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It’s not easy being green – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,605
edited August 2 in General
It’s not easy being green – politicalbetting.com

?/ With the Green Party leadership ballots opening tomorrow, how do potential Green voters see the party?52% of Green considerers think the party should focus on being generally left-wing, more than the 33% who believe it should focus on the environmentyougov.co.uk/politics/art…

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  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,823
    First, and good morning all.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,240
    edited August 2
    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,623
    Does Polanski have an inflated opinion of his own abilities?

    We should perhaps remember that in what, even by his standards, was a crass and bizarre thing to say, Massive Johnson once claimed 'voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts.'

    What a pair of muppets...
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,957
    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.
  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 1,280
    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange
  • Smart51Smart51 Posts: 80
    A third of Greens are actually greens, the rest are 'too left wing for Labour'. I'd always suspected that sort of thing but had guessed half and half.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 19,314
    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,823
    The Greens are undoubtedly going to see something of a squeeze from the fruit and nuts. (And nobody looks forwards to that sort of thing)

    However I think they might eventually benefit as being seen as, comparatively, the saner of the two.

    I find it rather odd how my voting preferences stack up at the moment - Con 1st, then Lab!, then LD, then a big gap.... then Ref as 'none of the below', then Grn and finally the ghastly F&N.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    edited August 2
    ydoethur said:

    Does Polanski have an inflated opinion of his own abilities?

    We should perhaps remember that in what, even by his standards, was a crass and bizarre thing to say, Massive Johnson once claimed 'voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts.'

    What a pair of muppets...

    Well it worked for Boris....and given all the hype around Sydney Sweeney, I reckon Zack should lean in....get bigger tits, without the plastic, and save the dolphins.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 63,720

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,236

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 19,314
    Leon said:

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

    That's a terrible business model

    It's the sort of thing that causes firms to go bust.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,623
    Leon said:

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

    He was let off?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,236

    Leon said:

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

    That's a terrible business model

    It's the sort of thing that causes firms to go bust.
    He did it just for the happy mammaries.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,957
    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,623

    Leon said:

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

    That's a terrible business model

    It's the sort of thing that causes firms to go bust.
    He did it just for the happy mammaries.
    But on all levels his behaviour sucked.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,623
    edited August 2

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 63,720
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

    That's a terrible business model

    It's the sort of thing that causes firms to go bust.
    He did it just for the happy mammaries.
    But on all levels his behaviour sucked.
    Enough of this stupid punning discourse. It’s just tit for tat
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,236
    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    Are you suggesting that electing Polanski would be a boob?

    They have got a problem, similar to the one the Lib Dems had for a long time. Two of their MPs are in places where left-of-Labour works, but the other two are in places where Green = down with smells and building. How do they straddle that?

    You and @TSE have missed the funniest line regarding Polanski’s past attempts to enlarge female breasts by hypnotherapy

    “Mr Polanski added he never charged for the service.”

    That's a terrible business model

    It's the sort of thing that causes firms to go bust.
    He did it just for the happy mammaries.
    But on all levels his behaviour sucked.
    Enough of this stupid punning discourse. It’s just tit for tat
    Bra humbug.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,957

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
    All that matters is getting to a new energy source that doesn't chuck shit into the atmosphere, just as we moved from wood to coal to oil in the past - we move on again.

    That's all that matters, and absorbing some of the excess carbon that's already up there. I couldn't care less what it is. It's a simple scientific problem with a technological answer.

    The trouble is we have very few people in our society now who understand science and engineering, like Margaret Thatcher did.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,144
    HYUFD said:

    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party

    If Polanski wins I strongly suspect the Greens will end up back with one seat. Brighton of course.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,719
    Hmm, I see Yougov are, to some extent, conflating different Green parties - 'Britons' this and that, but in reality focussing on the E&W Greens - and arguably conflating the E and the W Greens given the latter's autonomy. Plus the SGs are in a very different electoral climate, at least at Holyrood, which has a big effect on whether one votes for them or not. Ditto Welsh Greens.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,084
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 19,314

    HYUFD said:

    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party

    If Polanski wins I strongly suspect the Greens will end up back with one seat. Brighton of course.
    Not Bristol(s)?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,719

    HYUFD said:

    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party

    If Polanski wins I strongly suspect the Greens will end up back with one seat. Brighton of course.
    Not Bristol(s)?
    Milking the puns, I see.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447

    HYUFD said:

    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party

    If Polanski wins I strongly suspect the Greens will end up back with one seat. Brighton of course.
    Bristol will still be strong for the Greens.

    But otherwise, with Magic Grandpa on the scheme. Why have pretendy socialism, when you can have the full fat version.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,236
    edited August 2

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
    All that matters is getting to a new energy source that doesn't chuck shit into the atmosphere, just as we moved from wood to coal to oil in the past - we move on again.

    That's all that matters, and absorbing some of the excess carbon that's already up there. I couldn't care less what it is. It's a simple scientific problem with a technological answer.

    The trouble is we have very few people in our society now who understand science and engineering, like Margaret Thatcher did.
    It's a mess. I always go on about the fact the problem worsened notably by a law change in Naval fuel and sulphur, but a solution would be cloud-brightening - spraying sea water into the air to form clouds and cool the seas.

    Well there is actually a small part of David Millibands loony 18bn carbon capture scheme for cloud brightening, but I've seen it ripped apart by righties who are now so fed up of the bullshit around this topic that they dismiss everything without looking at the detail.

    They should have just got ships to do it immediately, not made it part of this silly carbon capture package - it has nothing to do with CCS, and we might already be in a position to measure the effects.

  • stodgestodge Posts: 15,001
    Morning all :)

    For all @HYUFD might be looking at former Conservative Parliamentary constituencies, here in London the Greens have a very different profile and are pushing Labour hard in a number of Inner London Boroughs including Lewisham, Hackney and even Newham.

    The Green candidate outpolled Reform in the Thames View by-election on Thursday and I suspect the Greens will be fighting a number of council seats hard next year in the local elections.

    The problem they have in Newham is while they have their stronghold in the new residential estates in Stratford, progress elsewhere is hampered by the Newham Independents who are hoovering up the anti-Labour vote in the Muslim areas.

    I suspect the Mayoral candidate will be either second or third depending on who the Independents pick to go against the new Labour candidate who has replaced the incumbent Mayor, Roksana Fiaz.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,719

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 19,314

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
    All that matters is getting to a new energy source that doesn't chuck shit into the atmosphere, just as we moved from wood to coal to oil in the past - we move on again.

    That's all that matters, and absorbing some of the excess carbon that's already up there. I couldn't care less what it is. It's a simple scientific problem with a technological answer.

    The trouble is we have very few people in our society now who understand science and engineering, like Margaret Thatcher did.
    And we broadly have a ninety percent solution already. And it's quite a bit cheaper and more effective than David MacKay predicted.

    Trouble is that nothing is ever just science and technology. There are arguments about finance and aesthetics that need to be sorted. And they're much harder, because they affect different people differently.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,236

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
    @Leon @HYUFD @viewcode

    I would be interested in your thoughts on the speech if you have any.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,989
    Come the next GE campaign, I think their perceived weakness on defence will hit both the Greens and the Corbynistas hard and limit their appeal to Labour voters. Both will be attacked relentlessly on 'how are you going to defend the UK?'.

    It's worth remembering that at the peak of Corbyn's popularity, 2017, defence of the realm was seen as much less of an issue than it is now - voters rather took for granted the security of the nation, but thanks to Putin and others, that's much less the case now.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,144

    HYUFD said:

    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party

    If Polanski wins I strongly suspect the Greens will end up back with one seat. Brighton of course.
    Not Bristol(s)?
    It'll be a different generation of students voting in Bristol by 2029. I suppose if there is a deal with Grandpa then maybe.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,240

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    edited August 2

    Come the next GE campaign, I think their perceived weakness on defence will hit both the Greens and the Corbynistas hard and limit their appeal to Labour voters. Both will be attacked relentlessly on 'how are you going to defend the UK?'.

    It's worth remembering that at the peak of Corbyn's popularity, 2017, defence of the realm was seen as much less of an issue than it is now - voters rather took for granted the security of the nation, but thanks to Putin and others, that's much less the case now.

    There is a another big difference though, Magic Grandpa this time won't be trying to pitch to the whole of the country to try and win 40% which is where he then wraps himself in knots having to say things he doesn't really believe.

    His pitch will be solidly left wing socialism for all, pro-Gaza, pro-Green, pro trans, anti-war. There are plenty of people in the UK who don't see increased defence spending as a good thing, they think everybody should disarm and have a nice cup of tea.

    That caps his appeal at probably 15%, but that is enough to cause Labour issues. I think the big doubt is though will he actually do the work rather than just stick to having chats with Owen Jones and selling his "homemade" jam.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796
    FPT:
    kyf_100 said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Media note:

    Has anyone noticed press coverage of the "Trans+ Pride" demonstration last weekend in London last Saturday, that drew 100k+ people?

    I only caught it from the Guardian feed, and nearly missed it.

    Checking - Guardian, Indy, BBC London Region, ES covered it. Elsewhere - crickets, as far as I can see.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3pw10zw2o

    I didn't see anything about it. It just shows how accepted Pride marches are, that they are no longer news.

    We even have Rutland pride now. Its that respectable.
    The thing about this year's trans pride was the difference in numbers.

    Trans pride attracted 100k this year, but only 60k a year ago. And the 100k who marched for trans pride this year was more than those who marched for the main pride event, just 30k. While pride is more of a celebration / booze up these days, trans pride is intensely political and becoming more so with recent events. I know it's not PB's demographic, but a lot of people in my social circle are very angry about the way the government is acting over this - particularly a Labour government.

    I noted earlier this week that the government is ruling by decree, invoking a statutory instrument to take away trans rights, - see https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true and has overruled the chairs of the women and equalities committee and the joint committee on human rights to appoint Mary Ann Stephenson to replace Kishwer Falkner, described as underqualified on race relations and lacking in credibility in a letter to Bridget Phillipson - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/31/mary-ann-stephenson-confirmed-as-ehrc-chair-despite-mps-objections - she was clearly only appointed because the government wants to push through anti-trans legislation. As I pointed out this week, you don't have to support trans rights to support good government based on transparency, fairness, and parliamentary accountability. Everything the current government is not.
    I wish Ian Dunt could write less than 3000 words. I'm not going to dive right in, because I have a day to run and with these things it's either "rabbit hole" or "avoid".

    I wish the guy could give a skeleton argument, or summary.

    At a very quick skim, I get the impression that he is arguing in caricatures from a maximalist and box-ticking position, which is a mirror of the outliers at the other end. This is him, on the ECHR position:

    A women's walking group, for instance, could not choose to be trans inclusive. If they wanted to allow trans women in, they would have to allow men in. The EHRC painted a very black and white world, which would obviously cause a tremendous amount of pain for the people affected.

    It now wishes to embed this interpretation into law via an update to the statutory code of practice - a 200 page guidebook telling businesses and public services how to interpret equality provisions. This would constitute the de-facto eradication of trans people from Britain's social fabric. That sounds hyperbolic, but it is difficult to see how any other interpretation is valid. How could a trans person participate in their country's economic, social, cultural or civic life under these conditions - where every trip to the toilet denies your identity and even joining a walking group involves a fundamental betrayal of self?


    What?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,236
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,989
    edited August 2
    Off topic, but it's Brighton Pride today, and the streets will be heaving. Some readers will no doubt be delighted to hear that American Express, a large employer here, has for the first time in many, many years, withdrawn from sponsoring the event and will not have a float in the parade. Amex is refusing to comment on their decision. Trump's anti-DEI reach is wide.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 1,350
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    You'd think vineyards and solar panels would work, lots of space between the rows of vines
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,449

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b

    For the Greens to move to major party status they face the same problem as Reform. Both parties need to move from being a single issue pressure group to having policy positions across all domains of government that mesh together into a coherent whole. In the Greens case this is that tackling the environmental crisis requires social inequality, an internationalist approach and a change of lifestyle to adjust to and halt climate change.

    (Incidentally, wasn't his hypnotism treatment of women's breasts aimed at them having a better internal body image rather than actual actual breast enlargement? As he is gay, I expect his interest in women's breasts is not lacivious)
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796
    FPT:
    Eabhal said:

    MattW said:

    Were we talking about "nothing will be done until 3 people have been killed".

    Here's another one, at a place called Plusha in Cornwall. 3 killed since 2015.

    Right turns across the A30, and also out across and into the other side; it is a 70mph limit dual carriageway at that point. There's a big petrol station/halt on one side, so a lot of turning traffic I assume.

    There's a bit of self-serving nonsense:
    "Amelia Collins had been travelling at 70mph along the A30 and said: "I did not see her pull out. I could not have done anything to avoid the collision."

    Dear, there's half a mile of a lot of bloody great signs showing how complex the junction is and what is there; you could have slowed down to 40 or 50mph which would have cut your kinetic energy by 1/2 to 2/3 . And even a "downhill, turning vehicles, reduce speed" one. You chose to drive at an inappropriate speed through potential traffic predictably crossing in both directions, when the consequences could have been mitigated. All exasperated by the turning driver being 79. (Personally, I suggest it is careless or reckless, bit not enough intention for dangerous.)

    https://maps.app.goo.gl/3y3RNcxLYfWyeg7R7
    My piccie for today:

    BBC report:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyzvj24ge1o

    That's very similar to the problematic junctions on the A9, particularly Aviemore. I always slow down for them given their brutal history. I've witnessed 8 German motorcyclists going through wrong way coming out of the Ralia junction.

    Anyway, it would simple just to pop a 40mph limit on them, or one of those "8 fatalities in last 10 years" signs up. I have no idea why they don't, and it's self-regulating anyway because of the average speed cameras.
    It would be simple - but it probably won't happen, due to built up layers of establishment and assumptions, and evaluation criteria - it will "must maintain the flow", and an evaluation based on a flawed model ! Current proposal is apparently to stop up the outgoing right turn - no mention of speeds on the trunk road. It's reactive culture, not proactive safety. Per the article:

    Assistant coroner Emma Hillson heard between 2015 and 2024 there had been 22 crashes leading to three deaths, nine serious injuries and a total of 54 casualties at the junction.

    Miss Hillson said the majority of the collisions had involved the same manoeuvre turning right from the B3257 on to the Launceston-bound A30 carriageway.


    I used to have one like that, that went in the 1990s, but only when enough injuries and deaths had happened.

    A system was invented 60, maybe 70, years ago, and the Local Highways Authorities are enslaved by it.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,718
    "Kemi Badenoch says she no longer identifies as Nigerian
    The Tory leader said she is "interested" in the country she grew up in, but her home is with her family and the Conservative Party"

    https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-says-she-no-longer-identifies-as-nigerian-13405449
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,397

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    I think it's much more complex than that. There are many types of people in a nebulous 'environmental' / green grouping. Some are political: the same sorts who have used niche topics over the decades to get political change - Greenham Common being another classic. Others are 'trendy': they hang on to the environmental scene because it makes them feel superior; they buy a Tesla whist flying on holiday three times a year, because, of course, they are *different* and they *care*. They *matter*. They campaign to preserve that ancient, knackered tree that could fall and kill a child, whilst they have tarmacced over their drive, and their garden is an immaculate green devoid of wildlife.

    My own view is that climate changing is happening, and it is bad for this country, and the world. Frankly, I'd rather it was not happening.

    But amongst the gloom, I see climate change as a massive opportunity. The science, technology and engineering required to tackle it may well - indeed, I think will - have positive knock-on effects for society in this country and around the world. Yes, there are massive costs. But the opportunities are also massive.

    An issue is that these opportunities will be delivered by big money and big corporations - the exact people some of the groups above dislike. And as the problems are solved, so are their campaigns. So they often do not like the solutions, and any progress made is ignored.

    And we have made a heck of a lot of progress.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,666
    FPT

    Some of the excuses for the racism and displays of moronity have been interesting.

    We have a demographic problem in our country - not enough babies. The solution to one small part of the population having slightly more babies than the majority is not pitchforked mobs - it’s to have more babies.

    As for “where is my nearest asylum hostel”. Growing up in Rochdale - which like Foxy’s Leicester has a very sizable Asian population - did give me an understanding of all of this.

    Best comment was Leon claiming that Muslims do not integrate. Anyone want to tell TSE?

    People really do need to to choose a side. Are they on the side of the racism thick as mince yobs? Ot the side of reason?

    On the reason side we want to reduce the boat crossings to zero and stop the idiot use of hotels to store people. On the pig ignorant racist scum side the latest FUKer MP suggestion is tents on a disused airbase. But last time disused airbases were suggested by the Tory government actual Tory ministers with the airbase in their patch went mad.

    Apparently they don’t want the fuzzy wussies there whether they are in tents or anything. And certainly don’t want the “they’re not from round here” rent a mob pig ignorant racists who aren’t from round there bussed in.

    That has nothing to do with it. There weren't any asylum hotels when you were growing up. You claimed that any objections to asylum hotels were purely colour prejudice, so it's reasonable to ask where your nearest one is. So where is it?
    It has everything to do with it. Why are people upset and what are they upset about?

    It isn’t people in hostels, it’s who the people are.

    Racists hate Muslims because they are going to rape their daughters. Especially the Pakistani ones or the ones who look Pakistani.

    Do you think all this stops with no asylum seekers in hotels? It will not.

    So yes, growing up hearing small minded morons going on about “pakis” to describe everyone with brown skin gives me understanding of this.

    I do love how triggered some of you are. Whilst denying you are triggered - or what has triggered you.

    Why waste time in here? Isn’t there a patriots protest you and Leon can go and wave your flags at? That will sort everything out.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    Andy_JS said:

    "Kemi Badenoch says she no longer identifies as Nigerian
    The Tory leader said she is "interested" in the country she grew up in, but her home is with her family and the Conservative Party"

    https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-says-she-no-longer-identifies-as-nigerian-13405449

    She isn't very good at politics is she....
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 18,239
    edited August 2
    Carnyx said:

    Hmm, I see Yougov are, to some extent, conflating different Green parties - 'Britons' this and that, but in reality focussing on the E&W Greens - and arguably conflating the E and the W Greens given the latter's autonomy. Plus the SGs are in a very different electoral climate, at least at Holyrood, which has a big effect on whether one votes for them or not. Ditto Welsh Greens.

    Conflating different factions within one party as well. English Greens are a surely unmanageable coalition between wholefooders, anarchists and National Trust members.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 79,801
    edited August 2
    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b

    For the Greens to move to major party status they face the same problem as Reform. Both parties need to move from being a single issue pressure group to having policy positions across all domains of government that mesh together into a coherent whole. In the Greens case this is that tackling the environmental crisis requires social inequality, an internationalist approach and a change of lifestyle to adjust to and halt climate change.

    The chances of that from either, in the next four years, are close to zero.

    And trying to present a genuinely coherent set of policies to the electorate would very likely lose them vote share.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,449
    Andy_JS said:

    "Kemi Badenoch says she no longer identifies as Nigerian
    The Tory leader said she is "interested" in the country she grew up in, but her home is with her family and the Conservative Party"

    https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-says-she-no-longer-identifies-as-nigerian-13405449

    So immigrants* can assimilate after all?

    *Badenoch has self-described as a first generation immigrant in her maiden speech in parliament.

    https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-07-19/debates/5294A807-C27B-4426-87D4-13606D4A93BE/ExitingTheEuropeanUnionSanctions#contribution-BBFBEA85-27E5-4895-9A47-23FF655CA77A
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 79,801
    OT did anyone listen to Lim playing Rachmaninov's Fourth at the Proms last night ?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,240

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
    @Leon @HYUFD @viewcode

    I would be interested in your thoughts on the speech if you have any.
    Kruger says the next Archbishop must go to war on woke, which he says is the Great threat to Christianity as it undermines the nation, family and community.

    He sees Islam as a lesser threat as he agrees with Muslims in opposing euthanasia and supporting the traditional family.

    The next Archbishop of Canterbury may be more pro Parish as Kruger would back but they will likely still be at least partly woke
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796
    edited August 2
    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b
    ...
    (Incidentally, wasn't his hypnotism treatment of women's breasts aimed at them having a better internal body image rather than actual actual breast enlargement? As he is gay, I expect his interest in women's breasts is not lacivious)
    According to the Sun, it was real breast enlargement. I can't detect whether it was tabloid satire with Zack as walk-on entertainer. His communication is - to me - largely new age wibble; the 2013 version of a blue pyramid:

    ZACK POLANSKI SAYS: “The brain is the most complicated computer we know of.

    “Our unconscious knows how to run our bodies better than we do. Essentially, I am looking to utilise the unconscious process to make changes to the body.
    We don’t exactly know what is changing because of the complexities of the unconscious.

    “We do know that whatever is changing is ecological, so if it’s changing one thing – such as the size of a person’s breasts – it’s making sure that the whole system is changing in order to support it.”

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/798031/can-you-really-think-your-boobs-bigger/

    (Obvs the sun so a piccie of big-boobed-Bertha in her seethru nightwear.)

    And he says it's about "tissue growth":

    I email Zack to ask if this is related to the therapy. He says it is part of the process, drawing me to high-energy foods to encourage tissue growth.

    I measure my bust after three days. I’ve grown from a 32in chest to 34in.
    Three days later, my chest measures 35in. Another three days and I’m 36in.

    I’m still wearing a B-cup but it is a lot more snug and I realise I should have been wearing an A-cup before.


    That's enough, but I suspect any changes are within normal cycles. Perhaps @Leon can advise from his statistically significant sample.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,084
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    No no no.

    The land is owned by a corporation in the Cayman Islands that is own by a company in Lichtenstein that is own by a company on the asteroid Eros.

    So when you die, your shares are transferred out of U.K. tax jurisdiction. Strangely, in a country with no inheritance tax.

    I nearly persuaded my wife to move to Marden in Kent for this - buy the farm house to live in. 35 acres of agricultural land. At that point cheap enough (£2.5 an acre) that running a few sheep would pay most of the mortgage on the land. The solar panels would have been pure profit. Mind you, my bet was really on Build Baby, Build.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,623
    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b

    For the Greens to move to major party status they face the same problem as Reform. Both parties need to move from being a single issue pressure group to having policy positions across all domains of government that mesh together into a coherent whole. In the Greens case this is that tackling the environmental crisis requires social inequality, an internationalist approach and a change of lifestyle to adjust to and halt climate change.

    (Incidentally, wasn't his hypnotism treatment of women's breasts aimed at them having a better internal body image rather than actual actual breast enlargement? As he is gay, I expect his interest in women's breasts is not lacivious)
    So he didn't charge for it because it wasn't hard work for him?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,623

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    No no no.

    The land is owned by a corporation in the Cayman Islands that is own by a company in Lichtenstein that is own by a company on the asteroid Eros.

    So when you die, your shares are transferred out of U.K. tax jurisdiction. Strangely, in a country with no inheritance tax.

    I nearly persuaded my wife to move to Marden in Kent for this - buy the farm house to live in. 35 acres of agricultural land. At that point cheap enough (£2.5 an acre) that running a few sheep would pay most of the mortgage on the land. The solar panels would have been pure profit. Mind you, my bet was really on Build Baby, Build.
    Er - land in Kent at £2.50 an acre?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,370
    edited August 2
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Disagree. I don't think we need to force more solar as we already have loads of it during the day and during the summer. It already makes financial sense for most people to install solar anyway, so while the private benefits are high the public benefits are not. Let the market do its thing. If we are going to regulate or subsidise, it should be around reducing our dependency on imported fuels like gas (and a lesser extent petrol), and therefore spurring on heat pumps and EV chargers, based on an energy security argument and on our upcoming comparative advantage on renewable electricity generation.

    Agree on food production - but mainly crops. There is a strong national security argument to retaining a large proportion of our calories from domestic cereals and so on. But a very large proportion of our subsidies go to luxury export goods like beef and lamb - stuff that isn't essential. Reduce the subsidies for them and concentrate on what we really need more of - vegetables in particular which we import loads of.

    But the crucial thing is the subsidies for such food have to be high enough to take account of the gains you can make by covering the fields with solar. That's going to cost a lot of money - do we really value food security to that extent? Probably, but we better cough up for it.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,449
    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b

    For the Greens to move to major party status they face the same problem as Reform. Both parties need to move from being a single issue pressure group to having policy positions across all domains of government that mesh together into a coherent whole. In the Greens case this is that tackling the environmental crisis requires social inequality, an internationalist approach and a change of lifestyle to adjust to and halt climate change.

    The chances of that from either, in the next four years, are close to zero.

    And trying to present a genuinely coherent set of policies to the electorate would very likely lose them vote share.
    Zack has spoken of targeting the 39 seats where they placed second at last years elections, so is not claiming to be Prime Minister in waiting. That is a realistic target for the election alongside a much greater presence on councils. All are currently held by Labour, and urban. It is quite likely that left wing policies will go down well in these. The 39 seats are in the link below:

    https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1809216647623815170

  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 6,753
    edited August 2
    MattW said:

    FPT:

    kyf_100 said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Media note:

    Has anyone noticed press coverage of the "Trans+ Pride" demonstration last weekend in London last Saturday, that drew 100k+ people?

    I only caught it from the Guardian feed, and nearly missed it.

    Checking - Guardian, Indy, BBC London Region, ES covered it. Elsewhere - crickets, as far as I can see.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3pw10zw2o

    I didn't see anything about it. It just shows how accepted Pride marches are, that they are no longer news.

    We even have Rutland pride now. Its that respectable.
    The thing about this year's trans pride was the difference in numbers.

    Trans pride attracted 100k this year, but only 60k a year ago. And the 100k who marched for trans pride this year was more than those who marched for the main pride event, just 30k. While pride is more of a celebration / booze up these days, trans pride is intensely political and becoming more so with recent events. I know it's not PB's demographic, but a lot of people in my social circle are very angry about the way the government is acting over this - particularly a Labour government.

    I noted earlier this week that the government is ruling by decree, invoking a statutory instrument to take away trans rights, - see https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true and has overruled the chairs of the women and equalities committee and the joint committee on human rights to appoint Mary Ann Stephenson to replace Kishwer Falkner, described as underqualified on race relations and lacking in credibility in a letter to Bridget Phillipson - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/31/mary-ann-stephenson-confirmed-as-ehrc-chair-despite-mps-objections - she was clearly only appointed because the government wants to push through anti-trans legislation. As I pointed out this week, you don't have to support trans rights to support good government based on transparency, fairness, and parliamentary accountability. Everything the current government is not.
    I wish Ian Dunt could write less than 3000 words. I'm not going to dive right in, because I have a day to run and with these things it's either "rabbit hole" or "avoid".

    I wish the guy could give a skeleton argument, or summary.

    At a very quick skim, I get the impression that he is arguing in caricatures from a maximalist and box-ticking position, which is a mirror of the outliers at the other end. This is him, on the ECHR position:

    A women's walking group, for instance, could not choose to be trans inclusive. If they wanted to allow trans women in, they would have to allow men in. The EHRC painted a very black and white world, which would obviously cause a tremendous amount of pain for the people affected.

    It now wishes to embed this interpretation into law via an update to the statutory code of practice - a 200 page guidebook telling businesses and public services how to interpret equality provisions. This would constitute the de-facto eradication of trans people from Britain's social fabric. That sounds hyperbolic, but it is difficult to see how any other interpretation is valid. How could a trans person participate in their country's economic, social, cultural or civic life under these conditions - where every trip to the toilet denies your identity and even joining a walking group involves a fundamental betrayal of self?


    What?
    Seems clear the GRC will have to be revisited in light of the Supreme court decision. You can't tell people they have to live as the other gender for two years to get one, but then prevent them from doing so. Needs to be got rid of or changed.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796
    Dopermean said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    You'd think vineyards and solar panels would work, lots of space between the rows of vines
    I expect the French have a big pile of studies on that.

    Two questions are:

    1 - Will the maintenance kit for both fit into the combined environment.
    2 - Where do the vines need their insolation?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796

    ydoethur said:

    Does Polanski have an inflated opinion of his own abilities?

    We should perhaps remember that in what, even by his standards, was a crass and bizarre thing to say, Massive Johnson once claimed 'voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts.'

    What a pair of muppets...

    Well it worked for Boris....and given all the hype around Sydney Sweeney, I reckon Zack should lean in....get bigger tits, without the plastic, and save the dolphins.
    Well we got bigger tits in numbers 10 and 11.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,084

    FPT

    Some of the excuses for the racism and displays of moronity have been interesting.

    We have a demographic problem in our country - not enough babies. The solution to one small part of the population having slightly more babies than the majority is not pitchforked mobs - it’s to have more babies.

    As for “where is my nearest asylum hostel”. Growing up in Rochdale - which like Foxy’s Leicester has a very sizable Asian population - did give me an understanding of all of this.

    Best comment was Leon claiming that Muslims do not integrate. Anyone want to tell TSE?

    People really do need to to choose a side. Are they on the side of the racism thick as mince yobs? Ot the side of reason?

    On the reason side we want to reduce the boat crossings to zero and stop the idiot use of hotels to store people. On the pig ignorant racist scum side the latest FUKer MP suggestion is tents on a disused airbase. But last time disused airbases were suggested by the Tory government actual Tory ministers with the airbase in their patch went mad.

    Apparently they don’t want the fuzzy wussies there whether they are in tents or anything. And certainly don’t want the “they’re not from round here” rent a mob pig ignorant racists who aren’t from round there bussed in.

    That has nothing to do with it. There weren't any asylum hotels when you were growing up. You claimed that any objections to asylum hotels were purely colour prejudice, so it's reasonable to ask where your nearest one is. So where is it?
    It has everything to do with it. Why are people upset and what are they upset about?

    It isn’t people in hostels, it’s who the people are.

    Racists hate Muslims because they are going to rape their daughters. Especially the Pakistani ones or the ones who look Pakistani.

    Do you think all this stops with no asylum seekers in hotels? It will not.

    So yes, growing up hearing small minded morons going on about “pakis” to describe everyone with brown skin gives me understanding of this.

    I do love how triggered some of you are. Whilst denying you are triggered - or what has triggered you.

    Why waste time in here? Isn’t there a patriots protest you and Leon can go and wave your flags at? That will sort everything out.
    The thing that gives this stuff purchase is the idea that “the government has no control”

    The Boats play to this.

    But also the nonesense about it being impossible to house asylum seekers anywhere - the hotels were used precisely because the Process State doesn’t have a process for stopping them. I read a transcript of a judge reviewing an application by a local authority - the *lawyer* for the local authority seemed upset by the fact there was no way to delay things by 6 months.

    So the public sees the government being told - no on airfields, no on ex service accommodation, no on hired hotel barges etc etc

    “They are not in control”

    What is needed is some clear, reasoned action. Not legislation by the courts.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,449
    carnforth said:

    MattW said:

    FPT:

    kyf_100 said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Media note:

    Has anyone noticed press coverage of the "Trans+ Pride" demonstration last weekend in London last Saturday, that drew 100k+ people?

    I only caught it from the Guardian feed, and nearly missed it.

    Checking - Guardian, Indy, BBC London Region, ES covered it. Elsewhere - crickets, as far as I can see.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3pw10zw2o

    I didn't see anything about it. It just shows how accepted Pride marches are, that they are no longer news.

    We even have Rutland pride now. Its that respectable.
    The thing about this year's trans pride was the difference in numbers.

    Trans pride attracted 100k this year, but only 60k a year ago. And the 100k who marched for trans pride this year was more than those who marched for the main pride event, just 30k. While pride is more of a celebration / booze up these days, trans pride is intensely political and becoming more so with recent events. I know it's not PB's demographic, but a lot of people in my social circle are very angry about the way the government is acting over this - particularly a Labour government.

    I noted earlier this week that the government is ruling by decree, invoking a statutory instrument to take away trans rights, - see https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true and has overruled the chairs of the women and equalities committee and the joint committee on human rights to appoint Mary Ann Stephenson to replace Kishwer Falkner, described as underqualified on race relations and lacking in credibility in a letter to Bridget Phillipson - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/31/mary-ann-stephenson-confirmed-as-ehrc-chair-despite-mps-objections - she was clearly only appointed because the government wants to push through anti-trans legislation. As I pointed out this week, you don't have to support trans rights to support good government based on transparency, fairness, and parliamentary accountability. Everything the current government is not.
    I wish Ian Dunt could write less than 3000 words. I'm not going to dive right in, because I have a day to run and with these things it's either "rabbit hole" or "avoid".

    I wish the guy could give a skeleton argument, or summary.

    At a very quick skim, I get the impression that he is arguing in caricatures from a maximalist and box-ticking position, which is a mirror of the outliers at the other end. This is him, on the ECHR position:

    A women's walking group, for instance, could not choose to be trans inclusive. If they wanted to allow trans women in, they would have to allow men in. The EHRC painted a very black and white world, which would obviously cause a tremendous amount of pain for the people affected.

    It now wishes to embed this interpretation into law via an update to the statutory code of practice - a 200 page guidebook telling businesses and public services how to interpret equality provisions. This would constitute the de-facto eradication of trans people from Britain's social fabric. That sounds hyperbolic, but it is difficult to see how any other interpretation is valid. How could a trans person participate in their country's economic, social, cultural or civic life under these conditions - where every trip to the toilet denies your identity and even joining a walking group involves a fundamental betrayal of self?


    What?
    Seems clear the GRC will have to be revisited in light of the Supreme court decision. You can't tell people they have to live as the other gender for two years to get one, but then prevent them from doing so. Needs to be got rid of or changed.
    Yes, the GRC and Equalities Acts are in clear contradiction, and at some point this will need to be addressed.

    Though isn't the GRC becoming obsolete in many respects, as most Trans-folk do not apply for one, they simply adopt the new gender, albeit without legal status? And if having a GRC doesn't include access to single sex spaces then what is it for?
  • Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 6,753
    edited August 2
    Foxy said:

    carnforth said:

    MattW said:

    FPT:

    kyf_100 said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Media note:

    Has anyone noticed press coverage of the "Trans+ Pride" demonstration last weekend in London last Saturday, that drew 100k+ people?

    I only caught it from the Guardian feed, and nearly missed it.

    Checking - Guardian, Indy, BBC London Region, ES covered it. Elsewhere - crickets, as far as I can see.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3pw10zw2o

    I didn't see anything about it. It just shows how accepted Pride marches are, that they are no longer news.

    We even have Rutland pride now. Its that respectable.
    The thing about this year's trans pride was the difference in numbers.

    Trans pride attracted 100k this year, but only 60k a year ago. And the 100k who marched for trans pride this year was more than those who marched for the main pride event, just 30k. While pride is more of a celebration / booze up these days, trans pride is intensely political and becoming more so with recent events. I know it's not PB's demographic, but a lot of people in my social circle are very angry about the way the government is acting over this - particularly a Labour government.

    I noted earlier this week that the government is ruling by decree, invoking a statutory instrument to take away trans rights, - see https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true and has overruled the chairs of the women and equalities committee and the joint committee on human rights to appoint Mary Ann Stephenson to replace Kishwer Falkner, described as underqualified on race relations and lacking in credibility in a letter to Bridget Phillipson - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/31/mary-ann-stephenson-confirmed-as-ehrc-chair-despite-mps-objections - she was clearly only appointed because the government wants to push through anti-trans legislation. As I pointed out this week, you don't have to support trans rights to support good government based on transparency, fairness, and parliamentary accountability. Everything the current government is not.
    I wish Ian Dunt could write less than 3000 words. I'm not going to dive right in, because I have a day to run and with these things it's either "rabbit hole" or "avoid".

    I wish the guy could give a skeleton argument, or summary.

    At a very quick skim, I get the impression that he is arguing in caricatures from a maximalist and box-ticking position, which is a mirror of the outliers at the other end. This is him, on the ECHR position:

    A women's walking group, for instance, could not choose to be trans inclusive. If they wanted to allow trans women in, they would have to allow men in. The EHRC painted a very black and white world, which would obviously cause a tremendous amount of pain for the people affected.

    It now wishes to embed this interpretation into law via an update to the statutory code of practice - a 200 page guidebook telling businesses and public services how to interpret equality provisions. This would constitute the de-facto eradication of trans people from Britain's social fabric. That sounds hyperbolic, but it is difficult to see how any other interpretation is valid. How could a trans person participate in their country's economic, social, cultural or civic life under these conditions - where every trip to the toilet denies your identity and even joining a walking group involves a fundamental betrayal of self?


    What?
    Seems clear the GRC will have to be revisited in light of the Supreme court decision. You can't tell people they have to live as the other gender for two years to get one, but then prevent them from doing so. Needs to be got rid of or changed.
    Yes, the GRC and Equalities Acts are in clear contradiction, and at some point this will need to be addressed.

    Though isn't the GRC becoming obsolete in many respects, as most Trans-folk do not apply for one, they simply adopt the new gender, albeit without legal status? And if having a GRC doesn't include access to single sex spaces then what is it for?
    I think for many people it was the passport and birth certificate changes that appealed.

    (Personally I'm uneasy with the birth certificate changes. Seems like rewriting history.)
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 5,144
    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    You won't get economic growth from never-ending subsidies and tax breaks just to hand down a farm from one generation to the next.
    Cheaper energy will help grow the economy.
    (and organo-phosphate fertilisers do not help the environment)
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 6,511
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    I expect Tories in the Suffolk and Herefordshire seats held by the Greens would be delighted if they moved left and focused less on the environment.

    Polanski would likely do a deal with the new Corbyn led party

    If Polanski wins I strongly suspect the Greens will end up back with one seat. Brighton of course.
    Not Bristol(s)?
    Milking the puns, I see.
    It is quite a fun, and somewhat apt, rhyming slang journey from Brighton Pier to trying to grow the Bristol Cities
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,449

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
    I am pretty certain that he will win. Whether he is a Green Johnson we will see, but there was one thing that Johnson was good at, and it was winning elections. The Greens would have to form a government before we could see whether Zack encompassed Johnson's incompetences as well as his competencies, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

    I do wonder if Polanski could win the Mayoralty in London, in a similar way to Johnson. It would up his profile significantly.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 25,429
    Andy_JS said:

    "Kemi Badenoch says she no longer identifies as Nigerian
    The Tory leader said she is "interested" in the country she grew up in, but her home is with her family and the Conservative Party"

    https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-says-she-no-longer-identifies-as-nigerian-13405449

    One moment she identifies as Yoruba. Now she identifies as British. I assume this switch was driven by nothing more than Conservative polling less than 20% instead of a personal journey, which diminishes her twice.
  • TazTaz Posts: 20,041

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
    Only if the solar panels are not rent-a-roof which, I am sure, will happen and in a few years time if they are then there will be howls from people unable to sell due to the onerous contracts from solar rent a roof companies.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,144
    viewcode said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Kemi Badenoch says she no longer identifies as Nigerian
    The Tory leader said she is "interested" in the country she grew up in, but her home is with her family and the Conservative Party"

    https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-says-she-no-longer-identifies-as-nigerian-13405449

    One moment she identifies as Yoruba. Now she identifies as British. I assume this switch was driven by nothing more than Conservative polling less than 20% instead of a personal journey, which diminishes her twice.
    She'll have plenty of time on her hands to think it all through from early summer 2026.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,144
    edited August 2
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
    I am pretty certain that he will win. Whether he is a Green Johnson we will see, but there was one thing that Johnson was good at, and it was winning elections. The Greens would have to form a government before we could see whether Zack encompassed Johnson's incompetences as well as his competencies, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

    I do wonder if Polanski could win the Mayoralty in London, in a similar way to Johnson. It would up his profile significantly.
    He may well win as it seems there have been a load of ex-corbyn type entrists who have joined in recent months just to vote for him e.g Grace Berkeley. They will leave now and go and join the real sultanas rather than stick with a watermelon. The Greens will be stuck with Polanski. What a mess.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,449
    viewcode said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Kemi Badenoch says she no longer identifies as Nigerian
    The Tory leader said she is "interested" in the country she grew up in, but her home is with her family and the Conservative Party"

    https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-says-she-no-longer-identifies-as-nigerian-13405449

    One moment she identifies as Yoruba. Now she identifies as British. I assume this switch was driven by nothing more than Conservative polling less than 20% instead of a personal journey, which diminishes her twice.
    I don't think identities need to be exclusive, it is perfectly possible for different identities to simply reflect different facets of a person.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,084
    MattW said:

    Dopermean said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    You'd think vineyards and solar panels would work, lots of space between the rows of vines
    I expect the French have a big pile of studies on that.

    Two questions are:

    1 - Will the maintenance kit for both fit into the combined environment.
    2 - Where do the vines need their insolation?
    The space between the vines is used for moving around the vineyard. Very heavily used by special tractors that “bridge” rows of vines.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 3,079

    Come the next GE campaign, I think their perceived weakness on defence will hit both the Greens and the Corbynistas hard and limit their appeal to Labour voters. Both will be attacked relentlessly on 'how are you going to defend the UK?'.

    It's worth remembering that at the peak of Corbyn's popularity, 2017, defence of the realm was seen as much less of an issue than it is now - voters rather took for granted the security of the nation, but thanks to Putin and others, that's much less the case now.

    There is a another big difference though, Magic Grandpa this time won't be trying to pitch to the whole of the country to try and win 40% which is where he then wraps himself in knots having to say things he doesn't really believe.

    His pitch will be solidly left wing socialism for all, pro-Gaza, pro-Green, pro trans, anti-war. There are plenty of people in the UK who don't see increased defence spending as a good thing, they think everybody should disarm and have a nice cup of tea.

    That caps his appeal at probably 15%, but that is enough to cause Labour issues. I think the big doubt is though will he actually do the work rather than just stick to having chats with Owen Jones and selling his "homemade" jam.
    Bear in mind he'll be about 80 by the time of the next election. So more likely he'll preside as a benign elder during the campaign leaving it to others to do the hard yards. Magic Grandpa, indeed.
    Suspect that might work quite well with them, particularly among young voters, who have a soft spot for whiskery oldsters.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796
    edited August 2
    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
    Only if the solar panels are not rent-a-roof which, I am sure, will happen and in a few years time if they are then there will be howls from people unable to sell due to the onerous contracts from solar rent a roof companies.
    IF they are replacing tiles, there is little reason for them to be rent-a-roof. It would make little sense for the housebuilder afaics.

    They would need to be incorporated in Guarantees, NHBC warranties etc, which apply at newbuild time. Those are down to the builder.

    Rent-a-roof was an added value thing to be piggybacked onto existing houses, and to give the provider company a continuing cost-free maintenance-free income stream from disaggregating the Govt subsidy, where they got the FIT cash and the householder got the electricity.

    Now the income stream, where rent-a-roof is done, is from exports aiui. It is a much tougher business model.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 35,416

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
    I am pretty certain that he will win. Whether he is a Green Johnson we will see, but there was one thing that Johnson was good at, and it was winning elections. The Greens would have to form a government before we could see whether Zack encompassed Johnson's incompetences as well as his competencies, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

    I do wonder if Polanski could win the Mayoralty in London, in a similar way to Johnson. It would up his profile significantly.
    He may well win as it seems there have been a load of ex-corbyn type entrists who have joined in recent months just to vote for him e.g Grace Berkeley. They will leave now and go and join the real sultanas rather than stick with a watermelon. The Greens will be stuck with Polanski. What a mess.
    I voted Green for the first time in our last County Council election. The chap won, and has turned out to be a first rate councillor, keeping in touch via various social media and links to local organisations.
    Such a change from his predecessor, a Conservative.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796

    MattW said:

    Dopermean said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    You'd think vineyards and solar panels would work, lots of space between the rows of vines
    I expect the French have a big pile of studies on that.

    Two questions are:

    1 - Will the maintenance kit for both fit into the combined environment.
    2 - Where do the vines need their insolation?
    The space between the vines is used for moving around the vineyard. Very heavily used by special tractors that “bridge” rows of vines.
    I thought so - so just like almost all fruit, soft fruit and lavender etc then.

    Sheep mix better with solar.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    edited August 2

    Come the next GE campaign, I think their perceived weakness on defence will hit both the Greens and the Corbynistas hard and limit their appeal to Labour voters. Both will be attacked relentlessly on 'how are you going to defend the UK?'.

    It's worth remembering that at the peak of Corbyn's popularity, 2017, defence of the realm was seen as much less of an issue than it is now - voters rather took for granted the security of the nation, but thanks to Putin and others, that's much less the case now.

    There is a another big difference though, Magic Grandpa this time won't be trying to pitch to the whole of the country to try and win 40% which is where he then wraps himself in knots having to say things he doesn't really believe.

    His pitch will be solidly left wing socialism for all, pro-Gaza, pro-Green, pro trans, anti-war. There are plenty of people in the UK who don't see increased defence spending as a good thing, they think everybody should disarm and have a nice cup of tea.

    That caps his appeal at probably 15%, but that is enough to cause Labour issues. I think the big doubt is though will he actually do the work rather than just stick to having chats with Owen Jones and selling his "homemade" jam.
    Bear in mind he'll be about 80 by the time of the next election. So more likely he'll preside as a benign elder during the campaign leaving it to others to do the hard yards. Magic Grandpa, indeed.
    Suspect that might work quite well with them, particularly among young voters, who have a soft spot for whiskery oldsters.
    At the moment, Jezza looks in very good health for somebody in their late 70s.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,084
    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
    Only if the solar panels are not rent-a-roof which, I am sure, will happen and in a few years time if they are then there will be howls from people unable to sell due to the onerous contracts from solar rent a roof companies.
    The problem with putting solar panels on houses is that the payback is a long, long time. The solar cells are about as expensive as plywood. The issue is the power electronics and the rest of the install - which will come to thousands.

    Basically - most home installations are too small to make sense. Mine is more of a technology interest, plus runs the aircon in summer.

    Stuff that does make sense is building a canopy over an outdoor carpark, or covering a factory/warehouse roof. You need scale for the economics to work.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,144

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
    I am pretty certain that he will win. Whether he is a Green Johnson we will see, but there was one thing that Johnson was good at, and it was winning elections. The Greens would have to form a government before we could see whether Zack encompassed Johnson's incompetences as well as his competencies, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

    I do wonder if Polanski could win the Mayoralty in London, in a similar way to Johnson. It would up his profile significantly.
    He may well win as it seems there have been a load of ex-corbyn type entrists who have joined in recent months just to vote for him e.g Grace Berkeley. They will leave now and go and join the real sultanas rather than stick with a watermelon. The Greens will be stuck with Polanski. What a mess.
    I voted Green for the first time in our last County Council election. The chap won, and has turned out to be a first rate councillor, keeping in touch via various social media and links to local organisations.
    Such a change from his predecessor, a Conservative.
    Would you still vote Green if Polanski is leader and spends most days round at Corbyn's gaff discussing economics?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,796
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
    I am pretty certain that he will win. Whether he is a Green Johnson we will see, but there was one thing that Johnson was good at, and it was winning elections. The Greens would have to form a government before we could see whether Zack encompassed Johnson's incompetences as well as his competencies, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

    I do wonder if Polanski could win the Mayoralty in London, in a similar way to Johnson. It would up his profile significantly.
    That would be interesting.

    I wouldn't want him anywhere near national power because of his over-pushed dogmas about non-growth economic policy, whilst less energy dense growth is imo the way to go.

    But in London he might overlap perhaps 50% with Sadiq's policies, and the face that Susan Hall would pull would be worthy of a public sculpture.

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    edited August 2
    A senior nurse at Lucy Letby’s hospital warned she was facing her “worst nightmare” after deadly bacteria was found on several taps in the “over-capacity” baby unit, leaked emails show.

    Eirian Powell, the manager of the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, argued the department was “taking too many risks” and “compromising patient safety”.

    The email was sent to senior managers in December 2015, the middle of the period in which there was a spike of baby deaths at the unit, for which Letby was convicted of murder.

    Former Estates Management staff at the hospital also told The Telegraph that nappy pads were placed in the ceiling of the unit to prevent sewage leaking through.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/02/nurse-warned-baby-killing-bacteria-lucy-letby-unit/

    As I have said, I don't know very much about the details of the Letby case, but it does seems like the place was a shit show....literally.
  • DoctorGDoctorG Posts: 112
    Eabhal said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Disagree. I don't think we need to force more solar as we already have loads of it during the day and during the summer. It already makes financial sense for most people to install solar anyway, so while the private benefits are high the public benefits are not. Let the market do its thing. If we are going to regulate or subsidise, it should be around reducing our dependency on imported fuels like gas (and a lesser extent petrol), and therefore spurring on heat pumps and EV chargers, based on an energy security argument and on our upcoming comparative advantage on renewable electricity generation.

    Agree on food production - but mainly crops. There is a strong national security argument to retaining a large proportion of our calories from domestic cereals and so on. But a very large proportion of our subsidies go to luxury export goods like beef and lamb - stuff that isn't essential. Reduce the subsidies for them and concentrate on what we really need more of - vegetables in particular which we import loads of.

    But the crucial thing is the subsidies for such food have to be high enough to take account of the gains you can make by covering the fields with solar. That's going to cost a lot of money - do we really value food security to that extent? Probably, but we better cough up for it.
    Sheep and solar panels won't conflict in too many cases, most of the sites chosen for solar panels are in flat, lowland, fertile areas which are generally highly productive. You won't get a solar farm up the Pennines. I don't blame the guys who are taking the money, the rent will easily be more profitable than most types of farming, provided the lease is secure. You can graze sheep round them but not sure how many companies are keen on that.

    The landowners who go for solar developments will still "own" the land, but there will be significant clauses in many contract agreements over future tenancy and land rights.

    I agree new builds should have solar panels installed, where possible. From what I've seen they are very efficient in summer but much less so in winter. So Mr Miliband is then left with the problem how do we fill the energy gap when solar panels aren't generating power and wind turbines aren't in action? Yesterday (or the day before, can't remember) we were importing 20% of our energy from the continent at one point.

    The change in subsidy system means livestock are not being subsidised in England any more, farmers will only receive subsidies if they conform to certain environmental conditions. Scotland has retained part payments for livestock, beef bred calves and upland breeding ewes on the poorest land. It was about 8% of the total pot of money, not sure what it is now. Value of sub has been frozen since around 2015, so if you were getting 25k annually then, you'll still be getting 25k annually now, unless you've bought land/other variables. Inflation has eroded the sub value considerably since the 1990s

    The rate that cattle and sheep farms are destocking across the UK means we won't have to worry about having too many sheep/cows soon enough.

    Don't think the UK Government value food security at all given the start they've made, and a lot of the harvest down south will be variable given the dry conditions. Expect food price increases in the coming months
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,370

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
    Only if the solar panels are not rent-a-roof which, I am sure, will happen and in a few years time if they are then there will be howls from people unable to sell due to the onerous contracts from solar rent a roof companies.
    The problem with putting solar panels on houses is that the payback is a long, long time. The solar cells are about as expensive as plywood. The issue is the power electronics and the rest of the install - which will come to thousands.

    Basically - most home installations are too small to make sense. Mine is more of a technology interest, plus runs the aircon in summer.

    Stuff that does make sense is building a canopy over an outdoor carpark, or covering a factory/warehouse roof. You need scale for the economics to work.
    So why are so many people getting them installed then? Is that irrational behaviour - particularly in the North of Scotland/Wales, where there are plenty of them?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,084
    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    Dopermean said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    So basically you buy up some crap land, put a solar farm on it, install some pet sheep, and take it off your inheritance tax when you die?
    You'd think vineyards and solar panels would work, lots of space between the rows of vines
    I expect the French have a big pile of studies on that.

    Two questions are:

    1 - Will the maintenance kit for both fit into the combined environment.
    2 - Where do the vines need their insolation?
    The space between the vines is used for moving around the vineyard. Very heavily used by special tractors that “bridge” rows of vines.
    I thought so - so just like almost all fruit, soft fruit and lavender etc then.

    Sheep mix better with solar.
    The sheep are excellent, apparently, because they mow the grass under the panels and in all the awkward spots.

    All you need is a moderate amount of care in making the cables unmunchable.

    The sheep make the place look "used" rather than completely "automated" - apparently this has a noticeable effect on vandalism. Which can be pain - lots of shiny surfaces appeal to yobs with spray cans.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    Terrible rain down under for the rugby.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 35,416

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:
    ...
    Exuding vision and belief is exactly what charlatans do.

    Polanski joined the Lib Dems in the coalition years, and only left when he failed to get shortlisted for the Richmond Park by-election. The "hypnotise your tits bigger" story is funny... but also indicative of a chancer who will say and do anything for what he sees as his own short term advantage.

    In short, he's a Green Johnson. I think they'll go for him... and live to deeply regret it.
    I am pretty certain that he will win. Whether he is a Green Johnson we will see, but there was one thing that Johnson was good at, and it was winning elections. The Greens would have to form a government before we could see whether Zack encompassed Johnson's incompetences as well as his competencies, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

    I do wonder if Polanski could win the Mayoralty in London, in a similar way to Johnson. It would up his profile significantly.
    He may well win as it seems there have been a load of ex-corbyn type entrists who have joined in recent months just to vote for him e.g Grace Berkeley. They will leave now and go and join the real sultanas rather than stick with a watermelon. The Greens will be stuck with Polanski. What a mess.
    I voted Green for the first time in our last County Council election. The chap won, and has turned out to be a first rate councillor, keeping in touch via various social media and links to local organisations.
    Such a change from his predecessor, a Conservative.
    Would you still vote Green if Polanski is leader and spends most days round at Corbyn's gaff discussing economics?
    Quite possibly. TBH I rather like what appear to be some of Corbyn's attitudes.

    I don't seem him, and have never seen him, as a PM though. Just as I never saw Michael Foot as PM.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,769

    A senior nurse at Lucy Letby’s hospital warned she was facing her “worst nightmare” after deadly bacteria was found on several taps in the “over-capacity” baby unit, leaked emails show.

    Eirian Powell, the manager of the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, argued the department was “taking too many risks” and “compromising patient safety”.

    The email was sent to senior managers in December 2015, the middle of the period in which there was a spike of baby deaths at the unit, for which Letby was convicted of murder.

    Former Estates Management staff at the hospital also told The Telegraph that nappy pads were placed in the ceiling of the unit to prevent sewage leaking through.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/02/nurse-warned-baby-killing-bacteria-lucy-letby-unit/

    As I have said, I don't know very much about the details of the Letby case, but it does seems like the place was a shit show....literally.

    It is entirely plausible that senior consultants in the department meme-ed themselves into believing that Letby was killing babies instead of facing up to the possibility that their own department was killing them left & right.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 79,801
    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b
    ...
    (Incidentally, wasn't his hypnotism treatment of women's breasts aimed at them having a better internal body image rather than actual actual breast enlargement? As he is gay, I expect his interest in women's breasts is not lacivious)
    According to the Sun, it was real breast enlargement. I can't detect whether it was tabloid satire with Zack as walk-on entertainer. His communication is - to me - largely new age wibble; the 2013 version of a blue pyramid:

    ZACK POLANSKI SAYS: “The brain is the most complicated computer we know of.

    “Our unconscious knows how to run our bodies better than we do. Essentially, I am looking to utilise the unconscious process to make changes to the body.
    We don’t exactly know what is changing because of the complexities of the unconscious.

    “We do know that whatever is changing is ecological, so if it’s changing one thing – such as the size of a person’s breasts – it’s making sure that the whole system is changing in order to support it.”

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/798031/can-you-really-think-your-boobs-bigger/

    (Obvs the sun so a piccie of big-boobed-Bertha in her seethru nightwear.)

    And he says it's about "tissue growth":

    I email Zack to ask if this is related to the therapy. He says it is part of the process, drawing me to high-energy foods to encourage tissue growth.

    I measure my bust after three days. I’ve grown from a 32in chest to 34in.
    Three days later, my chest measures 35in. Another three days and I’m 36in.

    I’m still wearing a B-cup but it is a lot more snug and I realise I should have been wearing an A-cup before.


    That's enough, but I suspect any changes are within normal cycles. Perhaps @Leon can advise from his statistically significant sample.
    So, he's either a crank, or a conman.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 86,447
    Nigelb said:

    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    If you watch Zacks Social Media, Green issues are front and centre, and incidentally he is a very good communicator, exuding vision and belief:

    https://bsky.app/profile/zackpolanski.bsky.social/post/3lvdbvdctn22b
    ...
    (Incidentally, wasn't his hypnotism treatment of women's breasts aimed at them having a better internal body image rather than actual actual breast enlargement? As he is gay, I expect his interest in women's breasts is not lacivious)
    According to the Sun, it was real breast enlargement. I can't detect whether it was tabloid satire with Zack as walk-on entertainer. His communication is - to me - largely new age wibble; the 2013 version of a blue pyramid:

    ZACK POLANSKI SAYS: “The brain is the most complicated computer we know of.

    “Our unconscious knows how to run our bodies better than we do. Essentially, I am looking to utilise the unconscious process to make changes to the body.
    We don’t exactly know what is changing because of the complexities of the unconscious.

    “We do know that whatever is changing is ecological, so if it’s changing one thing – such as the size of a person’s breasts – it’s making sure that the whole system is changing in order to support it.”

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/798031/can-you-really-think-your-boobs-bigger/

    (Obvs the sun so a piccie of big-boobed-Bertha in her seethru nightwear.)

    And he says it's about "tissue growth":

    I email Zack to ask if this is related to the therapy. He says it is part of the process, drawing me to high-energy foods to encourage tissue growth.

    I measure my bust after three days. I’ve grown from a 32in chest to 34in.
    Three days later, my chest measures 35in. Another three days and I’m 36in.

    I’m still wearing a B-cup but it is a lot more snug and I realise I should have been wearing an A-cup before.


    That's enough, but I suspect any changes are within normal cycles. Perhaps @Leon can advise from his statistically significant sample.
    So, he's either a crank, or a conman.
    Sounds about right for a politician.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,753
    edited August 2
    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    If only there were a mechanism that persuaded individual profit-seekers how to allocate land, labour and capital to achieve the best results for themselves, through increased revenues, and society, through the Invisible Hand.

    You could almost call it "the price mechanism" or "the market" or something.

    Instead of course we have the absurd spectacle of government preventing the most socially beneficial use of farmland, namely for housing, while competing branches of it subsidise its inefficient uses for solar panels and farming.

    Ridiculous, but it's where almost a century of Whitehall knows best lunacy has got us. And people are so brainwashed by it that they can't imagine government getting out of land ownership and letting individuals decide how best to manage their own property.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,769
    Good article in the FT on the crime statistics: https://www.ft.com/content/7488fe4c-5e1d-4b2b-adab-f42ad5273fc9

    Short version: crime in general genuinely appears to be down, but the crimes visible to people in their everyday lives (petty theft, shoplifting etc etc) are up significantly, by a factor of 2 or more in some cases, over recent years.
  • TazTaz Posts: 20,041
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
    Only if the solar panels are not rent-a-roof which, I am sure, will happen and in a few years time if they are then there will be howls from people unable to sell due to the onerous contracts from solar rent a roof companies.
    IF they are replacing tiles, there is little reason for them to be rent-a-roof. It would make little sense for the housebuilder afaics.

    They would need to be incorporated in Guarantees, NHBC warranties etc, which apply at newbuild time. Those are down to the builder.

    Rent-a-roof was an added value thing to be piggybacked onto existing houses, and to give the provider company a continuing cost-free maintenance-free income stream from disaggregating the Govt subsidy, where they got the FIT cash and the householder got the electricity.

    Now the income stream, where rent-a-roof is done, is from exports aiui. It is a much tougher business model.
    Why would it make little sense for a house builder to partner with a solar provider ? I think it makes perfect sense to do it.

    Rent a roof was piggy backed onto existing houses where people wanted to go solar and couldn’t afford it. They ended up, in some cases, with onerous contracts.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,683
    I've already voted for ZP because the other two seem a bit too fond of the old parliamentary democracy and Ramsay was spineless on trans issues.

    Les Verts didn't go anywhere near any of the other trot infested left-of-Labour projects (Respect, TUSC, etc.) and it'll be no different with Your Party.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,805
    A well argued conspiracy theory against Corbyn when he was leader.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IETxE7VErPA
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 25,429
    edited August 2
    Foxy said:

    carnforth said:

    MattW said:

    FPT:

    kyf_100 said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Media note:

    Has anyone noticed press coverage of the "Trans+ Pride" demonstration last weekend in London last Saturday, that drew 100k+ people?

    I only caught it from the Guardian feed, and nearly missed it.

    Checking - Guardian, Indy, BBC London Region, ES covered it. Elsewhere - crickets, as far as I can see.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3pw10zw2o

    I didn't see anything about it. It just shows how accepted Pride marches are, that they are no longer news.

    We even have Rutland pride now. Its that respectable.
    The thing about this year's trans pride was the difference in numbers.

    Trans pride attracted 100k this year, but only 60k a year ago. And the 100k who marched for trans pride this year was more than those who marched for the main pride event, just 30k. While pride is more of a celebration / booze up these days, trans pride is intensely political and becoming more so with recent events. I know it's not PB's demographic, but a lot of people in my social circle are very angry about the way the government is acting over this - particularly a Labour government.

    I noted earlier this week that the government is ruling by decree, invoking a statutory instrument to take away trans rights, - see https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true and has overruled the chairs of the women and equalities committee and the joint committee on human rights to appoint Mary Ann Stephenson to replace Kishwer Falkner, described as underqualified on race relations and lacking in credibility in a letter to Bridget Phillipson - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/31/mary-ann-stephenson-confirmed-as-ehrc-chair-despite-mps-objections - she was clearly only appointed because the government wants to push through anti-trans legislation. As I pointed out this week, you don't have to support trans rights to support good government based on transparency, fairness, and parliamentary accountability. Everything the current government is not.
    I wish Ian Dunt could write less than 3000 words. I'm not going to dive right in, because I have a day to run and with these things it's either "rabbit hole" or "avoid".

    I wish the guy could give a skeleton argument, or summary.

    At a very quick skim, I get the impression that he is arguing in caricatures from a maximalist and box-ticking position, which is a mirror of the outliers at the other end. This is him, on the ECHR position:

    A women's walking group, for instance, could not choose to be trans inclusive. If they wanted to allow trans women in, they would have to allow men in. The EHRC painted a very black and white world, which would obviously cause a tremendous amount of pain for the people affected.

    It now wishes to embed this interpretation into law via an update to the statutory code of practice - a 200 page guidebook telling businesses and public services how to interpret equality provisions. This would constitute the de-facto eradication of trans people from Britain's social fabric. That sounds hyperbolic, but it is difficult to see how any other interpretation is valid. How could a trans person participate in their country's economic, social, cultural or civic life under these conditions - where every trip to the toilet denies your identity and even joining a walking group involves a fundamental betrayal of self?


    What?
    Seems clear the GRC will have to be revisited in light of the Supreme court decision. You can't tell people they have to live as the other gender for two years to get one, but then prevent them from doing so. Needs to be got rid of or changed.
    Yes, the GRC and Equalities Acts are in clear contradiction, and at some point this will need to be addressed.

    Though isn't the GRC becoming obsolete in many respects, as most Trans-folk do not apply for one, they simply adopt the new gender, albeit without legal status? And if having a GRC doesn't include access to single sex spaces then what is it for?
    After the SC ruling Cyclefree sent me a link (which I will have to reread). Unfortunately the link text was not immediately comprehensible so I googled and found this: https://tomharwood.substack.com/p/the-most-misunderstood-debate-in

    That substack said that "...obtaining a GRC allows a transgender person to do four things:
    • Birth certificate: update your birth or adoption certificate, if it was registered in the UK
    • Marriage certificate I: get married or form a civil partnership in your affirmed gender
    • Marriage certificate II: update your marriage or civil partnership certificate, if it was registered in the UK
    • Death certificate: have your affirmed gender on your death certificate when you die..."
    Harwood also points out that "...A GRC does not alter an individual’s access to single sex spaces" and emphasises it again in "That is because, again, a Gender Recognition Certificate is not a passport to segregated spaces"

    In short, a GRC allows you to change your birth certificate, marriage certificate, and death certificate. It does not allow you to access the other prison, medical ward, track event, whatevs, although there is some confusion about toilets.
  • TazTaz Posts: 20,041

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Battlebus said:

    Interesting walk through the Kent countryside yesterday. Signs saying no to new homes and solar farms. More and more acreage put over to vines.

    Do we have a shortage of the latter and surpluses of the former? Strange

    I still think it's ecologically dumb to take fields out of producing food before we've put solar panels on every single roof in the country.

    I can understand why farmers do it - it makes excellent financial sense for them - but it's still a policy failure at a national level.
    It seems that, fundamentally, civil servants and policymakers in London object to farmers actually farming.
    Or teachers teaching, or businesses making money...

    (Although, that said, solar farms do make money.)
    They do object to the farming. Which is why the solar farming is such an attractive option. Especially when you combine it with renting the land for sheep. Which combined certain advantages of being “in agriculture” with not actually doing much farming.

    The actual percentage of land used for solar farms vs food is tiny, by the way.

    And there are two reasons that solar panels make far more sense on the ground.

    1) Working at height is expensive. It is the lost expensive thing about a solar install, domestically.
    2) Covering a roof gets you a limited amount of power. Mine covers the aircon and a bit over. Covering a few fields and your into serious watts. Because of scaling of the power electronics vs the panels, the comics say you get cheaper power with lots of panels per installation.
    We should require new builds to have solar panels and farmland should be mainly for food production and crops
    Rare PB agreement - not sure about requiring but surely it should just be the norm. Just make the south facing rooves out of them - almost as cheap as tiles now Shirley.
    Only if the solar panels are not rent-a-roof which, I am sure, will happen and in a few years time if they are then there will be howls from people unable to sell due to the onerous contracts from solar rent a roof companies.
    The problem with putting solar panels on houses is that the payback is a long, long time. The solar cells are about as expensive as plywood. The issue is the power electronics and the rest of the install - which will come to thousands.

    Basically - most home installations are too small to make sense. Mine is more of a technology interest, plus runs the aircon in summer.

    Stuff that does make sense is building a canopy over an outdoor carpark, or covering a factory/warehouse roof. You need scale for the economics to work.
    I went to a local shopping centre recently and noticed the car park there now has a portion where there are solar panels.

    I’d personally not buy any property, new or otherwise, with rent a roof panels.

    Labour is mandating all new build have them. I’m not sure how efficient that will be. Some new build round here already has them.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,294
    HYUFD said:

    Given it hit over 50°C in Turkey last week, and much of Europe is now boiling in the Summer - including ours being about 5-6°C warmer and drier than it used to be - you'd think they'd be more interested in the green stuff.

    But for these misguided folk it's a social and political religious movement, and they don't understand the science, technology and engineering that'd actually be required to achieve it.

    In fact, they reject it all.

    They're communists.

    On a very tenuously-related note, Danny Kruger made a speech (a while ago, but I'm only just aware) about Christianity and the new woke religion that was brilliant and worth a watch.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auajsLABn24
    @Leon @HYUFD @viewcode

    I would be interested in your thoughts on the speech if you have any.
    Kruger says the next Archbishop must go to war on woke, which he says is the Great threat to Christianity as it undermines the nation, family and community.

    He sees Islam as a lesser threat as he agrees with Muslims in opposing euthanasia and supporting the traditional family.

    The next Archbishop of Canterbury may be more pro Parish as Kruger would back but they will likely still be at least partly woke
    Well it could always be Cherry Vann, the new Archbishop of Wales celebrating her pride in being gay
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 79,801
    edited August 2
    carnforth said:

    MattW said:

    FPT:

    kyf_100 said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    Media note:

    Has anyone noticed press coverage of the "Trans+ Pride" demonstration last weekend in London last Saturday, that drew 100k+ people?

    I only caught it from the Guardian feed, and nearly missed it.

    Checking - Guardian, Indy, BBC London Region, ES covered it. Elsewhere - crickets, as far as I can see.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3pw10zw2o

    I didn't see anything about it. It just shows how accepted Pride marches are, that they are no longer news.

    We even have Rutland pride now. Its that respectable.
    The thing about this year's trans pride was the difference in numbers.

    Trans pride attracted 100k this year, but only 60k a year ago. And the 100k who marched for trans pride this year was more than those who marched for the main pride event, just 30k. While pride is more of a celebration / booze up these days, trans pride is intensely political and becoming more so with recent events. I know it's not PB's demographic, but a lot of people in my social circle are very angry about the way the government is acting over this - particularly a Labour government.

    I noted earlier this week that the government is ruling by decree, invoking a statutory instrument to take away trans rights, - see https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true and has overruled the chairs of the women and equalities committee and the joint committee on human rights to appoint Mary Ann Stephenson to replace Kishwer Falkner, described as underqualified on race relations and lacking in credibility in a letter to Bridget Phillipson - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/31/mary-ann-stephenson-confirmed-as-ehrc-chair-despite-mps-objections - she was clearly only appointed because the government wants to push through anti-trans legislation. As I pointed out this week, you don't have to support trans rights to support good government based on transparency, fairness, and parliamentary accountability. Everything the current government is not.
    I wish Ian Dunt could write less than 3000 words. I'm not going to dive right in, because I have a day to run and with these things it's either "rabbit hole" or "avoid".

    I wish the guy could give a skeleton argument, or summary.

    At a very quick skim, I get the impression that he is arguing in caricatures from a maximalist and box-ticking position, which is a mirror of the outliers at the other end. This is him, on the ECHR position:

    A women's walking group, for instance, could not choose to be trans inclusive. If they wanted to allow trans women in, they would have to allow men in. The EHRC painted a very black and white world, which would obviously cause a tremendous amount of pain for the people affected.

    It now wishes to embed this interpretation into law via an update to the statutory code of practice - a 200 page guidebook telling businesses and public services how to interpret equality provisions. This would constitute the de-facto eradication of trans people from Britain's social fabric. That sounds hyperbolic, but it is difficult to see how any other interpretation is valid. How could a trans person participate in their country's economic, social, cultural or civic life under these conditions - where every trip to the toilet denies your identity and even joining a walking group involves a fundamental betrayal of self?


    What?
    Seems clear the GRC will have to be revisited in light of the Supreme court decision. You can't tell people they have to live as the other gender for two years to get one, but then prevent them from doing so. Needs to be got rid of or changed.
    You can - as indeed they have - if your intent is to exclude from society.
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