Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
That he, his wife, and seemingly half of the cabinet, spent their first few months in office going to every sporting and music event possible, and putting their clothes on expenses, was the worst possible start he could have made.
It is not often talked about now, but those few interviews he did on that topic at the time could also have had a disproportionate impact on his public standing.
They happened exactly at the time where the public were forming early opinions of him as PM and he came across as entitled and very prissy. The whole “nobody would expect me to sit in the stalls at an Arsenal game, surely? Pah” and “My son needed to study for his exams, wouldn’t you have let him use your millionaire mates’ flat if you had one?” tone was very misjudged.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
Who the feck flagged this comment by @isam? It is epicene and pathetic
"Oh, miss miss, someone's being mean about Sir Keir"
The PB Lefties and the Centrist Dorks need to grow up
Comparing him with a bent copper is (just possibly) libellous, so it's not a completely ridiculous flag.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
Who the feck flagged this comment by @isam? It is epicene and pathetic
"Oh, miss miss, someone's being mean about Sir Keir"
The PB Lefties and the Centrist Dorks need to grow up
Comparing him with a bent copper is (just possibly) libellous, so it's not a completely ridiculous flag.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
Maybe it's a bent copper offended by the comparison.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
There would be considerably more support for the government if, despite the obvious financial problems, they were getting on with reforms in areas such as planning and building regulations that are making the housing problem continually worse.
There’s so many things they could be doing that don’t cost money, but they’re more worried about the reaction from lawyers and public sector workers than that of the general public.
It’s more the Process State mindset
1) 10,000 pages of regulation is a good sign 2) 1,000 more pages of regulation will fix all the problems.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
That's a great article.
The Part O building regulations do seem egregiously bad. Passive house design tends to maximise glazing and solar gain, so it's bizarre to see regulations that explicitly forbid that design.
Solar gain would be good in a cool, sunny climate but not such a good idea for summer in a warming climate. So a good passive design would be well-insulated, utilizing waste appliance heat and occupants heat output to maintain temperature in winter and be shaded from direct sunlight to minimize solar gain in summer so you don't roast.
The passive house design originated, as far as I am aware, in Germany, which has a warmer summer climate than Britain. As well as large amounts of glazing for solar gain the design incorporates ventilation. I don't know what the details of that are, but if you have a heat source (from solar gain) then you have the means to create a heat engine that would drive the movement of air around a building (that's why we have wind in the great outdoors after all).
Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
Who the feck flagged this comment by @isam? It is epicene and pathetic
"Oh, miss miss, someone's being mean about Sir Keir"
The PB Lefties and the Centrist Dorks need to grow up
Comparing him with a bent copper is (just possibly) libellous, so it's not a completely ridiculous flag.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
It was probably @Leon himself... Or one of his alters...
Morning all, More in Common with a bit of an 'interesting' weekly poll. A tightening Some shifts in this week's voting intention as Reform’s lead over Labour narrows again: now down to just 3pts. With both Labour and Tories up
➡️ REF UK 28% (-3) 🌹 LAB 25% (+3) 🌳 CON 20% (+2) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (-1) 🌍 GREEN 8% (nc) 🟡 SNP 3% (nc)
N=2055 |19-22/9|Change w 15/9
Hmm. I wonder if that’s a reaction to Reform’s “deport the settled” proposal. If so, you called it correctly. Farage went too far
Tho they’re still in the lead
If the next GE still looks like a Labour v Reform battle then Labour will win handily. There are far more voters that will vote tactically in seats where Reform might win to keep Farage out than vice versa.
Reform will be mercilessly hammered from all sides during the campaign. They will however hold on to enough core vote to prevent a big Tory revival.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
That's a great article.
The Part O building regulations do seem egregiously bad. Passive house design tends to maximise glazing and solar gain, so it's bizarre to see regulations that explicitly forbid that design.
Solar gain would be good in a cool, sunny climate but not such a good idea for summer in a warming climate. So a good passive design would be well-insulated, utilizing waste appliance heat and occupants heat output to maintain temperature in winter and be shaded from direct sunlight to minimize solar gain in summer so you don't roast.
Passive design is nice - “the best part is no part”
But good engineering is also about balancing the cost of one feature against another.
With the move to carbon free ‘leccy, heating/cooling rooms with air/air heatpumps (air conditioning that reverses) is a great idea.
Especially given that 30+ degrees in summer is provable for the foreseeable future. Such temperatures can (and do) kill people with respiratory issues, for example.
In turn this means we can build simpler buildings - which means the corridor with a staircase at each end becomes easy. Fire safety and better density + cheaper construction.
And we can have larger windows - if you are really upset about heat, install the exterior shutters that are universal in some continental countries.
The key is the religious belief that we must restrict energy use.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
Who has the micropenis then? I don't flag your posts since you have claimed them to be a badge of honour.
Although it is a shame that TSE writes an interesting and current header which gets ignored after you hijacked the thread with the Stephen Pollard piece. I suspect thread hijacking with some Starmer hatred gets YOU more attention than posting pictures of your breakfast, so for that well done!
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
Who has the micropenis then? I don't flag your posts since you have claimed them to be a badge of honour.
Although it is a shame that TSE writes an interesting and current header which gets ignored after you hijacked the thread with the Stephen Pollard piece. I suspect thread hijacking with some Starmer hatred gets YOU more attention than posting pictures of your breakfast, so for that well done!
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
Who has the micropenis then? I don't flag your posts since you have claimed them to be a badge of honour.
Although it is a shame that TSE writes an interesting and current header which gets ignored after you hijacked the thread with the Stephen Pollard piece. I suspect thread hijacking with some Starmer hatred gets YOU more attention than posting pictures of your breakfast, so for that well done!
Morning all, More in Common with a bit of an 'interesting' weekly poll. A tightening Some shifts in this week's voting intention as Reform’s lead over Labour narrows again: now down to just 3pts. With both Labour and Tories up
➡️ REF UK 28% (-3) 🌹 LAB 25% (+3) 🌳 CON 20% (+2) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (-1) 🌍 GREEN 8% (nc) 🟡 SNP 3% (nc)
N=2055 |19-22/9|Change w 15/9
Hmm. I wonder if that’s a reaction to Reform’s “deport the settled” proposal. If so, you called it correctly. Farage went too far
Tho they’re still in the lead
If the next GE still looks like a Labour v Reform battle then Labour will win handily. There are far more voters that will vote tactically in seats where Reform might win to keep Farage out than vice versa.
Reform will be mercilessly hammered from all sides during the campaign. They will however hold on to enough core vote to prevent a big Tory revival.
What happened in 2024 is voters went for anyone but the Conservatives, and generally they were reasonably good at working out who that was in their local patch. The same could occur at the next election, but for anyone but Reform voters. That would see Labour win lots of seats, but it would also see the LibDems do well, the Greens would at least hang on to their seats and maybe gain a few, maybe Your Party gets a few. That could be hung Parliament territory rather than another Labour majority.
I agree that the tactical vote will work for the Lib Dems equally well. Wherever Labour/Lib Dems/ Greens/ SNP/PC currently hold a seat they will be in pole position to benefit from anti-Reform tactical voting - and i expect that will be even stronger than the anti-Tory tactical vote last time.
I also think it will be a minority Labour Govt and I expect Labour to change leaders about a year out from the election.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
There would be considerably more support for the government if, despite the obvious financial problems, they were getting on with reforms in areas such as planning and building regulations that are making the housing problem continually worse.
There’s so many things they could be doing that don’t cost money, but they’re more worried about the reaction from lawyers and public sector workers than that of the general public.
It’s more the Process State mindset
1) 10,000 pages of regulation is a good sign 2) 1,000 more pages of regulation will fix all the problems.
When the reality is that 1,000 pages is too much, let alone 11,000.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
I thought you people liked flags. Make your fucking mind up.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
It comes across as people spending too much time watching American news, where “science” or “the science” can be code for all sorts of things depending on the context, especially medical science which is totally screwed up and beholden to pharmaceutical interests over there.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
Morning all, More in Common with a bit of an 'interesting' weekly poll. A tightening Some shifts in this week's voting intention as Reform’s lead over Labour narrows again: now down to just 3pts. With both Labour and Tories up
➡️ REF UK 28% (-3) 🌹 LAB 25% (+3) 🌳 CON 20% (+2) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (-1) 🌍 GREEN 8% (nc) 🟡 SNP 3% (nc)
N=2055 |19-22/9|Change w 15/9
Hmm. I wonder if that’s a reaction to Reform’s “deport the settled” proposal. If so, you called it correctly. Farage went too far
Tho they’re still in the lead
If the next GE still looks like a Labour v Reform battle then Labour will win handily. There are far more voters that will vote tactically in seats where Reform might win to keep Farage out than vice versa.
Reform will be mercilessly hammered from all sides during the campaign. They will however hold on to enough core vote to prevent a big Tory revival.
What happened in 2024 is voters went for anyone but the Conservatives, and generally they were reasonably good at working out who that was in their local patch. The same could occur at the next election, but for anyone but Reform voters. That would see Labour win lots of seats, but it would also see the LibDems do well, the Greens would at least hang on to their seats and maybe gain a few, maybe Your Party gets a few. That could be hung Parliament territory rather than another Labour majority.
I think the uncertainty about the 'Anyone But Reform' vote next time centres around the Tory vote, and it's a tricky one for the Tory party to decide which way to jump.
As a long term but not now Tory voter, I would vote for them to keep Reform out if and only if it was clear that to do so shored up the 'Not Reform Alliance'. At present the Tories are adrift between 'We Do Reform Better than Reform Do, Vote Tory' and 'We Are Mainstream Tory Opposed to Simplistic Populism'.
I think they will fail with both groups if they don't clarify this. It is why there is a possibility of Tories never recovering. They have no USP.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Hardly a surprise. The Lib Dems have had one shot at government in the last hundred years and they used it to put David Cameron and George Osborne in power. They won't be getting my vote. Like, ever.
What was the alternative?
An unstable rainbow coalition that would torn itself asunder within weeks and likely been Liz Truss on speed.
Plus you forget the legacy Labour bequeathed them, as I point Labour went into that election promising bigger cuts than Thatcher.
The coalition's badly thought out austerity policies (with the triple lock as the cherry on top) created the breeding ground of resentment that gave us Brexit. Worst government ever - until the even worse Tory clusterfucks tht followed. Talk about a legacy! Brexit, NHS in the toilet, asylum system fucked, debt way higher than in 2010, no progress on fixing social care, major infrastructure projects mismanaged and canceled, corrupt Covid projects pouring money down the drain, the triple lock bankrupting working people... it will take a generation to fix the mess the Tories have made of this country. All stemming from that posh boy love fest in the Rose Garden. No thanks.
"... debt way higher than in 2010 ..."
Could you explain the means by which, either in 2015 or 2024, the debt could reasonably be expected to be lower than it was in 2010, after the worst recession in British history and a colossal deficit inherited by the Coalition?
The Coalition government's first budget envisioned debt to GDP rising from 62% to 67% by 2015. Fair enough, they inherited a big deficit in the wake of the global financial crisis. But because their policies were a failure, debt actually rose to 84% of GDP by 2015. So yeah, I do blame them, sorry.
The deficit fell from 10% in 2010 to 2% in 2016
9% in 2010 to 3% in 2016. And the rise in debt to GDP was four times what they forecast so clearly something went awry.
Biggest reduction in the national deficit by any government of the last 50 years was by the 2010-2015 Coalition. GDP also grew
Morning all, More in Common with a bit of an 'interesting' weekly poll. A tightening Some shifts in this week's voting intention as Reform’s lead over Labour narrows again: now down to just 3pts. With both Labour and Tories up
➡️ REF UK 28% (-3) 🌹 LAB 25% (+3) 🌳 CON 20% (+2) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (-1) 🌍 GREEN 8% (nc) 🟡 SNP 3% (nc)
N=2055 |19-22/9|Change w 15/9
Hmm. I wonder if that’s a reaction to Reform’s “deport the settled” proposal. If so, you called it correctly. Farage went too far
Tho they’re still in the lead
If the next GE still looks like a Labour v Reform battle then Labour will win handily. There are far more voters that will vote tactically in seats where Reform might win to keep Farage out than vice versa.
Reform will be mercilessly hammered from all sides during the campaign. They will however hold on to enough core vote to prevent a big Tory revival.
Have to admire your confidence in a Labour win.
I would happily put money on Labour being the largest party IF Reform remains very much in the running.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
Some estimates are that production is down around 40% in the last two months, we’re seeing more and more daily reports of petrol and diesel shortages across russia.
Farage prevaricating over paracetamol and science now
Surely the voters will see through this MAGA style creation
I certainly will not hesitate to condemn Farage and it just affirms my loyalty to the conservatives who are the only sensible choice for the centre right
Some estimates are that production is down around 40% in the last two months, we’re seeing more and more daily reports of petrol and diesel shortages across russia.
Surely they just need the media to start banging on about petrol stations running out of petrol for the whole nation to go collectively mad and start queueing up (even though they don't need petrol)? Or is that just the UK?
Farage prevaricating over paracetamol and science now
Surely the voters will see through this MAGA style creation
I certainly will not hesitate to condemn Farage and it just affirms my loyalty to the conservatives who are the only sensible choice for the centre right
What's he said?
There's a risk that, even with such blatant bullshit, voter dislike of Labour and the Conservatives means it doesn't shift the polls much.
If the Lib Dems were more Orange Book and actually trying to appeal to the centre or, dare I say it, the right, then they'd be well-positioned to take advantage. But then, if Verstappen were equal on points with Norris he'd be favourite for the title right now.
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right... https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
There is something, though, that rubs people up the wrong way about Starmer.
I suspect that it might be the lack of deftness with which he handles political issues or principles. He is always telling us what he believes, and trading off this earnest image, but then contradicts himself. Blair could do this faux sincerity very well. Cameron could too, to a point. Starmer can’t land it at all. He comes off as being a tad holier-than-thou.
He also tries to do “strong and decisive” quite a bit (see all his ‘I won’t stand for it’ tweets) which feel inauthentic given his track record of being pretty weak and indecisive in government.
We might not have noticed some of this in different political times, but mainstream politicians come under a lot of pressure now at sounding inauthentic and “of the elite” and unfortunately for Starmer he fits that bill perfectly.
Also, the hypocrisy
They promised to be the “adults in the room”. Oh dear. They promised an end to Tory greed and grift - within a week they were engulfed in freebiegate. And on it goes
Voters REALLY hate hypocrisy. Especially if is dressed in vanity and piety
It’s probably one of the least lovable combinations of characteristics any human can have. And, unfortunately, Starmer has exactly that combination
And they flagged this as well. We truly have a micropenis'd person amongst us. I think I know who it is
I never spoke...
Personally I prefer to let my micro penis do the talking.
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right... https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
Don't worry, I'm sure the Supreme Court will take its duty to uphold the constitution impartially and step in to strike this down... sorry who am I kidding. America's deathspiral continues.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
He could easily square the circle by saying that Autism is perfectly natural so no person or thing is to blame. But he won't. Because he's a conformist c**t.
Some estimates are that production is down around 40% in the last two months, we’re seeing more and more daily reports of petrol and diesel shortages across russia.
Surely they just need the media to start banging on about petrol stations running out of petrol for the whole nation to go collectively mad and start queueing up (even though they don't need petrol)? Or is that just the UK?
I like your thinking!
There is actually some negative news about the war starting to be broadcast on russian TV, which in itself is unusual. There’s possibly starting to be a feeling that things aren’t quite right in the country.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
There would be considerably more support for the government if, despite the obvious financial problems, they were getting on with reforms in areas such as planning and building regulations that are making the housing problem continually worse.
There’s so many things they could be doing that don’t cost money, but they’re more worried about the reaction from lawyers and public sector workers than that of the general public.
It’s more the Process State mindset
1) 10,000 pages of regulation is a good sign 2) 1,000 more pages of regulation will fix all the problems.
When the reality is that 1,000 pages is too much, let alone 11,000.
Jeremy Hunt in his book made a similar point:-
Hospitals did indeed get regular advice on how to reduce Never Events. The trouble was that this was not the only advice they were receiving. In fact, they received directions, instructions, guidance and advice from a bewilderingly large number of national organisations every week. These include messages about safety procedures from a central alert system; separate additional guidance from NHS bodies such as NHS England, NHS Improvement and the CQC; regular further guidance from professional regulators such as the GMC or the NMC; and advice from multiple professional bodies including the Royal Colleges. I asked one hospital to estimate how often they received safety-related instructions, and they totted up the number as 108 times a year. Jeremy Hunt. Zero: Eliminating unnecessary deaths in a post-pandemic NHS
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
That's a great article.
The Part O building regulations do seem egregiously bad. Passive house design tends to maximise glazing and solar gain, so it's bizarre to see regulations that explicitly forbid that design.
Solar gain would be good in a cool, sunny climate but not such a good idea for summer in a warming climate. So a good passive design would be well-insulated, utilizing waste appliance heat and occupants heat output to maintain temperature in winter and be shaded from direct sunlight to minimize solar gain in summer so you don't roast.
The piece linked just seems confused.
He is not clear about what he wants, nor does he - for example - clearly differentiate between a reversible A2A heat pump and air conditioning, which are very different.
And he's pulling all sorts of thins from all sorts of places in a general perambulation.
Nor, also for example, does he recognise that reversible (as opposed to non reversible) A2A heat pumps are available under Govt backed schemes (it could be simpler, but they are there), or that A2A heat pumps generally do not need sudsidy as they are not very expensive.
I think he's right to question dual-aspect apartments, but to cast doubt on "two required stairwells" is not a very strong position.
Passive house design does not maximise glazing - it tends to reduce glazing because it recognises that walls are about 10x more efficient at providing insulation. People wanting certified passive houses spend their time juggling to optimise windows to match their needs (which is a good design discipline); it's also usual that keeping it cool in summer is a bigger challenge than keeping it warm in winter, so keeping solar gain under control is key.
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right... https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
I have an idea! What about a Trump Youth Movement? I am not sure anything like that has been thought of before.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
Presumably he doesn't want Trump to turn on him as well as Musk.
What's the Trump grift on this? Is there shorting of Kenvue? Leucovorin is now generic, so it's to see the angle on falsely promoting it.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right... https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
I have an idea! What about a Trump Youth Movement? I am not sure anything like that has been thought of before.
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right... https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
I have an idea! What about a Trump Youth Movement? I am not sure anything like that has been thought of before.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
He should leave out the word clear.
Tbh I do not think Farage's shameful equivocation is the gotcha you think it is. Most voters will think it reasonable that a mere politician should admit to ignorance of medical matters.
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right... https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
I have an idea! What about a Trump Youth Movement? I am not sure anything like that has been thought of before.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
Farage prevaricating over paracetamol and science now
Surely the voters will see through this MAGA style creation
I certainly will not hesitate to condemn Farage and it just affirms my loyalty to the conservatives who are the only sensible choice for the centre right
What's he said?
There's a risk that, even with such blatant bullshit, voter dislike of Labour and the Conservatives means it doesn't shift the polls much.
If the Lib Dems were more Orange Book and actually trying to appeal to the centre or, dare I say it, the right, then they'd be well-positioned to take advantage. But then, if Verstappen were equal on points with Norris he'd be favourite for the title right now.
Strange that Paul Marshall (of the Orange Book) is now a force behind Farage. Another example of splitters and the search for political purity?
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
I
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
He should leave out the word clear.
Tbh I do not think Farage's shameful equivocation is the gotcha you think it is. Most voters will think it reasonable that a mere politician should admit to ignorance of medical matters.
I don't think it's a gotcha at all. Merely that it confirms the moral vacuum of the neurotype who insist that anyone slightly different from me and my mates need to be cured, banned or deported.
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Not often they actually find these people.
Half the spooks and three-letter-agencies in Europe have been looking for whoever might be behind this one.
It’s being treated as terrorism until they can prove otherwise, with appropriate resources engaged. If it’s some kid in his parents’ basement who thinks he’s smarter than the regular police, he’s going to be in for a shock!
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
It's a fair question. I would probably feel the same about whoever was PM if they had swept in with the same platitudes about being pro-business and pro-growth...
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
He should leave out the word clear.
Tbh I do not think Farage's shameful equivocation is the gotcha you think it is. Most voters will think it reasonable that a mere politician should admit to ignorance of medical matters.
Can Nigel really hold that together as PM though? At some point during his tenure there will be a major health issue, and Nigel, as PM, will be expected to give a lead. His proclaiming 'nothing is knowable' all the time will surely wear a bit thin. Perhaps he should prepare that ground now by stating now that a Reform government will deliberately have no policy on science or public health.
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Not often they actually find these people.
Half the spooks and three-letter-agencies in Europe have been looking for whoever might be behind this one.
It’s being treated as terrorism until they can prove otherwise, with appropriate resources engaged. If it’s some kid in his parents’ basement who thinks he’s smarter than the regular police, he’s going to be in for a shock!
If they're lucky it'll turn out he did JLR too. Busy little bee.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
He should leave out the word clear.
Tbh I do not think Farage's shameful equivocation is the gotcha you think it is. Most voters will think it reasonable that a mere politician should admit to ignorance of medical matters.
Maybe. I don’t think it’s going to dent the support he has. It’s just I do sometimes question how he gets from his current support to the sort of support that would comfortably see him into Number 10.
Little things like that chip away, they seed doubt. They make people think maybe I don’t actually want to take a gamble with this man.
I can see plenty of centre-right voters holding their noses and voting for Farage in 2029, if he is still the main anti-government force. I see a lot of commentary suggesting that simply won’t happen - look at Europe and the US - there’s no reason it can’t. But the more doubt that exists in those people’s minds, the more they are likely to go back to the Tories or sit on their hands. This is Farage’s greatest challenge.
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Not often they actually find these people.
Half the spooks and three-letter-agencies in Europe have been looking for whoever might be behind this one.
It’s being treated as terrorism until they can prove otherwise, with appropriate resources engaged. If it’s some kid in his parents’ basement who thinks he’s smarter than the regular police, he’s going to be in for a shock!
If they're lucky it'll turn out he did JLR too. Busy little bee.
The more of these scumbags that end up in prison the better, I spend half my day making sure my employer isn’t their next target.
Yours sincerely, IT manager at an infrastructure company.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
The uncertainty runs both ways. When you delve into it, you start to come across some scenarios (particularly around tipping points) which make the scientists appear deeply cautious about their conclusions, even complacent. The common understanding of climate change is not the worst case scenario.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
I'm going to bite on this. I think no-one of any scientific understanding disputes that our burning of fossil fuels has led to changes in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and thus in all probability to the increases in global temperatures that are observed. There are however some very significant challenges to the science and there has been some extremely bad science used to make the case for action. I think most climate scientists are honest, upfront people, but sadly some have been shown to be bad actors. Climategate was an eye-opener in some ways, and not in others. I suspect most of us would rather not have our entire email history thrown out over the internet for everyone to pick over.
However it is the case that some people have been bad actors in this. Michael Mann is someone I have little time for. He rose to prominence with the publication of very long temperature studies using a variety of different tools, but mainly tree ring data. That data has repeatedly been shown to be flawed and poor techniques and statistical practice has been used. When errors have been shown by critics, rather than accept this, he has doubled down, including in the case of a date set included upside down. Serious scientists will always accept criticism and acknowledge mistakes, painful though they can be. And then you have the fight against malicious peer review - reviewers blocking publication based on in running counter to the narrative.
To be clear fossil fuel leads to more COs which leads to increased warmth. Where the great uncertainty arises is what happens next - i.e. the secondary effects. And that is precisely why there is such a range or predicted outcomes.
Where the zealotry comes in is usually NOT the scientists, but it is the activists. Add in journalist and also the tendency for media to only report exciting or dramatic stories and you end up with a very skewed view.
At the end of the day we ought to be aiming for world that is sustainable in food, energy and resources. As a society if we want to maintain even our current level of existence then we need sources of power that are not coal, gas and oil. And we ARE getting there. Challenges remain but my how far we have come. I with the UK government(s) had done more to get onto the green energy revolution.
I understand why climate skepticism exists. A lot of it is very reactionary, and partly the sheer lunacy of the religious climate fanatics drives this. Last week one claimed that 50% of people alive today would die in the next 25 years because of climate change. Utterly preoposterous, and no actual mechanism was cited.
Away from the media most scientists are a lot more willing to reveal the uncertainty than they are in public facing roles.
Why do people keep on making this stuff up about PB bring blind to the allure of MAGA? It happened at the Presidential election too. The majority of PBers don't like Trump but that doesn't mean they think he's unpopular in the US.
In fact, a lot of the doom on here is because we think Trump will run for a third term, upend the constitution, and win.
Farage prevaricating over paracetamol and science now
Surely the voters will see through this MAGA style creation
I certainly will not hesitate to condemn Farage and it just affirms my loyalty to the conservatives who are the only sensible choice for the centre right
What's he said?
There's a risk that, even with such blatant bullshit, voter dislike of Labour and the Conservatives means it doesn't shift the polls much.
If the Lib Dems were more Orange Book and actually trying to appeal to the centre or, dare I say it, the right, then they'd be well-positioned to take advantage. But then, if Verstappen were equal on points with Norris he'd be favourite for the title right now.
Strange that Paul Marshall (of the Orange Book) is now a force behind Farage. Another example of splitters and the search for political purity?
He switched horses in 2015 around Brexit, and is now more or less a NatCon. There's also a religion...out-of-religion...back-to-religion dynamic; he's very influential around Holy Trinity Brompton at a strategic level - there's probably a partial comparison with the influential position that Ken Costa used to occupy, but their views and interests are quite different. He's also tied in with things around Legatum.
When he left Oxford in the 1980s, Marshall believed that the way to change the world was through politics. He became a research assistant to future Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, and in 1987 stood for parliament for the SDP–Liberal Alliance in Fulham. With fellow Liberal David Laws, he co-edited The Orange Book, which was a plea for a return to the core liberal philosophies of choice and freedom. But he became disaffected with the Lib Dems’s position on Europe, and in 2015 left for the Conservative party. In May 2016 he donated £100,000 to the official Brexit campaign, Vote Leave, and was knighted the following month. He has since donated at least half a million pounds to the Tories. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/65415/the-marshall-plan-paul-marshall-gb-news
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
The uncertainty runs both ways. When you delve into it, you start to come across some scenarios (particularly around tipping points) which make the scientists appear deeply cautious about their conclusions, even complacent. The common understanding of climate change is not the worst case scenario.
Yes. I fully expect the scientists to cop a lot of blame if one of the worst-case scenarios (West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, failure of the South Asian Monsoon, collapse of the AMOC) comes to pass.
Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
Who the feck flagged this comment by @isam? It is epicene and pathetic
"Oh, miss miss, someone's being mean about Sir Keir"
The PB Lefties and the Centrist Dorks need to grow up
Comparing him with a bent copper is (just possibly) libellous, so it's not a completely ridiculous flag.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
What?! Saying someone is like a bent copper is libellous? Why would that be?
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
I think there are flaws in both those analyses.
While the paracetamol/autism question is sort of testable (there have been numerous studies, and will likely be many more, just as there are for all widely prescribed pain killers), it's not particularly discrete or simple.
We don't really understand the direct causes of autism, but genetics is clearly heavily implicated - genetic factors (and at least 100 genes show some association) outweighing environmental factors about 10 to 1. "Environmental factors" is an enormous category, within which Tylenol usage is akin to a grain of sand on the beach. There's no practical (or ethical) way of running an actual clinical trial, so you're looking at population studies, which are subject to a thousand confounding factors, some of which (eg the age of the father) might significantly outweigh any effect from paracetamol.
And it's a generic drug, so the commercial and academic interests in paracetamol, while significant, really aren't "massive".
I won't go into climate change, as that would take far longer, but I don't think you're quite right that the "climate change camp" have no interest in counter evidence. That might be largely true of the politics, but I don't think it's particularly true of the science.
The basic physics behind it, though, is far more clearcut and well understood than anything to do with any causative link between paracetamol and autism (no one really even has a theory to explain that, if it exists).
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
That's a great article.
The Part O building regulations do seem egregiously bad. Passive house design tends to maximise glazing and solar gain, so it's bizarre to see regulations that explicitly forbid that design.
Solar gain would be good in a cool, sunny climate but not such a good idea for summer in a warming climate. So a good passive design would be well-insulated, utilizing waste appliance heat and occupants heat output to maintain temperature in winter and be shaded from direct sunlight to minimize solar gain in summer so you don't roast.
The piece linked just seems confused.
He is not clear about what he wants, nor does he - for example - clearly differentiate between a reversible A2A heat pump and air conditioning, which are very different.
And he's pulling all sorts of thins from all sorts of places in a general perambulation.
Nor, also for example, does he recognise that reversible (as opposed to non reversible) A2A heat pumps are available under Govt backed schemes (it could be simpler, but they are there), or that A2A heat pumps generally do not need sudsidy as they are not very expensive.
I think he's right to question dual-aspect apartments, but to cast doubt on "two required stairwells" is not a very strong position.
Passive house design does not maximise glazing - it tends to reduce glazing because it recognises that walls are about 10x more efficient at providing insulation. People wanting certified passive houses spend their time juggling to optimise windows to match their needs (which is a good design discipline); it's also usual that keeping it cool in summer is a bigger challenge than keeping it warm in winter, so keeping solar gain under control is key.
To most people, Aircon vs A2A heatpump looks the same.
A2A is generally not available under government schemes. You get a VAT exemption.
Installation isn’t insurer cheap - needs to be done by a qualified engineer (coolant pipes)
I went through this for my loft conversion.
The point being made is that mandating no air conditioning in the design leads to the multi aspect requirement - which then makes the “corridor between 2 stairwells” much harder and reduces density.
Further, the passive requirement then drives down window size.
So we get complicated shapes, which are more expensive to build and reduce density. And smaller windows.
All driven by an “A/C is evil” doctrine which recognises neither changes in technology or the steadily growing amount of green ‘leccy
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Not often they actually find these people.
Half the spooks and three-letter-agencies in Europe have been looking for whoever might be behind this one.
It’s being treated as terrorism until they can prove otherwise, with appropriate resources engaged. If it’s some kid in his parents’ basement who thinks he’s smarter than the regular police, he’s going to be in for a shock!
If they're lucky it'll turn out he did JLR too. Busy little bee.
The more of these scumbags that end up in prison the better, I spend half my day making sure my employer isn’t their next target.
Yours sincerely, IT manager at an infrastructure company.
Yes. This sort of activity is conceptually the same as poisoning wells, salting fields and generally fouling up public infrastructure, and should be dealt with accordingly. It's an attack on the security of the realm, it's not just a couple of tech-bro nerds having a laugh.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
All fair points except perhaps that I am not accusing proper science of improper conduct. I am suggesting that the politicised camps are bad at dialogue.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
An essential cause of climate change is the bulge in the world's population, from 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 8 billion today. Clearly it needs to be reduced, but there are inevitable disagreements about who goes first and how. President Trump and his colleague RFK Jr have made a significant gesture by offering millions of Americans to the slaughter, using inappropriate healthcare as their chosen method. Given the average American releases 100 times more CO2 into the atmosphere than the average third world peasant this is a generous and praiseworthy initiative.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
But it's all whispering in corners and innuendo from Farage. All he has to say is "there is no clear evidence available to suggest a correlation between paracetamol consumption and autism, and I am afraid to say any comment to the contrary from Donald Trump or RFK Jnr. are an absolute crock".
He should leave out the word clear.
Tbh I do not think Farage's shameful equivocation is the gotcha you think it is. Most voters will think it reasonable that a mere politician should admit to ignorance of medical matters.
Can Nigel really hold that together as PM though? At some point during his tenure there will be a major health issue, and Nigel, as PM, will be expected to give a lead. His proclaiming 'nothing is knowable' all the time will surely wear a bit thin. Perhaps he should prepare that ground now by stating now that a Reform government will deliberately have no policy on science or public health.
By the time Nigel Farage is Prime Minister, it will, by definition, be too late to stop him becoming Prime Minister, but I imagine he would do what Prime Ministers have always done and defer to the experts. Fwiw I do not think that day will come.
It's a truism that a significant proportion of Democratic voters dislike the party as it is now constituted, and the left of the party doesn't like the policies of the moderates, and the moderates often don't much like the policies of the left. That makes turnout a problem. But the vast majority will still vote for the Democrat rather than the Republican. They now hate Trump, and his policies a LOT more.
In contrast, Republican voters of recent years have been less interested in an awful lot of actual policy - Trump has shifted wildly on economics, for example - as something which determines their vote.
It's a genuine problem for the current centre and left in the US, even the two party system.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
All fair points except perhaps that I am not accusing proper science of improper conduct. I am suggesting that the politicised camps are bad at dialogue.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
It depends upon how narrowly defined subject X is.
I am quite confident in declaring there's no new even prime numbers left to discover.
Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
Who the feck flagged this comment by @isam? It is epicene and pathetic
"Oh, miss miss, someone's being mean about Sir Keir"
The PB Lefties and the Centrist Dorks need to grow up
Comparing him with a bent copper is (just possibly) libellous, so it's not a completely ridiculous flag.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
What?! Saying someone is like a bent copper is libellous? Why would that be?
It's equivalent to accusing him of being corrupt, I suppose. I remember someone telling me on here that I couldn't call some Tory minister corrupt because it was potentially libelous. I don't know whether it is a genuine concern or not. Needless to say I didn't flag the comment.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
An essential cause of climate change is the bulge in the world's population, from 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 8 billion today. Clearly it needs to be reduced, but there are inevitable disagreements about who goes first and how. President Trump and his colleague RFK Jr have made a significant gesture by offering millions of Americans to the slaughter, using inappropriate healthcare as their chosen method. Given the average American releases 100 times more CO2 into the atmosphere than the average third world peasant this is a generous and praiseworthy initiative.
It's unlikely to be the most polluting Americans though.
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Not often they actually find these people.
Half the spooks and three-letter-agencies in Europe have been looking for whoever might be behind this one.
It’s being treated as terrorism until they can prove otherwise, with appropriate resources engaged. If it’s some kid in his parents’ basement who thinks he’s smarter than the regular police, he’s going to be in for a shock!
If they're lucky it'll turn out he did JLR too. Busy little bee.
The more of these scumbags that end up in prison the better, I spend half my day making sure my employer isn’t their next target.
Yours sincerely, IT manager at an infrastructure company.
Yes. This sort of activity is conceptually the same as poisoning wells, salting fields and generally fouling up public infrastructure, and should be dealt with accordingly. It's an attack on the security of the realm, it's not just a couple of tech-bro nerds having a laugh.
Indeed.
If intentionally trying to bring down the systems of a transport provider, it doesn’t really matter if the intention is to get a couple of Bitcoin out of them, or to cause widespread panic in the population and significant costs arising from delays and traffic jams.
The result is the same, which is the widespread panic and significant costs arising. Hence the security services resources being thrown at this particular case, and likely to be prosecuted accordingly. They’ll let his lawyer try to argue the sentence down from 10 years or so.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
All fair points except perhaps that I am not accusing proper science of improper conduct. I am suggesting that the politicised camps are bad at dialogue.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
Many scientists thought that physics was all but done in the early years of the 20th century but then some buggers came along with quantum theory and relativity. And now look where we are.
Insincere Sir Keir is a complete hypocrite personally and professionally. He’s like a bent copper or a snidey bullying teacher, and that’s why the public seem to hate him. Strange to me that some people just see him as bland and inoffensive.
Who the feck flagged this comment by @isam? It is epicene and pathetic
"Oh, miss miss, someone's being mean about Sir Keir"
The PB Lefties and the Centrist Dorks need to grow up
Comparing him with a bent copper is (just possibly) libellous, so it's not a completely ridiculous flag.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
What?! Saying someone is like a bent copper is libellous? Why would that be?
Because it implies criminality. I didn't say it IS libellous - rather that "just possibly" it might be so construed.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
The climate science is a hoax side state easily disproven things, such as that "burning fossil fuels isn't responsible for increasing levels of carbon dioxide because volcanoes", as fact, so that you can't take seriously their participation in any sort of debate on the science.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
An essential cause of climate change is the bulge in the world's population, from 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 8 billion today. Clearly it needs to be reduced, but there are inevitable disagreements about who goes first and how. President Trump and his colleague RFK Jr have made a significant gesture by offering millions of Americans to the slaughter, using inappropriate healthcare as their chosen method. Given the average American releases 100 times more CO2 into the atmosphere than the average third world peasant this is a generous and praiseworthy initiative.
It's unlikely to be the most polluting Americans though.
Indeed. They should be starting with Bill Gates and Al Gore, responsible for more carbon emissions than almost every other Americans, despite their preaching of environmentalism to the rest of us.
Is the Government approving a 'record number' of major infrastructure projects? Analysing a nonsense statistic
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/is-the-government-approving-a-record ...The government’s headline figure of 21 decisions doesn’t even make for a particularly good soundbite. Once you understand what it means, it’s clear it tells us next to nothing about whether ministers are delivering on infrastructure. What really matters is the timeliness and certainty of decisions. On that front, the record since the election is mixed.
The main area of progress has been on renewables. Under the previous government, renewable projects that might attract local opposition often spent months awaiting a decision from the DESNZ Secretary of State. Miliband approved several solar projects that were already well over deadline in his first week in office, and has generally responded more quickly.
However, in other areas (including non-renewable power applications), there isn’t yet enough evidence to say Labour ministers are doing better than their Conservative predecessors.
A lot of rhetoric out of MCHLG since Steve Reed’s appointment has been positive, and it is still very early days. But this particular stat is mostly nonsense. I’m fairly sure that Reed and officials in MHCLG are well aware of this. Because if Labour think this is good enough, we will never “build, baby, build” as Reed wants to.
So, marginally better than their predecessors, so far. Requires improvement.
Bit rum of Nigel just to say 'dunno' when asked about the medical safety of paracetamol. Do we take from this that his government will simply refuse to offer health advice when in office? How will that work if we have another Covid-like crisis?
Farage also took a rather selective refuge behind the (obviously true) point that there is no such thing as absolutely settled science - the Popper point to deal with Hume's celebrated objections to the finality of science and the nature of causation - that to qualify as science all its findings have to be eternally falsifiable.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
He's not so reticent to give his opinion of climate science.
Fair point.
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
No. Climate change has already happened. That that is so can be assessed through standard scientific methods. And it has been assessed, and clearly has already happened.
It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future, so what happens in the coming years is uncertain in detail, but there's no doubt about the broad outlines.
There are vested interests on one side of the debate that have been clearly documented as repeatedly trying to push a particular answer, and that's fossil fuel companies trying to deny climate change.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Comments
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a foolscap folder lightly grazing a human face — forever."
They happened exactly at the time where the public were forming early opinions of him as PM and he came across as entitled and very prissy. The whole “nobody would expect me to sit in the stalls at an Arsenal game, surely? Pah” and “My son needed to study for his exams, wouldn’t you have let him use your millionaire mates’ flat if you had one?” tone was very misjudged.
Also, it was one person who did it, so lay off with the whole "you lot need to grow up" schtick, as it could equally fairly be directed straight back at you.
1) 10,000 pages of regulation is a good sign
2) 1,000 more pages of regulation will fix all the problems.
But good engineering is also about balancing the cost of one feature against another.
With the move to carbon free ‘leccy, heating/cooling rooms with air/air heatpumps (air conditioning that reverses) is a great idea.
Especially given that 30+ degrees in summer is provable for the foreseeable future. Such temperatures can (and do) kill people with respiratory issues, for example.
In turn this means we can build simpler buildings - which means the corridor with a staircase at each end becomes easy. Fire safety and better density + cheaper construction.
And we can have larger windows - if you are really upset about heat, install the exterior shutters that are universal in some continental countries.
The key is the religious belief that we must restrict energy use.
Although it is a shame that TSE writes an interesting and current header which gets ignored after you hijacked the thread with the Stephen Pollard piece. I suspect thread hijacking with some Starmer hatred gets YOU more attention than posting pictures of your breakfast, so for that well done!
BREAKING: The Kremlin has issued a further rebuttal to Donald Trump's comment that Ukraine can retake the territory Russia occupies.
It said such an idea is "deeply mistaken".
I also think it will be a minority Labour Govt and I expect Labour to change leaders about a year out from the election.
OTOH there is nothing specially terrible about a non scientist like Farage claiming not to have scientific knowledge.
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1970794070030066053?s=19
Guess he must like The Donald.
As a long term but not now Tory voter, I would vote for them to keep Reform out if and only if it was clear that to do so shored up the 'Not Reform Alliance'. At present the Tories are adrift between 'We Do Reform Better than Reform Do, Vote Tory' and 'We Are Mainstream Tory Opposed to Simplistic Populism'.
I think they will fail with both groups if they don't clarify this. It is why there is a possibility of Tories never recovering. They have no USP.
https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1970725662240780474
Some estimates are that production is down around 40% in the last two months, we’re seeing more and more daily reports of petrol and diesel shortages across russia.
Surely the voters will see through this MAGA style creation
I certainly will not hesitate to condemn Farage and it just affirms my loyalty to the conservatives who are the only sensible choice for the centre right
There's a risk that, even with such blatant bullshit, voter dislike of Labour and the Conservatives means it doesn't shift the polls much.
If the Lib Dems were more Orange Book and actually trying to appeal to the centre or, dare I say it, the right, then they'd be well-positioned to take advantage. But then, if Verstappen were equal on points with Norris he'd be favourite for the title right now.
Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters* just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Ask yourself: how would the right react if a Democratic superintendent forced every school to host a Black Lives Matter club, a Sunrise Movement chapter, an ANTIFA club, or a Planned Parenthood student group? They would call it indoctrination — and they’d be right...
https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1970595596890210451
*Also the guy who allegedly streamed porn during a superintendents meeting.
https://x.com/yougov/status/1970466353824825386?s=46
Worth noting however that the two subjects are different in kind. The paracetamol/autism question is (relatively) discrete and simple - is there a relevant statistical link between single action X and single outcome Y. Similar to smoking and lung cancer. It is in principle testable and answerable (subject to the usual Popperian qualifications, if like me you are a Popper fan).
'Climate change' is no such thing. As a subject all manner of individual bits and pieces are testable, but the totality is only testable by waiting and seeing, which is little use; and the sheer complexity of the data and the future unknowns mean that as a whole it is not irrational to be doubtful about the reliability of the enterprise.
There is (IMO) a tendency for the climate change 'camp' to have no interest in any counter evidence, and the climate sceptic 'camp' to have no interest in counter evidence either. This trend characterises religion rather than science.
It is obvious to the meanest intellect that there are gigantic commercial, academic and political interests behind both 'camps', obvious also that to many powerful interests it is not helpful for there to be a healthy and reasoned debate.
But he won't. Because he's a conformist c**t.
There is actually some negative news about the war starting to be broadcast on russian TV, which in itself is unusual. There’s possibly starting to be a feeling that things aren’t quite right in the country.
https://x.com/stratcomcentre/status/1970391615140438259
Hospitals did indeed get regular advice on how to reduce Never Events. The trouble was that this was not the only advice they were receiving. In fact, they received directions, instructions, guidance and advice from a bewilderingly large number of national organisations every week. These include messages about safety procedures from a central alert system; separate additional guidance from NHS bodies such as NHS England, NHS Improvement and the CQC; regular further guidance from professional regulators such as the GMC or the NMC; and advice from multiple professional bodies including the Royal Colleges. I asked one hospital to estimate how often they received safety-related instructions, and they totted up the number as 108 times a year.
Jeremy Hunt. Zero: Eliminating unnecessary deaths in a post-pandemic NHS
He is not clear about what he wants, nor does he - for example - clearly differentiate between a reversible A2A heat pump and air conditioning, which are very different.
And he's pulling all sorts of thins from all sorts of places in a general perambulation.
Nor, also for example, does he recognise that reversible (as opposed to non reversible) A2A heat pumps are available under Govt backed schemes (it could be simpler, but they are there), or that A2A heat pumps generally do not need sudsidy as they are not very expensive.
I think he's right to question dual-aspect apartments, but to cast doubt on "two required stairwells" is not a very strong position.
Passive house design does not maximise glazing - it tends to reduce glazing because it recognises that walls are about 10x more efficient at providing insulation. People wanting certified passive houses spend their time juggling to optimise windows to match their needs (which is a good design discipline); it's also usual that keeping it cool in summer is a bigger challenge than keeping it warm in winter, so keeping solar gain under control is key.
What's the Trump grift on this?
Is there shorting of Kenvue?
Leucovorin is now generic, so it's to see the angle on falsely promoting it.
And... breathe...
"A person has been arrested in connection with a cyber-attack which has caused days of disruption at several European airports including Heathrow.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 40-year-old man was arrested in West Sussex "as part of an investigation into a cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace"."
Not often they actually find these people.
Within climate science there are, of course, vigorous debates on the large number of uncertainties that are present. Those uncertainties don't involve things like, "is the warning due to fossil fuel burning?" That simply isn't an interesting question for scientists to look at anymore, because there's nothing new to discover.
If there were some evidence to disprove the entire edifice of climate science then that would be a massive discovery for a young scientist, and science creates strong incentives for young scientists to make such breakthroughs. But there's no such evidence.
Accusing climate scientists of being religious about their scientific practice, because they don't take seriously people trying to debate things akin to "is the Earth flat?" is incredibly ignorant and insulting.
Anyway, Trump is busy wrecking all attempts to monitor the climate, wanting to deorbit US earth observation satellites, so we'll soon be in blissful ignorance of how bad it gets.
Merely that it confirms the moral vacuum of the neurotype who insist that anyone slightly different from me and my mates need to be cured, banned or deported.
It’s being treated as terrorism until they can prove otherwise, with appropriate resources engaged. If it’s some kid in his parents’ basement who thinks he’s smarter than the regular police, he’s going to be in for a shock!
You’d never guess from the way PB talks, but the GOP - even under Trump - are ahead or way ahead of the Dems on most issues
https://x.com/armanddoma/status/1970732532594548845?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
But hey, I am sure you posted those too.
Little things like that chip away, they seed doubt. They make people think maybe I don’t actually want to take a gamble with this man.
I can see plenty of centre-right voters holding their noses and voting for Farage in 2029, if he is still the main anti-government force. I see a lot of commentary suggesting that simply won’t happen - look at Europe and the US - there’s no reason it can’t. But the more doubt that exists in those people’s minds, the more they are likely to go back to the Tories or sit on their hands. This is Farage’s greatest challenge.
Yours sincerely,
IT manager at an infrastructure company.
However it is the case that some people have been bad actors in this. Michael Mann is someone I have little time for. He rose to prominence with the publication of very long temperature studies using a variety of different tools, but mainly tree ring data. That data has repeatedly been shown to be flawed and poor techniques and statistical practice has been used. When errors have been shown by critics, rather than accept this, he has doubled down, including in the case of a date set included upside down. Serious scientists will always accept criticism and acknowledge mistakes, painful though they can be. And then you have the fight against malicious peer review - reviewers blocking publication based on in running counter to the narrative.
To be clear fossil fuel leads to more COs which leads to increased warmth. Where the great uncertainty arises is what happens next - i.e. the secondary effects. And that is precisely why there is such a range or predicted outcomes.
Where the zealotry comes in is usually NOT the scientists, but it is the activists. Add in journalist and also the tendency for media to only report exciting or dramatic stories and you end up with a very skewed view.
At the end of the day we ought to be aiming for world that is sustainable in food, energy and resources. As a society if we want to maintain even our current level of existence then we need sources of power that are not coal, gas and oil. And we ARE getting there. Challenges remain but my how far we have come. I with the UK government(s) had done more to get onto the green energy revolution.
I understand why climate skepticism exists. A lot of it is very reactionary, and partly the sheer lunacy of the religious climate fanatics drives this. Last week one claimed that 50% of people alive today would die in the next 25 years because of climate change. Utterly preoposterous, and no actual mechanism was cited.
Away from the media most scientists are a lot more willing to reveal the uncertainty than they are in public facing roles.
In fact, a lot of the doom on here is because we think Trump will run for a third term, upend the constitution, and win.
When he left Oxford in the 1980s, Marshall believed that the way to change the world was through politics. He became a research assistant to future Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, and in 1987 stood for parliament for the SDP–Liberal Alliance in Fulham. With fellow Liberal David Laws, he co-edited The Orange Book, which was a plea for a return to the core liberal philosophies of choice and freedom. But he became disaffected with the Lib Dems’s position on Europe, and in 2015 left for the Conservative party. In May 2016 he donated £100,000 to the official Brexit campaign, Vote Leave, and was knighted the following month. He has since donated at least half a million pounds to the Tories.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/65415/the-marshall-plan-paul-marshall-gb-news
"Why didn't you warn us?!?"
While the paracetamol/autism question is sort of testable (there have been numerous studies, and will likely be many more, just as there are for all widely prescribed pain killers), it's not particularly discrete or simple.
We don't really understand the direct causes of autism, but genetics is clearly heavily implicated - genetic factors (and at least 100 genes show some association) outweighing environmental factors about 10 to 1.
"Environmental factors" is an enormous category, within which Tylenol usage is akin to a grain of sand on the beach.
There's no practical (or ethical) way of running an actual clinical trial, so you're looking at population studies, which are subject to a thousand confounding factors, some of which (eg the age of the father) might significantly outweigh any effect from paracetamol.
And it's a generic drug, so the commercial and academic interests in paracetamol, while significant, really aren't "massive".
I won't go into climate change, as that would take far longer, but I don't think you're quite right that the "climate change camp" have no interest in counter evidence. That might be largely true of the politics, but I don't think it's particularly true of the science.
The basic physics behind it, though, is far more clearcut and well understood than anything to do with any causative link between paracetamol and autism (no one really even has a theory to explain that, if it exists).
A2A is generally not available under government schemes. You get a VAT exemption.
Installation isn’t insurer cheap - needs to be done by a qualified engineer (coolant pipes)
I went through this for my loft conversion.
The point being made is that mandating no air conditioning in the design leads to the multi aspect requirement - which then makes the “corridor between 2 stairwells” much harder and reduces density.
Further, the passive requirement then drives down window size.
So we get complicated shapes, which are more expensive to build and reduce density. And smaller windows.
All driven by an “A/C is evil” doctrine which recognises neither changes in technology or the steadily growing amount of green ‘leccy
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
It's a truism that a significant proportion of Democratic voters dislike the party as it is now constituted, and the left of the party doesn't like the policies of the moderates, and the moderates often don't much like the policies of the left. That makes turnout a problem.
But the vast majority will still vote for the Democrat rather than the Republican. They now hate Trump, and his policies a LOT more.
In contrast, Republican voters of recent years have been less interested in an awful lot of actual policy - Trump has shifted wildly on economics, for example - as something which determines their vote.
It's a genuine problem for the current centre and left in the US, even the two party system.
I am quite confident in declaring there's no new even prime numbers left to discover.
If intentionally trying to bring down the systems of a transport provider, it doesn’t really matter if the intention is to get a couple of Bitcoin out of them, or to cause widespread panic in the population and significant costs arising from delays and traffic jams.
The result is the same, which is the widespread panic and significant costs arising. Hence the security services resources being thrown at this particular case, and likely to be prosecuted accordingly. They’ll let his lawyer try to argue the sentence down from 10 years or so.
I didn't say it IS libellous - rather that "just possibly" it might be so construed.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
Next few weeks of polling are going to be interesting.
E.g. The number of Reform voters could be stable or even fall and they could still see an increase if the legacy parties continue to collapse.
Analysing a nonsense statistic
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/is-the-government-approving-a-record
...The government’s headline figure of 21 decisions doesn’t even make for a particularly good soundbite. Once you understand what it means, it’s clear it tells us next to nothing about whether ministers are delivering on infrastructure. What really matters is the timeliness and certainty of decisions. On that front, the record since the election is mixed.
The main area of progress has been on renewables. Under the previous government, renewable projects that might attract local opposition often spent months awaiting a decision from the DESNZ Secretary of State. Miliband approved several solar projects that were already well over deadline in his first week in office, and has generally responded more quickly.
However, in other areas (including non-renewable power applications), there isn’t yet enough evidence to say Labour ministers are doing better than their Conservative predecessors.
A lot of rhetoric out of MCHLG since Steve Reed’s appointment has been positive, and it is still very early days. But this particular stat is mostly nonsense. I’m fairly sure that Reed and officials in MHCLG are well aware of this. Because if Labour think this is good enough, we will never “build, baby, build” as Reed wants to.
So, marginally better than their predecessors, so far.
Requires improvement.
It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future, so what happens in the coming years is uncertain in detail, but there's no doubt about the broad outlines.
There are vested interests on one side of the debate that have been clearly documented as repeatedly trying to push a particular answer, and that's fossil fuel companies trying to deny climate change.
Trump is about as popular as the Black Death in the UK.