We are doing it wrong..America added 56 GW all of last year, most from solar... China added 93 GW in a month. Just for comparison, the last American nuclear power plant was completed in 2024. It took 11 years to build and cost $35 billion to generate ~1 GW of power.
We are doing it wrong..America added 56 GW all of last year, most from solar... China added 93 GW in a month. Just for comparison, the last American nuclear power plant was completed in 2024. It took 11 years to build and cost $35 billion to generate ~1 GW of power.
Reform win their fourth gaining Keppel in Rotherham.Gain from Labour who fall to third behind an Indy. Tories just pip Yorkshire party for fourth with LDs sixth and greens 7th
Re Starmer & Macron’s boat people strategy, what are France going to do with the returnees? And why don’t French police just stop the boats leaving France rather than letting them make the journey, arrive here only for us to send them back?
Stopping them leaving is harder, then spotting them during the journey across and intercepting them on arrival.
France will also have the same number of people to deal with, if it's one in/one out. If the scheme works, then they have more people staying in France, but I assume their aim would be to make the UK so difficult to get to, that fewer people travel into France in the first place hoping to make the crossing.
A Venn Diagram of PB, Netweather and Rail UK Forums would show significant overlap.
I'm partially banned from the latter
You're off the rails?
WTF did you do to get banned partlally from the Rail UK Forums?
Um, I triggered a few people after suggesting the DLR is NOT a tram system, and that OO model gauge is a crappy mixture of 1:76 (body shell) and 1:87 (track gauge).
Have you done the Lille metro, one of the earliest automated systems?
No, never been to Lille. Done bits of Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva (tram), Amsterdam, Rome, and Barcelona.
Long distance journeys in Euroland: Pisa to Florence, Rome Airport to Termini, Channel Tunnel to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, and Ostende to Brussels. Also Geneva to Montreux, and Zurich to Chur.
Been to Lille twice although didn't realise the metro was anything notable.
Burnham went on a tirade last time I heard him speak about rioters stirring up hatred. For a brief moment I thought he meant the lot supporting those two. He didn't, of course. He doesn't mind that sort of rioter stirring up hatred.
I'm quite glad my first instinct about the case was rather different. It was obvious the initial clip leaked had been (ahem) carefully curated, and we had to wait for more details of what went on before and after the 'stamping'.
Burnham went on a tirade last time I heard him speak about rioters stirring up hatred. For a brief moment I thought he meant the lot supporting those two. He didn't, of course. He doesn't mind that sort of rioter stirring up hatred.
I'm quite glad my first instinct about the case was rather different. It was obvious the initial clip leaked had been (ahem) carefully curated, and we had to wait for more details of what went on before and after the 'stamping'.
Burnham really is a nasty piece of work.
People are bigging up Burnham for PM. You can get away with this stuff when you are a regional mayor, as the amount one is held to account is far less than as PM, its a different matter.
Burnham went on a tirade last time I heard him speak about rioters stirring up hatred. For a brief moment I thought he meant the lot supporting those two. He didn't, of course. He doesn't mind that sort of rioter stirring up hatred.
I'm quite glad my first instinct about the case was rather different. It was obvious the initial clip leaked had been (ahem) carefully curated, and we had to wait for more details of what went on before and after the 'stamping'.
Burnham really is a nasty piece of work.
Incidentally, there're are many comments under that video stating that the police officer should not be a cop because she is crying.
I suggest that these people should get bashed in their face hard enough to break their nose and cough up blood, and see how they react.
US President Donald Trump has said he will slap a 35% tariff on Canadian goods starting 1 August, even as the two countries are days away from a self-imposed deadline to reach a new deal on trade.
This continual daylight is a trial. When the weather is as good as it is now, it seems sad to be going to bed when you can walk the dog in warm sunshine; when you eventually get into bed, sleep comes easy but when you're of an age that the bladder stops you sleeping all the way through, whereas in the darkness of home, returning to sleep is easy, when sunlight is already streaming around the curtains (only the most expensive places here having proper 100% blackout), it's hard to resist the temptation to get up, especially with a dog even more triggered by the light of the day than I am. And so sleep deprivation slowly approaches.
The bottle of wine I ordered in error, then deciding to drink half and keep half, now has so little left in it that it is embarrassing to take it away.
Wine bottles have definitely got smaller over the years. Like chocolate bars.
I wonder if it is in fact true that wine bottles have got smaller over the years? I can imagine that industrial glass-making has lead to tougher bottles and thus lighter and marginally bottles. So my guess is yes.
It’s fluctuated with fashion. Until about 5 years ago (and still in some categories) it had become fashionable to put wine in heavier and heavier bottles, with at times ludicrously deep punts at the base, because consumers had decided this conveyed quality and poshness. The trend was particularly marked in red wines.
Then the wine cognoscenti started to push back against this on environmental grounds. The backlash coincided with a more general turning away from thick high alcohol wines towards lighter more acidic ones, so now bottle weights are starting to fall again.
If wine drinkers were fussed about the environmental impact of their booze, they'd be restricting themselves to European wines, not stuff from Oz, RSA or Chile.
A lot of wine professionals make exactly this point. It’s one of the selling points of English wine.
That said, wines imported in bulk from the Southern Hemisphere on ships and then bottled in Britain have quite a limited footprint, and the climate where they come from often means higher yields for lower inputs.
I bought a bottle of £3.99 Spanish red from Tescos for some punch the other day and was astonished to find it was bottled in Spain. I would have though they'd do the same thing.
Surely admitting to buying that sort of plonk even for a punch is a sin bin offence on PB?
I bought a bottle of vinha verde from Aldi yesterday for £4.89… to extend my stay in the sin bin, I mix it with sparkling water.
Vinho Verde is lovely on a summer evening, and Mrs Foxy often spruces wine up with a little soda water. Her taste buds haven't been the same since covid.
My sobering thought for the evening.
I calculated I will need to sell my sparkling wine for at least £35 a bottle, and my still for £18, in order to break even.
Which do to think will be easier to achieve? I assume the sparkling?
As a teenager, we used to stop off at Three Choirs on the way to Wales. My grandfather was a fan of their Bacchus. Though he said it wasn't great value.
3 choirs (based, readers, in Newent) produce some of the cheapest wine in England.
They’ll never grace the upper echelons of the English fine wine hierarchy, but they’ve got the business model down pat.
And they are based in Newent.
'Jam shed' is storming the market in my local Co-op. A cross between wine and ribena - and very drinkable for it.
I assume that they are just mixing in a bit of unfermented grape juice like the Germans (I seem to remember they call it sussreserve (sp)). Don't know why more winemakers don't do it - makes special sense in latitudes like that of the UK.
This pilot framework will be decided once the legal issues are resolved and agreed in the EU
So not agreed yet
Hello ECHR
Oh god. He hasn’t actually got any agreement at all, yet?
He is so dismally wet
Got an agreement to try to agree an agreement....
I know I keep banging on about this, but Starmer needs to stop seeking agreements by consent using legal frameworks, and start imposing solutions by force without consent. The small boats should be turned around and sent back whence they came.
If the French disapprove they can start a war. If the lawyers disapprove then laws should be passed to disapply human rights legislation outside the UK jurisdiction against the armed forces. If the Navy disagree, then a new branch ("Border Security") should be created to do it and the RN can bugger off to the Falklands.
But we need to stop asking people, since they obviously aren't getting it done.
You’re asking those deemed with that task to try and force boats to turn back to France and what happens when some sink and people drown. Practically forcing a boat to turn round isn’t easy notwithstanding the moral issues.
You bring them ashore safely then fly them to a processing centre outside Europe
And if necessary leave the ECHR
This present position cannot continue if the country wants to prevent a Farage coronation
Yeah that’s fine. We just have to (a) build a processing centre, (b) staff a processing centre, (c) pay for regular secure flights to said processing centre, (d) ensure that lawyers and judges have reasonable access in order to in fact process applications, (e) have a plan to deal with asylum seekers who do not declare where they are from and are not willing to leave.
Expensive. And time consuming. Suddenly “outside Europe” seems impractical. Of course it’s possible and we should probably do it if we can find a suitable location but it’s not simple with no downsides, as with everything.
A few flights and the boats would stop
Labour should have refined Rwanda but certainly today's announcement was a farce
Oh BigG. Rwanda was utter rubbish and probably illegal.
Sneaking into the UK on small boats is probably illegal?
It's not if you intend to seek asylum, even if people wish it were.
How do you know they're seeking asylum? Most of them come here for the freebies.
Sky interviewed a migrant in Calais who.openly said in the UK he could work for cash and pay no tax
It was quite stark actually being expressed to camera
I'm sure that happens though I suspect he'll be paying a lot of his cash for rent in the three bedroom semi he shares with 15 other men.
Which is why we need to question where the prospective migrants are getting their information. What dreams are they being sold, and do they know the downsides?
(This might actually be an interesting way of tackling the problem.)
The streets in London are paved with gold. That story runs and runs.
The reality is that asylum seekers caught working automatically invalidate their asylum claim.
If granted asylum, all support stops 28 days later and they are evicted from their lodgings. Hence the Red Cross in Leicester gives them sleeping bags so they don't freeze on the streets.
I accept the Conservative Party were responsible for weapons grade homelessness but after a year Labour have done SFA about it.
Indeed and the summer brings out the rough sleepers who are prevalent in my part of East London such as under the A406, in shop doorways and in the doorway of the local Church.
One is even at the door of the local funeral director which is disturbing...
Something like homeless would be a relatively cheap, quick and easy problem to resolve within a year. Instead of chasing the Farage vote something tangible could have been achieved.
Burnham went on a tirade last time I heard him speak about rioters stirring up hatred. For a brief moment I thought he meant the lot supporting those two. He didn't, of course. He doesn't mind that sort of rioter stirring up hatred.
Yes, I don't think that Reform have peaked in local elections. They gained four, last night.
Next week, they'll probably lose a seat in Staffordshire, where a candidate resigned, but there are three in Dartford and Basildon they'll likely pick up.
Yes, I don't think that Reform have peaked in local elections. They gained four, last night.
Next week, they'll probably lose a seat in Staffordshire, where a candidate resigned, but there are three in Dartford and Basildon they'll likely pick up.
So far this year, Reform have made a net gain of 55 seats, in by-elections.
Yes, I don't think that Reform have peaked in local elections. They gained four, last night.
Next week, they'll probably lose a seat in Staffordshire, where a candidate resigned, but there are three in Dartford and Basildon they'll likely pick up.
So far this year, Reform have made a net gain of 55 seats, in by-elections.
When I last looked at the numbers, more than 90% of council byelections this year were won either by Reform or the LibDems.
Neither is Mole Valley their type of place but Reform stood there and plastered the place with posters. Although rock solid LD this used to be solid Tory. Reform do well enough in these seats to destroy the Tory vote and make them safe LD.
Neither is Mole Valley their type of place but Reform stood there and plastered the place with posters. Although rock solid LD this used to be solid Tory. Reform do well enough in these seats to destroy the Tory vote and make them safe LD.
My other half term a always spending 💰 in Mole Valley
Reform GAIN from Labour* Changes w/ 2025 By-Election.
*Multi-Member ward.
The anti Fukker swing in 2 months is interesting here. Hartlepool is, in the main, populated by slopebrowed ethno-nationalists with foetal alcohol syndrome. It should be the natural Happy Hunting Ground for the Fukkers. It looks like they are better at winning than defending.
Yes, I don't think that Reform have peaked in local elections. They gained four, last night.
Next week, they'll probably lose a seat in Staffordshire, where a candidate resigned, but there are three in Dartford and Basildon they'll likely pick up.
So far this year, Reform have made a net gain of 55 seats, in by-elections.
When I last looked at the numbers, more than 90% of council byelections this year were won either by Reform or the LibDems.
I think it's 90% since May 1st. It's 56% since the start of the year, still an enormous proportion.
The Lib Dems are the upper middle class party of choice, Reform the working class party of choice, which makes it almost impossible for either party to win seats off the other.
Reform GAIN from Labour* Changes w/ 2025 By-Election.
*Multi-Member ward.
The anti Fukker swing in 2 months is interesting here. Hartlepool is, in the main, populated by slopebrowed ethno-nationalists with foetal alcohol syndrome. It should be the natural Happy Hunting Ground for the Fukkers. It looks like they are better at winning than defending.
The good news for Labour then is that, if we take Hartlepool as a guide, they are as attractive to slopebrowed ethno-nationalists with foetal alcohol syndrome as Reform are. Food for thought for Labour fans.
This continual daylight is a trial. When the weather is as good as it is now, it seems sad to be going to bed when you can walk the dog in warm sunshine; when you eventually get into bed, sleep comes easy but when you're of an age that the bladder stops you sleeping all the way through, whereas in the darkness of home, returning to sleep is easy, when sunlight is already streaming around the curtains (only the most expensive places here having proper 100% blackout), it's hard to resist the temptation to get up, especially with a dog even more triggered by the light of the day than I am. And so sleep deprivation slowly approaches.
The bottle of wine I ordered in error, then deciding to drink half and keep half, now has so little left in it that it is embarrassing to take it away.
I worked in Finland once many years again for two separate four week stretches.
The first was mid-summer - around end of June. They had all gone - and they admit this - a bit loopy as it was the mid summer and max daylight. Indeed it was a struggle to get flights book as so many Finns coming home for the mid summer party.
Early September was next trip. Already frosty.
Yes, it’s important to remember how unusual this is. I know that, having travelled around Norway before. I’m back in my hotel room, having taken the dog for a good walk around the marina (having a boat is exceptionally popular here); below the window there are people sitting out on the street terrace, eating and drinking (it’s now after 9.30 pm and I have to keep reminding myself that the sun isn’t going to set), and in the marina there are people setting out for evening trips on their boats. Around the harbour there are people in various states of undress, taking the sun.
On my last trip, I remember seeing the restaurants with all their outside seating and wondering why they bothered, since come the evening it was never warm or dry or calm enough for eating out to be enjoyable. Now, I see it.
We were weighing up going in mid-winter for the aurora borealis (which I think doesn't materialise in the summer?) or mid-summer for the midnight sun. When is the mosquito season? - keen to avoid that. Not bothered by the temperature.
It materialises, but you can't see it!
The insect season is upon us, but being coastal and often windy, Norway really isn't that bad. If you want to get bitten properly, to to Sweden or Finland. I have a set of repellents packed ready, but last time I was there the insects were fierce and some of the bites became alarmingly large
Reform GAIN from Labour* Changes w/ 2025 By-Election.
*Multi-Member ward.
The anti Fukker swing in 2 months is interesting here. Hartlepool is, in the main, populated by slopebrowed ethno-nationalists with foetal alcohol syndrome. It should be the natural Happy Hunting Ground for the Fukkers. It looks like they are better at winning than defending.
The good news for Labour then is that, if we take Hartlepool as a guide, they are as attractive to slopebrowed ethno-nationalists with foetal alcohol syndrome as Reform are. Food for thought for Labour fans.
Hasn't that always been the case?
The poorer and less well educated always voted Labour until Sir Boris and Sir Nigel came along. Labour has traditionally been the party of the redbrick university and polytechnic! We are talking that level of illiteracy!
The economy shrank in May (0.1%) after businesses brought forward purchases earlier in the year, the ONS said, in an attempt to get ahead of Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught.
If Arpineh Masihi could vote, she would have cast her ballot for Donald Trump. She's a devout supporter of the US president – even now that she's locked up as an illegal immigrant.
"He's doing the right thing because lots of these people don't deserve to be here,"
"I will support him until the day I die. He's making America great again."
This continual daylight is a trial. When the weather is as good as it is now, it seems sad to be going to bed when you can walk the dog in warm sunshine; when you eventually get into bed, sleep comes easy but when you're of an age that the bladder stops you sleeping all the way through, whereas in the darkness of home, returning to sleep is easy, when sunlight is already streaming around the curtains (only the most expensive places here having proper 100% blackout), it's hard to resist the temptation to get up, especially with a dog even more triggered by the light of the day than I am. And so sleep deprivation slowly approaches.
The bottle of wine I ordered in error, then deciding to drink half and keep half, now has so little left in it that it is embarrassing to take it away.
Wine bottles have definitely got smaller over the years. Like chocolate bars.
I wonder if it is in fact true that wine bottles have got smaller over the years? I can imagine that industrial glass-making has lead to tougher bottles and thus lighter and marginally bottles. So my guess is yes.
It’s fluctuated with fashion. Until about 5 years ago (and still in some categories) it had become fashionable to put wine in heavier and heavier bottles, with at times ludicrously deep punts at the base, because consumers had decided this conveyed quality and poshness. The trend was particularly marked in red wines.
Then the wine cognoscenti started to push back against this on environmental grounds. The backlash coincided with a more general turning away from thick high alcohol wines towards lighter more acidic ones, so now bottle weights are starting to fall again.
If wine drinkers were fussed about the environmental impact of their booze, they'd be restricting themselves to European wines, not stuff from Oz, RSA or Chile.
A lot of wine professionals make exactly this point. It’s one of the selling points of English wine.
That said, wines imported in bulk from the Southern Hemisphere on ships and then bottled in Britain have quite a limited footprint, and the climate where they come from often means higher yields for lower inputs.
I bought a bottle of £3.99 Spanish red from Tescos for some punch the other day and was astonished to find it was bottled in Spain. I would have though they'd do the same thing.
Surely admitting to buying that sort of plonk even for a punch is a sin bin offence on PB?
I bought a bottle of vinha verde from Aldi yesterday for £4.89… to extend my stay in the sin bin, I mix it with sparkling water.
Vinho Verde is lovely on a summer evening, and Mrs Foxy often spruces wine up with a little soda water. Her taste buds haven't been the same since covid.
My sobering thought for the evening.
I calculated I will need to sell my sparkling wine for at least £35 a bottle, and my still for £18, in order to break even.
Which do to think will be easier to achieve? I assume the sparkling?
As a teenager, we used to stop off at Three Choirs on the way to Wales. My grandfather was a fan of their Bacchus. Though he said it wasn't great value.
3 choirs (based, readers, in Newent) produce some of the cheapest wine in England.
They’ll never grace the upper echelons of the English fine wine hierarchy, but they’ve got the business model down pat.
And they are based in Newent.
'Jam shed' is storming the market in my local Co-op. A cross between wine and ribena - and very drinkable for it.
I assume that they are just mixing in a bit of unfermented grape juice like the Germans (I seem to remember they call it sussreserve (sp)). Don't know why more winemakers don't do it - makes special sense in latitudes like that of the UK.
Swapping people who arrive by boat with people who don't try to cross the channel illegally could distance people from wasting their time and money crossing the channel in small boats, reducing the number of people entering the country illegally.
Asylum seekers make up a small part of net migration, the larger component is people arriving legally with visas.
Comments
Ok, here
Bookham East & Eastwick Park (Mole Valley) Council By-Election Result:
🔶 LDM: 56.0% (-6.6)
➡️ RFM: 20.5% (New)
🌳 CON: 20.5% (-10.1)
🌍 GRN: 3.0% (-1.5)
No LAB (-2.5) as previous.
Liberal Democrat HOLD.
Changes w/ 2024.
LD 1056
RefUK 387
Con 386
Green 56
LD 56.02%
RefUK 20.53%
Con 20.48%
Green 2.97%
LD hold
Tories just pip Yorkshire party for fourth with LDs sixth and greens 7th
The Green ward in Wealden counts in the morning
France will also have the same number of people to deal with, if it's one in/one out. If the scheme works, then they have more people staying in France, but I assume their aim would be to make the UK so difficult to get to, that fewer people travel into France in the first place hoping to make the crossing.
Ref 1160
Ind Collett 801
Lab 558
Con 105
Yorks 100
LD 80
Grn 77
Ref 40.26%
Ind Collett 27.80%
Lab 19.37%
Con 3.64%
Yorks 3.47%
LD 2.78%
Grn 2.67%
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/10/khans-ulez-hollows-out-london-empty-shops-hit-decade-high/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/11/government-inheriting-poor-value-assets-due-to-bad-handling-of-pfi-contracts-watchdog-says
https://x.com/hectorcrosbie/status/1943492752630505683
https://x.com/hectorcrosbie/status/1943496881331491134
Burnham really is a nasty piece of work.
I suggest that these people should get bashed in their face hard enough to break their nose and cough up blood, and see how they react.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg819n954mo
How has that worked?
Next week, they'll probably lose a seat in Staffordshire, where a candidate resigned, but there are three in Dartford and Basildon they'll likely pick up.
The Lib Dems are the upper middle class party of choice, Reform the working class party of choice, which makes it almost impossible for either party to win seats off the other.
The insect season is upon us, but being coastal and often windy, Norway really isn't that bad. If you want to get bitten properly, to to Sweden or Finland. I have a set of repellents packed ready, but last time I was there the insects were fierce and some of the bites became alarmingly large
The poorer and less well educated always voted Labour until Sir Boris and Sir Nigel came along. Labour has traditionally been the party of the redbrick university and polytechnic! We are talking that level of illiteracy!
If Arpineh Masihi could vote, she would have cast her ballot for Donald Trump. She's a devout supporter of the US president – even now that she's locked up as an illegal immigrant.
"He's doing the right thing because lots of these people don't deserve to be here,"
"I will support him until the day I die. He's making America great again."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vd1vn9n06o
NEW THREAD
Asylum seekers make up a small part of net migration, the larger component is people arriving legally with visas.