'd have a nice time, he'd burst out crying and say "No!". Then when I'd ask him if he'd like to come around again, he'd say "Yes!". Aside from his much older brother, I fear I'm the only adult male he has regular contact with - all his class teachers have been female.
I really like the kid (if I didn't, I wouldn't have him around). But I do fear for him. But there's not much else I feel able to do, and I'm unsure what more the state can do. His mum is waiting on an ADHD test or somesuch for him, and I would not be surprised if the kid was ADHD. But I'm also unsure what *good* any such diagnosis will do given his mum is, from my viewpoint, finding the basics difficult. It'd be an answer to some of the kids problems, but perhaps only the smaller problems.
I'm firmly and happily middle class, but that kid is giving me tiny glimpses into a very different type of life.
And I have zero answers as how to 'fix' their situation. Even if it was my job to interfere to try to 'fix' it. Or even if they want it 'fixing'...
(I don't want to appear a do-gooder, or make his mum and siblings out to be bad people. AFAIAA they are not. It's obvious something has gone majorly wrong, though, and the kid is suffering, if only by regularly missing school.)
(*) Their teacher in year 1 actually asked me if we could have him around for a playdate. He has been the only kid who has been in the same class as my son for the entirety of primary. We suspect the school have kept them together. If so, good on them.
Well done for stepping up. You may notably improve this kid’s chances in life. The right adult at the right time can be a profound blessing
Sounds like the child may well have School Avoidance issues as well. The classic for this is that they pull back from friends as well as school and end up not coming out of their bedrooms.
It’s an anxiety based problem - *everything* becomes an insurmountable problem. Often associated with, but not caused by, directly, ADHD and obsessive behaviours.
In about four hours I will be landing at one of the most dangerous airports in the world
😶
Bournemouth ?
Even worse
I’ve just been looking at videos of the approach, as aircraft land. The view from the cockpit
I shouldnae have done that
With all of your flying how many 'emergencies' have you been involved in. I don't know whether I am unlucky, because my travel is significantly less than yours, but I have had 2:
An aborted take off. Not very dramatic but a good set of brakes, but chaos afterwards.
An emergency landing which involved a fly past the tower and meeting a lot of nice firemen when we left the plane.
PS I have had an emergency landing in a field when being taught to fly a glider, because the winch launch went wrong, but I don't count that.
We have experienced 2 aborted landings at Heathrow, and the loss of an engine on a Qantas 747 on a direct flight from Heathrow to Sydney after refueling in Bangkok
The pilot informed us, and said that he was to release fuel and could only land back at Bangkok after a couple of hours of this which when we did were followed by fire engines and ambulances before coming to a halt in an apparently safe area
We were taken to a 5 star hotel, where we spent one and half nights before meeting the same captain at the departure gate as our replacement plane approached it's stance with 5 engines, the captain informing us that the inboard engine would be removed and installed on our faulty 747
I was in a 2-seater and the pilot asked if I wanted to try a loop the loop. I did. We got about halfway through before the pilot had to take back control promptly.
Similar experience to me when the winch launch of the glider went wrong. We were taking off and I thought 'I have really got the hang of this. This is the easiest one yet. Very gentle compared to the earlier ones'. At which point the instructor said 'I'm taking over'. The gear changes had gone wrong and we were far too low to loop back to the airfield and landed in a farmer's field. I played no part in the landing. which went very well.
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
As I said, democracy ultimately neither created the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Bombs, terrorism, war and guns did
That was a hundred years ago.
This is the same kind of language that extreme Afrikaaners came out with before the end of apartheid, referencing the Boer War and even earlier conflicts. In the end, they just accepted it and moved on.
Ireland is not the dirt-poor backwater of embedded mystical popery that they like to imagine.
The terrorist war between the IRA and UVF and LVF wasn't 100 years ago, it only ended just over 25 years ago and even now splinter factions are still planting the odd bomb. Orange Order parades still get large attendance, including young people leading the marching, based on fervent defiance of Popery and Dublin.
Not all Afrikaaners have accepted ANC South Africa either, indeed Orania is a rapidly growing white Afrikaner only separatist enclave in South Africa
Well, in violence comes, violence comes. As you note, many things in Ireland have come with violence before, during and after. It shouldn't be a driving factor in decision-making - though the minimisation of it by prudent policing and security work, as well as political activity, should be.
Either way though, if Northern Ireland votes to unite, that should be, and will be, that: unification will follow - though the terms will still need to be negotiated.
Some news on SMR too this morning. I wonder what MaxPB makes of it.
Numbers on nuclear never add up. The cost of one nuclear power station (ca £40 billion) generating a steady 3GW is close to total planned investments in offshore wind providing up to 70GW intermittent.
Fair point. The Czechs presumably don't have the option of offshore wind. They can do solar, which is cheap and pretty much the default generation choice these days.
Plus the fringe benefits of nuclear power. Run some fuel rods at low power settings, for a short time. Oxalic acid and some fairly simple chemistry….
I don’t know about him being Mayor, but I sat on the next table to him in a cafe in Brentwood a couple of years ago and there is no artifice, he was just as you see him in tv/social media; shouting up his order to the woman behind the till, calling her by her first name, and quite naturally dominating the room in a friendly way. He has got something, a big personality, although maybe too rough round the edges for politics
We're not allowed to swear on here any more, but I'd really suggest that no-one clicks on that link to give the 'lovely' fellow who wrote it, and the 'superb' magazine it is in, any click kudos.
We're not allowed to swear any more? I know that c*** is banned because it triggers an admin report. Is this new?
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
I never threw it at you, it was a polite request. I’m interested in it, especially as people are claiming the state pension is not sustainable at its current level.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
Can you explain where the money comes from if we don't have UBI? The scenario is that AI takes a few million jobs out of the economy. Gone, not coming back. Unless the economy is dynamic enough to create equivalent replacement jobs then you're facing a large and permanent unemployment problem.
UBI costs a shitton of money. No disagreement from me here. But in the scenario we're talking about not doing UBI *also* costs a shitton of money.
You rightly ask where the money is coming from. And I don't have a direct answer - I think UBI can free people to be creative and thus more productive but that's not backed with hard numbers. But you also can't explain where to find the money to pay for mass unemployment.
Not spending money is not an option. It's just how we spend it which we can debate.
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
"Endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past" would be a good way to describe introducing UBI to deal with unemployment after importing millions of workers because of a phantom labour shortage.
Sorry, what "phantom labour shortage" are you referring to? Are you looking at the economy stats at a top line level? Where the vacancies can neatly be filled by the people not in work?
Great! So we have factory jobs in Wisbech making food and there's practically full employment in the fens. We have a large pool of people in Widnes looking for work. So simply fill the roles in Wizzy with woolybacks. Is that the proposal? How?
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
I never threw it at you, it was a polite request. I’m interested in it, especially as people are claiming the state pension is not sustainable at its current level.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
Can you explain where the money comes from if we don't have UBI? The scenario is that AI takes a few million jobs out of the economy. Gone, not coming back. Unless the economy is dynamic enough to create equivalent replacement jobs then you're facing a large and permanent unemployment problem.
UBI costs a shitton of money. No disagreement from me here. But in the scenario we're talking about not doing UBI *also* costs a shitton of money.
You rightly ask where the money is coming from. And I don't have a direct answer - I think UBI can free people to be creative and thus more productive but that's not backed with hard numbers. But you also can't explain where to find the money to pay for mass unemployment.
Not spending money is not an option. It's just how we spend it which we can debate.
Farming uses a tiny fraction of the manpower it once did. New jobs sprung up. Robots and automated production lines mean manufacturing jobs vanished. New jobs sprung up. Why is AI going to be different?
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
I never threw it at you, it was a polite request. I’m interested in it, especially as people are claiming the state pension is not sustainable at its current level.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
Can you explain where the money comes from if we don't have UBI? The scenario is that AI takes a few million jobs out of the economy. Gone, not coming back. Unless the economy is dynamic enough to create equivalent replacement jobs then you're facing a large and permanent unemployment problem.
UBI costs a shitton of money. No disagreement from me here. But in the scenario we're talking about not doing UBI *also* costs a shitton of money.
You rightly ask where the money is coming from. And I don't have a direct answer - I think UBI can free people to be creative and thus more productive but that's not backed with hard numbers. But you also can't explain where to find the money to pay for mass unemployment.
Not spending money is not an option. It's just how we spend it which we can debate.
I think you’re confusing my position as being anti UBI. I’m not.
You’re advocating it, I’m interested how it would work. I’d benefit from it. At the moment the best we have is ‘we have to do it’. So we have a destination but no journey to get there.
However you cannot just print money to fund it and a robot tax only works globally.
On the UBI "debate" I've already had the question "where does the money come from" thrown at me. Stop. Reverse that. Let's assume we don't do it.
We are going to lose an awful lot of jobs. Vast numbers of them. People who will be unemployable because the jobs simply won't be there any more.
We can't afford UBI? What is the cost of not UBI? Of whole communities without jobs? Of people stuck on welfare with no hope of a job? We're not talking small pit villages - we coped with those by throwing shitloads of investment at them. Broaden than out on a vast scale - there is a HUGE cost.
Where does the money for that come from? We can invest in the future. Or invest in endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past.
"Endless waste not fixing the mistakes of the past" would be a good way to describe introducing UBI to deal with unemployment after importing millions of workers because of a phantom labour shortage.
Sorry, what "phantom labour shortage" are you referring to? Are you looking at the economy stats at a top line level? Where the vacancies can neatly be filled by the people not in work?
Great! So we have factory jobs in Wisbech making food and there's practically full employment in the fens. We have a large pool of people in Widnes looking for work. So simply fill the roles in Wizzy with woolybacks. Is that the proposal? How?
How do you get from this to your hysterical prediction of "whole communities without jobs"?
A 13% lead for Unionists in Northern Ireland is still pretty comfortable. While there is no nationalist majority at Stormont there will be no border poll anyway.
Not forgetting of course that the DUP and TUV would declare UDI for Antrim and East Londonderry rather than ever accept Dublin rule. Northern Ireland being created in the first place as hundreds of thousands of diehard Ulster Protestants had taken up arms rather than be forced to accept Home Rule and being pushed into the new Irish Free State against their will
Is UDI something that DUP and TUV politicians talk about much?
The only place I've heard it mentioned is from you on here, but if other people are talking about it and I've missed it I'd be interested in seeing links.
The DUP and TUV are clear they would never accept Dublin rule.
People forget the Irish Free state was created NOT just by the 1918 SF majority in Ireland but by violence and bombings from the IRA and the Irish War of Independence which lasted until 1921.
Northern Ireland was effectively created by violence too and the Ulster Protestants who took up arms to resist Home Rule and Dublin rule.
The prospect of the LVF and UVF planting bombs again would be inevitable if they ever faced Dublin rule
Inevitable? Really?? What about, you know, democracy?
As I said, democracy ultimately neither created the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Bombs, terrorism, war and guns did
Ultimately the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was an Act of Parliament.
We're not allowed to swear on here any more, but I'd really suggest that no-one clicks on that link to give the 'lovely' fellow who wrote it, and the 'superb' magazine it is in, any click kudos.
We're not allowed to swear any more? I know that c*** is banned because it triggers an admin report. Is this new?
We're not allowed to swear on here any more, but I'd really suggest that no-one clicks on that link to give the 'lovely' fellow who wrote it, and the 'superb' magazine it is in, any click kudos.
We're not allowed to swear any more? I know that c*** is banned because it triggers an admin report. Is this new?
The prohibition is against abusive swearing directed at others here.
Comments
If we get to mass unemployment forget free market capitalism, that would be dead, the government will get more and more statist with each job replaced by AI as no party could get elected otherwise
The difference comes in four years time. It was a clear negative, and appears to have been the one issue that was defining the Government. At the next election this isn't going to be an easy attack line that had festered for the whole parliament.
The scariest bit of the flight was the Chinese passengers' unbridled hilarity engendered by Bean the Movie.
It didn't work for Boris as PM, because his minions (the Cabinet) were also his rivals and potential successors. So they couldn't be too competent.
He's one of those.
https://x.com/reformexposed/status/1932185508769157288
Reform 32
Con 21
Lab 21
(6 to 8 Jun)
It also features Con members narrowly in favour of a Reform deal/merger
"Voting was [a] risk."
When will those Reeves supporters realise she is a disaster and should resign or be sacked
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jun/10/uk-unemployment-wage-growth-rachel-reeves?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
I'll keep an open mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_Tandem_Tutor
https://x.com/cnews/status/1932364916423311487
From the link here and read quickly before it shuts you out, lol
Zarina Zabrisky 🇺🇸🇺🇦
@ZarinaZabrisky
🔴BREAKING: Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, is a speaker at Dugin’s Tsargrad forum in Moscow 9-10 June
https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1931462124238475378
George Galloway also there.
Probably sees Labour as opposition based on city strongholds but not certain
A partial reunification that only leaves Antrim and Down under the occupying forces in a 30/2 split might be a transitional stage that makes sense.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/los-angeles-dress-rehearsal-trump/683078/?gift=SCYx-5scVta3-cr_IlgTyfnBW1YkxvpXPlxf6gprDXg
This is the same kind of language that extreme Afrikaaners came out with before the end of apartheid, referencing the Boer War and even earlier conflicts. In the end, they just accepted it and moved on.
Ireland is not the dirt-poor backwater of embedded mystical popery that they like to imagine.
Where does the money come from ? I’m guessing you have no answer given the word salad above.
If anyone else can expand on the mechanics I’d be interested
It would be top entertainment to see the Battle of Los Angeles re-enacted in SW1 while SKS tries to strike the balance between unctuous flattery of Trump and restoring order while tumour king is slowly dying in the corner and grinning inanely.
We are already having jobs replaced by AI too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiymTzsZfoA (18 mins)
Even during the “Armalite & Ballot Box” days, a chunk of SF voters was always anti.
There are very few Unionist voters for unification, in contrast.
Pretty startling in a way, and the reasons for it have not been investigated with scientific polling. Guesses included benefits (better in the U.K.) and abortion. Maybe even plain not wanting to change.
Not all Afrikaaners have accepted ANC South Africa either, indeed Orania is a rapidly growing white Afrikaner only separatist enclave in South Africa
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-white-afrikaner-separatists-want-trumps-help-become-state-2025-04-03/#:~:text=ORANIA, South Africa, April 3,including menial workers, are white.
And all these incremental rights come at a cost to the taxpayer and/or business
And, as we have seen with Trump, if you have agreements between nations they can just be torn up on a whim.
“We deny the right of The People to do wrong” - the Anti-Treaty slogan.
It was in the early 90s. with the fall of the Berlin Wall, that everyone started their lip service to democracy. Hell, we had MPs in the House of Commons, in the 80s, telling us that East Germany was more democratic than actual voting. Because free childcare.
Same thing in NI - suddenly, everyone was couching their arguments in terms of democracy, instead of Historic Right.
A separate united Ireland would be an entirely new thing.
In entire time that 'countries', as we now define and conceptualise them have existed, there has never been a nation state consisting of the entirety of Ireland and nothing else. Never.
Autistic pedantry, I know, but I can't help but wonder if the phrasing is deliberate and tendentious with a specific agenda.
- Unification
- Rejection of unification
- Independence
- No change
- Joining the Federation
- Joining the Culture
The amount and level of it depends on how well it’s sold. If you are lucky, it will be two angry old blokes and a rusty pistol.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-i-burnt-the-quran/
In the poorest parts of the world like Africa fertility rates are still well above replacement level
https://x.com/caoimhinof/status/1932170209739382789?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Here’s Chad, for example, there is a long term trend here replicated in similar nations.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/tcd/chad/birth-rate#google_vignette
By Niall Gooch"
https://unherd.com/newsroom/could-thomas-skinner-be-londons-next-mayor/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/10/rolls-royce-to-build-britains-first-mini-nuclear-reactors/
Only 3-5 years later than I would have hoped
It’s an anxiety based problem - *everything* becomes an insurmountable problem. Often associated with, but not caused by, directly, ADHD and obsessive behaviours.
Bloody horrible for the child and the parents.
Either way though, if Northern Ireland votes to unite, that should be, and will be, that: unification will follow - though the terms will still need to be negotiated.
UBI costs a shitton of money. No disagreement from me here. But in the scenario we're talking about not doing UBI *also* costs a shitton of money.
You rightly ask where the money is coming from. And I don't have a direct answer - I think UBI can free people to be creative and thus more productive but that's not backed with hard numbers. But you also can't explain where to find the money to pay for mass unemployment.
Not spending money is not an option. It's just how we spend it which we can debate.
https://x.com/samcoatessky/status/1932169156230828035?s=61
No need to read much further after this mendacity. Mavis & Bob who own a £750k house and some life savings are not what we're talking about here.
Further reason: it's Richard Murphy's lot.
Great! So we have factory jobs in Wisbech making food and there's practically full employment in the fens. We have a large pool of people in Widnes looking for work. So simply fill the roles in Wizzy with woolybacks. Is that the proposal? How?
Listening to BBC R4 WATO.
Well, well, well. Today's tame Reform interview involves new Chairman Dr David Bull.
The BBC will be able to string this out to the next GE at this rate.
You’re advocating it, I’m interested how it would work. I’d benefit from it. At the moment the best we have is ‘we have to do it’. So we have a destination but no journey to get there.
However you cannot just print money to fund it and a robot tax only works globally.