Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
It mostly demonstrates that the stuff Sunak did in a panic as the full horror of the Boriswave became apparent is having some effect. I'm not aware of anything significant the Labour government has done to further reduce legal migration.
But also, it's worth remembering that immigration was a massive issue before the Boriswave. What was Brexit about if not immigration (those with longer memories may recall the farce of Cameron's "Emergency Brake" agreement). The reality is that the the British public want zero net migration, and have consistently voted for lower migration at pretty much every plausible opportunity for at least the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, it's better for it to be at 200k net than 800k net, but any politician trying to claim that current 200k net is OK because it's less that 800k net is likely to get very short shift. It's still at least 200k too high.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
That's what could have happened if we'd just left immigration at more or less zero for the last 25 years. Ratcliffe is essentially right - we've allowed in way too many extra people, and really without any supporting infrastructure.
Far too late to turn the clock back now, and I'm not for a moment advocating chucking people out who are here legitimately, but it does demonstrate why we should be aiming for net emigration for the next 25 years rather than continuing net immigration.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
It mostly demonstrates that the stuff Sunak did in a panic as the full horror of the Boriswave became apparent is having some effect. I'm not aware of anything significant the Labour government has done to further reduce legal migration.
But also, it's worth remembering that immigration was a massive issue before the Boriswave. What was Brexit about if not immigration (those with longer memories may recall the farce of Cameron's "Emergency Brake" agreement). The reality is that the the British public want zero net migration, and have consistently voted for lower migration at pretty much every plausible opportunity for at least the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, it's better for it to be at 200k net than 800k net, but any politician trying to claim that current 200k net is OK because it's less that 800k net is likely to get very short shift. It's still at least 200k too high.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
That's what could have happened if we'd just left immigration at more or less zero for the last 25 years. Ratcliffe is essentially right - we've allowed in way too many extra people, and really without any supporting infrastructure.
Far too late to turn the clock back now, and I'm not for a moment advocating chucking people out who are here legitimately, but it does demonstrate why we should be aiming for net emigration for the next 25 years rather than continuing net immigration.
A Farage government should help with the emigration bit.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
If you're right (and it's quite possible you are), isn't the answer for the NHS to just subcontract the job to BUPA?
I must confess, I didn't have you down as an obvious advocate for privatisation and marketisation of NHS functions, although it is wonderful to observe how the combination of a profit motive and the customer having actual choice somehow makes BUPA function way better than the NHS when doing exactly the same thing.
Further update from Down Under. The new Deputy leader of the Liberals is Jane Hume, a Senator who was fired by Ley last year and acknowledged that she was out for revenge.
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has managed to find a camera and very reluctantly shared his views (shocked, I tell you). He said that Liberals should get behind Angus Taylor as he “wants to protect our way of life”. He also said it’s time that the party pushed for immigration numbers to come down.
This is the same Tony Abbott who wrestled for the leadership of the party with Malcolm Turnbull, who only got behind the party leadership when he had finished stabbing them in the front in order to carry on stabbing them from behind, and who conveniently forgets that he himself is an immigrant.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Plus the cardiologists are either doing a day's private work at the BUPA hospital or busy with other NHS patients.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
It mostly demonstrates that the stuff Sunak did in a panic as the full horror of the Boriswave became apparent is having some effect. I'm not aware of anything significant the Labour government has done to further reduce legal migration.
But also, it's worth remembering that immigration was a massive issue before the Boriswave. What was Brexit about if not immigration (those with longer memories may recall the farce of Cameron's "Emergency Brake" agreement). The reality is that the the British public want zero net migration, and have consistently voted for lower migration at pretty much every plausible opportunity for at least the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, it's better for it to be at 200k net than 800k net, but any politician trying to claim that current 200k net is OK because it's less that 800k net is likely to get very short shift. It's still at least 200k too high.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
That's what could have happened if we'd just left immigration at more or less zero for the last 25 years. Ratcliffe is essentially right - we've allowed in way too many extra people, and really without any supporting infrastructure.
Far too late to turn the clock back now, and I'm not for a moment advocating chucking people out who are here legitimately, but it does demonstrate why we should be aiming for net emigration for the next 25 years rather than continuing net immigration.
So what you are suggesting is 20/50ths of a Thanos? It's...not my first thought, tbh 😀
Do we have a good idea how dangerous second hand vaping is, or is likely to be?
This doesn't feel particularly useful but I may be wrong. It also seems the headline is completely misleading cause this seems to be going for a complete vaping ban everywhere you can smoke? In which case what does the modelling show about smokers not switching to vaping since there's suddenly no point in latter?
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Depends which 20%. But yes, I want legal euthanisa heavily promoted
At Olympics they just banned a 3rd (!) Ukrainian athlete performance. THIRD! because of a helmet. Again! You know what they found too political here? A line by Ukrainian poet. Line says ‘ Where there is heroism, there is no final defeat.’ POEM! Are they afraid of words now? https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2022009435288416407
Third Ukrainian athlete banned from wearing custom helmet at 2026 Olympics.
The International Skating Union has barred short-track speed skater Oleh Handei from competing in a helmet featuring a quote by poet Lina Kostenko, according to Suspilne Sport.
Officials flagged the inscription—"Where there is heroism, there is no final defeat"—as a "political slogan," making Handei the third Ukrainian in Italy forced to change gear due to equipment restrictions. https://x.com/United24media/status/2021690511350788246
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
"I don't understand why people are bothered by rich child rapists."
"I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff and I don't understand why it keeps going. I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going."
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
The "but but but I made a speech typo" is a diversion to cover Jim Ratcliffe's backside.
His problem is that he is a gullible, deluded man. He created a major business here with success. He supported leaving the EU, which gave us the latest immigration wave about which he is now moaning. He supported New labour, then the Conservatives, then Keir Starmer. And has diddled around with his personal and company residence multiple times.
He has now pickled his brain with a series of made-up racist fantasies, which have come to characterise much of the Right side of our politics. I don't if he is all the way down the Great Replacement Theory and "all the Muslims are dangerous and they will rape your children" rabbit holes, but we cannot build a future for our country pandering to weathervanes like Ratcliffe.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
That’s because you typical car parking space is 4.8m long
Personally I try to keep my car as small as possible (as most of the time it’s content is me) and that’s getting harder to do as cars just grow slowly year on year
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
That’s because you typical car parking space is 4.8m long
Personally I try to keep my car as small as possible (as most of the time it’s content is me) and that’s getting harder to do as cars just grow slowly year on year
Heh.
Whereas my car was selected to be able to carry a standard house door flat in the back with the seats down, and 3m pieces of wood, or lots of 8ft fence posts, with the rear hatch closed, and 5m half-rounds comfortably with an open hatch without it being ridiculous!
I did all of those loads before in a 2009 Astra, and it was a bit fraught.
I also have nice gadgets like park assist and a downward looking towbar camera, which help hugely.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
That’s because you typical car parking space is 4.8m long
Personally I try to keep my car as small as possible (as most of the time it’s content is me) and that’s getting harder to do as cars just grow slowly year on year
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
That’s because you typical car parking space is 4.8m long
Personally I try to keep my car as small as possible (as most of the time it’s content is me) and that’s getting harder to do as cars just grow slowly year on year
Funny, but mine has been 4.7m since it was made.
The comment from AA Business is fun. How dare they !! Rebuild everything !!
Mark Tisshaw, editor of Autocar Business, said: 'We know that cars are getting longer and wider, typically due to ever-stricter crash and safety legislation they must meet, and these figures show too few councils are adapting to this new reality.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
That’s because you typical car parking space is 4.8m long
Personally I try to keep my car as small as possible (as most of the time it’s content is me) and that’s getting harder to do as cars just grow slowly year on year
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
I agree with not having direct access to specialists: triage is an important tool. But it’s also important empower staff and not just follow the specialisation of labour theory.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
Anyone using Windows Notepad rather than Notepad++ deserves all they get anyway.
Between June and December 2025, the official hosting infrastructure for the text editor Notepad++ was compromised by a state-sponsored threat group known as Lotus Blossom. The attackers breached the shared hosting provider’s environment.
This allowed the attackers to intercept and redirect traffic destined for the Notepad++ update server. This infrastructure-level hijack enabled the attackers to selectively target specific users. The targets were primarily located in Southeast Asia across government, telecommunications and critical infrastructure sectors. Attackers served these targets malicious update manifests instead of legitimate software updates.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
Adjacently to that, here is an article about an online influencer friend (PB core age - mid-50s) who lives in a small city near Vancouver, who is helping successfully to recruit USA Healthcare professionals to move to work in Canada:
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
More immigration?
Of doctors, absobloodylutely!
Are they to be allowed to bring in spouses and family?
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
There are a lot of elderly people of Black and Asian heritage around this way. The Windrush generation is not getting any younger. Sure, most oldies are White but that is because most people are White. In percentage terms, it's about the same.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
Ministers and civil servants have been told to report any future conversations with Global Counsel, the lobbying firm co-founded by Lord Peter Mandelson, in the latest fallout from his ties to Jeffrey Epstein
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
How can 4 million of the population increase be white people ageing ? Surely they were part of the population already.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
There are a lot of elderly people of Black and Asian heritage around this way. The Windrush generation is not getting any younger. Sure, most oldies are White but that is because most people are White. In percentage terms, it's about the same.
Sure, and in Leicester too. Much of our over 65 South Asian population moved here in the Sixties and early Seventies. Anyone who arrived as an adult when expelled from Uganda in 1972 is now over 70, having paid decades woth of taxes.
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
How can 4 million of the population increase be white people ageing ? Surely they were part of the population already.
The number of over 65's increased from 9.2 million in 2000 to 13.3 million in 2025.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
The other big driver of this is our urban sprawl, particularly compared with European countries. The vast majority of us live in towns and cities, but primarily in detached housing. So we feel crowded but don't enjoy the efficiencies of such density.
In terms of public services (roads, utilities, healthcare, education, public transport), providing them to areas made up primarily of flats can be up to 50% cheaper. The same goes for private costs like energy, building and maintenance and so on.
I don't think there is anything wrong with 70 million people at all. It's the way we've built the country that is causing the issues.
Ministers and civil servants have been told to report any future conversations with Global Counsel, the lobbying firm co-founded by Lord Peter Mandelson, in the latest fallout from his ties to Jeffrey Epstein
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
The other big driver of this is our urban sprawl, particularly compared with European countries. The vast majority of us live in towns and cities, but primarily in detached housing. So we feel crowded but don't enjoy the efficiencies of such density.
In terms of public services (roads, utilities, healthcare, education, public transport), providing them to areas made up primarily of flats can be up to 50% cheaper. The same goes for private costs like energy, building and maintenance and so on.
I don't think there is anything wrong with 70 million people at all. It's the way we've built the country that is causing the issues.
The funny thing is that if you fly about the country in a light aircraft - which you can also do on a simulator to avoid the cost and hassle of getting a pilot's licence - you will find that it's mostly all fields.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
You've answered your own question. Companies selling fuel, and their paid for politicians, don't like it because it saves 5-10% on fuel.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
The other big driver of this is our urban sprawl, particularly compared with European countries. The vast majority of us live in towns and cities, but primarily in detached housing. So we feel crowded but don't enjoy the efficiencies of such density.
In terms of public services (roads, utilities, healthcare, education, public transport), providing them to areas made up primarily of flats can be up to 50% cheaper. The same goes for private costs like energy, building and maintenance and so on.
I don't think there is anything wrong with 70 million people at all. It's the way we've built the country that is causing the issues.
The funny thing is that if you fly about the country in a light aircraft - which you can also do on a simulator to avoid the cost and hassle of getting a pilot's licence - you will find that it's mostly all fields.
What's your point? Yes, there is plenty more space to build endless urban sprawl - we could double, quadruple the population quite easily. But it would a highly inefficient way of doing it.
There are parts of Edinburgh, London that are a 20 minute cycle away from the city centre that have the same popuilation density as a small village. That's insane. There's enough derelict land in central Glasgow to house another half a million people, if we built traditional tenements.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
More immigration?
Of doctors, absobloodylutely!
Are they to be allowed to bring in spouses and family?
Can immigrant senior doctors come with their spouse and children? Yes of course they should.
However, that doesn’t mean they can come with half a dozen cousins.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
It costs money to put into the car.
So the argument that Trump will use is that it's designed to make american cars cheaper - the fact the extra cost of fuel will be far more than the functionality will be irrelevant to the people who actual buy these things..
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
It costs money to put into the car.
It's just a software change in the ECU. I can't believe it's significant in the cost of the entire car.
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
They just had a massive bug in Notepad, a basic text editor, after they tried to integrate CoPilot AI into it.
Perhaps Microsoft needs to spend more time on QA and less time on AI.
Good morning, everyone.
That kind of thing seems as insane to me as an online kettle. Just because a thing is possible doesn't mean it's good.
The Jurassic Park quote is rather apt: "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
Jeez I have been away from PB for too long. How is the start/stop feature on a car relevant to culture wars.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
More immigration?
Of doctors, absobloodylutely!
We already bring in so many foreign doctors that it makes it much more difficult for British medicine graduates to get on the training pathways. Hence https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4062
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
The other big driver of this is our urban sprawl, particularly compared with European countries. The vast majority of us live in towns and cities, but primarily in detached housing. So we feel crowded but don't enjoy the efficiencies of such density.
In terms of public services (roads, utilities, healthcare, education, public transport), providing them to areas made up primarily of flats can be up to 50% cheaper. The same goes for private costs like energy, building and maintenance and so on.
I don't think there is anything wrong with 70 million people at all. It's the way we've built the country that is causing the issues.
The funny thing is that if you fly about the country in a light aircraft - which you can also do on a simulator to avoid the cost and hassle of getting a pilot's licence - you will find that it's mostly all fields.
The catch is that we don't notice most of those fields, because they're in places we don't go.
The bits we do notice, even if we're not in a plane, are the bits of countryside bordering existing settlements. They're the bits we see, because they're the bits where we go. Inconveniently, they are also the bits where it's most sensible to build. Same goes for solar farms.
But the lack of midrise is a way that Britons make life worse for themselves. Is there a reason we stopped doing mansion blocks?
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
It saves 5-10% of fuel when driving through a crowded city.
But most people aren’t driving through crowded cities, they’re driving in suburbia where these nagging things being on by default is annoying.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
More immigration?
Of doctors, absobloodylutely!
We already bring in so many foreign doctors that it makes it much more difficult for British medicine graduates to get on the training pathways. Hence https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4062
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
It mostly demonstrates that the stuff Sunak did in a panic as the full horror of the Boriswave became apparent is having some effect. I'm not aware of anything significant the Labour government has done to further reduce legal migration.
But also, it's worth remembering that immigration was a massive issue before the Boriswave. What was Brexit about if not immigration (those with longer memories may recall the farce of Cameron's "Emergency Brake" agreement). The reality is that the the British public want zero net migration, and have consistently voted for lower migration at pretty much every plausible opportunity for at least the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, it's better for it to be at 200k net than 800k net, but any politician trying to claim that current 200k net is OK because it's less that 800k net is likely to get very short shift. It's still at least 200k too high.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
That's what could have happened if we'd just left immigration at more or less zero for the last 25 years. Ratcliffe is essentially right - we've allowed in way too many extra people, and really without any supporting infrastructure.
Far too late to turn the clock back now, and I'm not for a moment advocating chucking people out who are here legitimately, but it does demonstrate why we should be aiming for net emigration for the next 25 years rather than continuing net immigration.
OK, so most of that is wrong.
The Government doesn’t think 200k is OK. They’re aiming for lower immigration and the numbers are expected to drop further.
Let’s say we could remove 20% of the population, would this realise the utopia you imagine? No, of course not. The country would be 20% less productive. We would have 20% less of an economy. The trains would not stop being overcrowded, because there would be 20% less money to pay for them, so we’d have to run 20% fewer trains.
Populations support themselves. Populations generate wealth that then pays for the infrastructure they need. A smaller population can afford less infrastructure. If we’ve not invested enough in infrastructure, then the problem is not the size of the population, it’s our choice not to invest more in infrastructure.
Do we have a good idea how dangerous second hand vaping is, or is likely to be?
This doesn't feel particularly useful but I may be wrong. It also seems the headline is completely misleading cause this seems to be going for a complete vaping ban everywhere you can smoke? In which case what does the modelling show about smokers not switching to vaping since there's suddenly no point in latter?
My upstairs neighbours switched from cigarettes to vapes a few years ago, for their health. In the many years we've lived here, passively breathing their smoke made no observable difference to me. Very shortly after they started vaping, my senses of smell and taste started deteriorating and it started to get to my lungs. Now both senses have gone and my cough goes on getting deeper down.
I reckon vaping may be better than smoking for those who do it but worse for those around them.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
How can 4 million of the population increase be white people ageing ? Surely they were part of the population already.
The number of over 65's increased from 9.2 million in 2000 to 13.3 million in 2025.
And.
That simply means they moved from age group to another.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
How can 4 million of the population increase be white people ageing ? Surely they were part of the population already.
The number of over 65's increased from 9.2 million in 2000 to 13.3 million in 2025.
And.
That simply means they moved from age group to another.
Bloody youngsters coming into my age band and squeezing us oldies out!
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
How can 4 million of the population increase be white people ageing ? Surely they were part of the population already.
The number of over 65's increased from 9.2 million in 2000 to 13.3 million in 2025.
And.
That simply means they moved from age group to another.
Unfortunately, it also means that they go from net producers to net consumers. And whilst that's justifiable on an individual level, it creates hefty problems when totaled over a nation.
(It's also a significant part of why Thatcher to Blair could run the country on lowish taxes- ignoring the very predictable fiscal crunch lumbering over the hill. Which has now arrived.)
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
It saves 5-10% of fuel when driving through a crowded city.
But most people aren’t driving through crowded cities, they’re driving in suburbia where these nagging things being on by default is annoying.
How's it annoying? Unless my car has a particularly good implementation it's entirely transparent - you stop, go to neutral, engine goes off. As soon as you tap the clutch to get into gear, the engine is back. It doesn't require changing driving style at all (if you're one of those people who sits in gear with foot on the clutch then it doesn't stop the engine, at least in my car). It feels a bit weird the first few times as the engine stops, but then it makes absolutely no difference to driving except saving fuel.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
It saves 5-10% of fuel when driving through a crowded city.
But most people aren’t driving through crowded cities, they’re driving in suburbia where these nagging things being on by default is annoying.
I think that's it, it is just annoying. It doesn't always go off or on when you want it to and it changes the tone and vibration of the car which can grate.
Personally, I'll suck that up and take the fuel and pollution saving. But it's still annoying.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
Oxford had already mandated size limits in their on-street parking regulations when they brought them in years ago, they just hadn’t been enforcing them. Until this year that is. There was some local grumpiness, but surprisingly little. I guess the majority of people prefer not having to navigate around monster trucks parked on their road.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
Apart from culture war bollocks, why would anybody not want stop/start? It saves about 5-10% on fuel, depending on vehicle and usage.
It saves 5-10% of fuel when driving through a crowded city.
But most people aren’t driving through crowded cities, they’re driving in suburbia where these nagging things being on by default is annoying.
I think that's it, it is just annoying. It doesn't always go off or on when you want it to and it changes the tone and vibration of the car which can grate.
Personally, I'll suck that up and take the fuel and pollution saving. But it's still annoying.
The hidden cost is it dramatically slows traffic flows
Sit 20 cars with engine off in a row at a busy 4 way junction and time all 4 light flows.
Then sit 20 cars on each flow with engine running.
Do the 1 or 2 second lag delay on each car over a rush hour.
I am assuming Nigel repeals all this old nonsense.
I was listening to President Trump's impassioned speech about promoting ICE cars and trucks over electric vehicles yesterday. Reading between the lines, diesel emission particulates have some impressive health benefits for people with respiratory issues.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
Unfortunately we would have built 20% of everything in the past, perhaps.
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
The country would be less crowded, but we would have some other issues relating to the dependency ratio. Higher taxes or lower pensions, higher costs for health and social care if possible to staff it at all, schools closing for lack of pupils etc etc.
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
How can 4 million of the population increase be white people ageing ? Surely they were part of the population already.
The number of over 65's increased from 9.2 million in 2000 to 13.3 million in 2025.
And.
That simply means they moved from age group to another.
Bloody youngsters coming into my age band and squeezing us oldies out!
In a few years I’ll be one of them standing on your toes.
Comments
But also, it's worth remembering that immigration was a massive issue before the Boriswave. What was Brexit about if not immigration (those with longer memories may recall the farce of Cameron's "Emergency Brake" agreement). The reality is that the the British public want zero net migration, and have consistently voted for lower migration at pretty much every plausible opportunity for at least the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, it's better for it to be at 200k net than 800k net, but any politician trying to claim that current 200k net is OK because it's less that 800k net is likely to get very short shift. It's still at least 200k too high.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
That's what could have happened if we'd just left immigration at more or less zero for the last 25 years.
Ratcliffe is essentially right - we've allowed in way too many extra people, and really without any supporting infrastructure.
Far too late to turn the clock back now, and I'm not for a moment advocating chucking people out who are here legitimately, but it does demonstrate why we should be aiming for net emigration for the next 25 years rather than continuing net immigration.
I must confess, I didn't have you down as an obvious advocate for privatisation and marketisation of NHS functions, although it is wonderful to observe how the combination of a profit motive and the customer having actual choice somehow makes BUPA function way better than the NHS when doing exactly the same thing.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/13/sussan-ley-to-quit-politics-byelection-liberal-party-leadership-spill
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy61zlg10vo
This doesn't feel particularly useful but I may be wrong. It also seems the headline is completely misleading cause this seems to be going for a complete vaping ban everywhere you can smoke? In which case what does the modelling show about smokers not switching to vaping since there's suddenly no point in latter?
https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2022009435288416407
Third Ukrainian athlete banned from wearing custom helmet at 2026 Olympics.
The International Skating Union has barred short-track speed skater Oleh Handei from competing in a helmet featuring a quote by poet Lina Kostenko, according to Suspilne Sport.
Officials flagged the inscription—"Where there is heroism, there is no final defeat"—as a "political slogan," making Handei the third Ukrainian in Italy forced to change gear due to equipment restrictions.
https://x.com/United24media/status/2021690511350788246
"I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff and I don't understand why it keeps going. I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going."
Your president, America!
https://x.com/Daractenus/status/2022059085294961094
His problem is that he is a gullible, deluded man. He created a major business here with success. He supported leaving the EU, which gave us the latest immigration wave about which he is now moaning. He supported New labour, then the Conservatives, then Keir Starmer. And has diddled around with his personal and company residence multiple times.
He has now pickled his brain with a series of made-up racist fantasies, which have come to characterise much of the Right side of our politics. I don't if he is all the way down the Great Replacement Theory and "all the Muslims are dangerous and they will rape your children" rabbit holes, but we cannot build a future for our country pandering to weathervanes like Ratcliffe.
Spending watchdog says state-owned bank exposed taxpayers to ‘unacceptable risk’ as cost spiral to £3bn
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/feb/13/attempt-to-modernise-ns-and-i-full-spectrum-disaster-mps-spending-watchdog-finds
There is a fine line between investment and spaffing money up the wall on failed IT projects.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/cars-hit-april-2026-760-36650395
Not investing for the longer term has been a deliberate choice for generations. Arguably the last ones who did were he boomers.
Personally I try to keep my car as small as possible (as most of the time it’s content is me) and that’s getting harder to do as cars just grow slowly year on year
Whereas my car was selected to be able to carry a standard house door flat in the back with the seats down, and 3m pieces of wood, or lots of 8ft fence posts, with the rear hatch closed, and 5m half-rounds comfortably with an open hatch without it being ridiculous!
I did all of those loads before in a 2009 Astra, and it was a bit fraught.
I also have nice gadgets like park assist and a downward looking towbar camera, which help hugely.
Mark Tisshaw, editor of Autocar Business, said: 'We know that cars are getting longer and wider, typically due to ever-stricter crash and safety legislation they must meet, and these figures show too few councils are adapting to this new reality.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-13400869/The-councils-ban-car-parks-vehicle-LONG.html
4 million of the 10 million population increase from 2000 to 2025 are the over 65's. The demographics of these is that the vast majority of these are ethnically White British. Without the immigranys to support them our nation wouldn't be some buccollic "Merrie England" of sturdy yeomen quaffing pints it would be one giant old folks home.
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xRUTXY53LS0
This allowed the attackers to intercept and redirect traffic destined for the Notepad++ update server. This infrastructure-level hijack enabled the attackers to selectively target specific users. The targets were primarily located in Southeast Asia across government, telecommunications and critical infrastructure sectors. Attackers served these targets malicious update manifests instead of legitimate software updates.
https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/notepad-infrastructure-compromise/
https://x.com/olddog100ua/status/2022133043238982136
Sounds like a project that’s been speeded up with the opportunity to do some real-world testing.
https://nelsonstar.com/2025/10/04/man-behind-viral-vancouver-island-event-sends-sos-to-us-health-care-workers/
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car.
https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
However, rather kindly, the govt will allow you to vape in your own home.
Exclusive:
Ministers and civil servants have been told to report any future conversations with Global Counsel, the lobbying firm co-founded by Lord Peter Mandelson, in the latest fallout from his ties to Jeffrey Epstein
https://bsky.app/profile/pickardje.bsky.social/post/3meom5vdq722v
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-pm-starmer-outline-plan-make-britain-world-leader-ai-2025-01-12/
"Prime Minister Starmer plans to make Britain AI 'superpower'"
In terms of public services (roads, utilities, healthcare, education, public transport), providing them to areas made up primarily of flats can be up to 50% cheaper. The same goes for private costs like energy, building and maintenance and so on.
I don't think there is anything wrong with 70 million people at all. It's the way we've built the country that is causing the issues.
For example:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/12/nhs-deal-with-ai-firm-palantir-called-into-question-after-officials-concerns-revealed?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
There are parts of Edinburgh, London that are a 20 minute cycle away from the city centre that have the same popuilation density as a small village. That's insane. There's enough derelict land in central Glasgow to house another half a million people, if we built traditional tenements.
However, that doesn’t mean they can come with half a dozen cousins.
So the argument that Trump will use is that it's designed to make american cars cheaper - the fact the extra cost of fuel will be far more than the functionality will be irrelevant to the people who actual buy these things..
Perhaps Microsoft needs to spend more time on QA and less time on AI.
Joke country.
https://x.com/rcolvile/status/2021934019303059598?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
That kind of thing seems as insane to me as an online kettle. Just because a thing is possible doesn't mean it's good.
The Jurassic Park quote is rather apt: "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
NEW THREAD
The bits we do notice, even if we're not in a plane, are the bits of countryside bordering existing settlements. They're the bits we see, because they're the bits where we go. Inconveniently, they are also the bits where it's most sensible to build. Same goes for solar farms.
But the lack of midrise is a way that Britons make life worse for themselves. Is there a reason we stopped doing mansion blocks?
But most people aren’t driving through crowded cities, they’re driving in suburbia where these nagging things being on by default is annoying.
The Government doesn’t think 200k is OK. They’re aiming for lower immigration and the numbers are expected to drop further.
Let’s say we could remove 20% of the population, would this realise the utopia you imagine? No, of course not. The country would be 20% less productive. We would have 20% less of an economy. The trains would not stop being overcrowded, because there would be 20% less money to pay for them, so we’d have to run 20% fewer trains.
Populations support themselves. Populations generate wealth that then pays for the infrastructure they need. A smaller population can afford less infrastructure. If we’ve not invested enough in infrastructure, then the problem is not the size of the population, it’s our choice not to invest more in infrastructure.
I reckon vaping may be better than smoking for those who do it but worse for those around them.
That simply means they moved from age group to another.
(It's also a significant part of why Thatcher to Blair could run the country on lowish taxes- ignoring the very predictable fiscal crunch lumbering over the hill. Which has now arrived.)
Personally, I'll suck that up and take the fuel and pollution saving. But it's still annoying.
Sit 20 cars with engine off in a row at a busy 4 way junction and time all 4 light flows.
Then sit 20 cars on each flow with engine running.
Do the 1 or 2 second lag delay on each car over a rush hour.
Massive
I was listening to President Trump's impassioned speech about promoting ICE cars and trucks over electric vehicles yesterday. Reading between the lines, diesel emission particulates have some impressive health benefits for people with respiratory issues.
Sorry !,