The defence investment plan will no longer be published on Monday as planned, raising questions about where Dan Jarvis stands on the plan. Will be very awkward for Jarvis heading to NATO defence ministerials next week https://x.com/larisamlbrown/status/2065382271658451104
For the love of God man, go!
Starmer has reached Johnsonian levels of Prime Ministerial comedy. OK, not the venal corruption but the incalculable incompetence.
It's way, way overdue, but the defence review whose recommendations it is supposed to fund is now pretty clearly obsolete and/or unfundable under the current Chancellor.
So there's very little that can be done about it until Starmer is gone.
In the meantime, Dan can collect his salary, and accrue pension increments.
Should we tell Japan and Italy that GCAP is dead, or ought we to string them along until we have a replacement PM ? And who is likely to make that decision, as if it's left to Starmer, it won't be made this year.
It’s either breakfasts for poor kids or stopping the Russkis shooting them. At least Colonel Blimp was a sensitive, honourable man capable of change underneath the reactionary old fool, whereas this guy..
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Rachel and Sir Keir slashed that in half, but now it's breakfast clubs that are the problem. What gives?
All of it is unnecessary, especially whilst we run a budget deficit and have to go cap in hand to the bond markets to fund spending.
Scrap overseas aid. Scrap taxpayer funded breakfasts. Scrap motability. Stop blocking roads in the same of sodding active travel. Come out of ECHR. Get rid of the laws that have left us vulnerable to being sued by activist lawyers. Insist that anyone who arrives here on a small boat gets processed elsewhere. Get rid of the laws that lead to lawsuits faced by Brum council and now big supermarkets.
The list of pet hates to fund defence continues to grow. About £30 billion per annum gets us to 3% of GDP.
Breakfast clubs: £0.3 billion, enables those raising future soldiers to get to work
Overseas aid: £10 billion, mainly stuff that keeps us safe like disease monitoring, humanitarian etc etc
Active travel: £0.2 billion, stops us being a nation of sedentary fatties unable to run 5K or pick up a rifle
Motability : £1 billion, already largely cut
Leave the ECHR: ?
Rwanda scheme: actually costs money
Net Zero CfD contracts: saved us £4 billion in costs during Ukraine invasion, versus £50 billion subsiding fossil fuels (would have saved us well over £20 billion if the whole grid was based on them).
Beaver reintroduction: £2.55
Triple lock: possibly nothing if inflation picks up
The King: £0.07 Billion
Have I missed anything? Happy to keep a log.
Chagos?
Sell at auction between the Chinese, Indians and Americans. Highest bidder gets the island, with the Chagos Islanders as free labour.
EDIT: Part of the price is that the winner has to get UN resolutions that selling the island to them and enslaving the former islanders is actually 100% AOK. So we would be following Strict International Law
That should actually be a fairly straightforward target to meet, since our schools tend to have geographical catchment, and we already have places that aiui meet the target eg Portsmouth.
I'd argue we should also use it as an opportunity to improve and expand our public footpath network.
I would be interested to see new urban designs (for new towns) that have vehicle, footpaths and cycle lanes segregated from each other.
I saw a design the other day - with road (in the style of the old coal lanes) at the bottom of back gardens (with garages/car standing on the plots, not in the road), and the front gardens opening onto pavements with cycle lanes between them.
In current projects, Waterbeach near Cambridge is a development aiming to be "sustainable" from the outset.
The actual presentation starts at the second section, and they outline some quite interesting challenges and balances they had to work through with current expectations and current practice. One interesting one is how to prioritise pedestrians and de-emphasise vehicles, when VIPs (visually impaired people) actually want kerbs to help them navigate. Exhibition Road in London is an interesting case in point.
My dad was involved as an architect in laying out things in our town in the late 1960s early 1970s, and I could show you things here with similar principles in some respects.
It’s either breakfasts for poor kids or stopping the Russkis shooting them. At least Colonel Blimp was a sensitive, honourable man capable of change underneath the reactionary old fool, whereas this guy..
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Rachel and Sir Keir slashed that in half, but now it's breakfast clubs that are the problem. What gives?
Lord Alan West (why am I reminded of Walk on the Wild side?) is an excellent argument for Members of the Lords to retire at 80.
Lord West is 78. Former First Sea Lord who had his ship sunk during the Falklands. A "fighting admiral" who is a Labour peer and made security minister by Gordon Brown. A useful person to have in the Lords, I would have thought.
I'm very familiar with Lord West.
To me these days he seems to be a classic Daily Telegraph retired Admiral, commentating from how things were several decades ago.
I'd say he is more suited for the Telegraph than the Lords.
Playing the man not the ball.
His argument is demonstrably bollocks, too, since there the funding shortfall for defence, and the money for free school breakfasts are of a different order of magnitude - and the latter is in any event being paid for by the excess interest rate charged on student loans, as a Treasury Minister told the Commons the other day.
To give him his due, he did oppose defence cuts under the last Labour government, nearly twenty years ago,
Whether his argument is bollocks or not, I don’t care either way, it’s still a cheap shot.
It’s either breakfasts for poor kids or stopping the Russkis shooting them. At least Colonel Blimp was a sensitive, honourable man capable of change underneath the reactionary old fool, whereas this guy..
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Rachel and Sir Keir slashed that in half, but now it's breakfast clubs that are the problem. What gives?
Lord Alan West (why am I reminded of Walk on the Wild side?) is an excellent argument for Members of the Lords to retire at 80.
Lord West is 78. Former First Sea Lord who had his ship sunk during the Falklands. A "fighting admiral" who is a Labour peer and made security minister by Gordon Brown. A useful person to have in the Lords, I would have thought.
I'm very familiar with Lord West.
To me these days he seems to be a classic Daily Telegraph retired Admiral, commentating from how things were several decades ago.
I'd say he is more suited for the Telegraph than the Lords.
IMO he needs to consider the the effect of free school meals, including breakfasts, on children's health and the effectiveness of their education.
Given how much we spend on education, making sure children have been fed enough so they can actually concentrate and learn is money well spent.
But that shouldn't be attached to the amount of interest we charge on student loans for those who wanted to go to university.
Yes - I agree.
Perhaps we should fund it by means testing state pensions for those with incomes over perhaps 80k or 100k.
Make it all benefits and also tax UC and PIP where above the tax free earning limit, or whatever it’s called.
Why is it with people like you it’s always pensions in the firing line but other benefits can just increase and increase ?
It isn’t that simple. The Ukraine/Russia front is the obsession night now, but throw in directed energy weapons and high end electronic warfare to take on the drones, and you’ll be back to infantry and protected mobility in no time.
Indeed. People who are saying we should go all-in on drones don't seem to understand we're in a period where a new weapon is highly effective because countermeasures have not been deployed at scale. Current air defence systems are designed to counter aircraft and missiles, not small slow flying drones.
All those Russian tanks died because they had no way of taking out the drones. That will not be the case in future. Similarly, Ukraine is having success with their larger, long-range drones because Russia has almost no functional air-defence network left and what little they have is protecting Putin's bunkers.
Directed energy weapons, either laser or RF, will murder drones when they become common. There's no way to protect a drone against those weapons with making it unfeasibly large and heavy.
How big an area do you intend to protect with these energy weapons? At the moment they need a big power supply. It is fine if you've got a ship to protect and two turrets but covering any sort of land asset is nigh on impossible.
Drones are not slow compared to their size. A tiny drone moving at 100km/h+ low to the ground is not an easy target.
You have to stop them being launched in the first place.
100kmph is a snails pace to an automated point defence system. Existing cannon based systems can hit supersonic sea skimmers moving at 1000kmph+.
A laser system won't have to worry about projectile velocity, trajectory or leading the target.
It is fine if you are at sea, there's nothing much in the way. I expect Dragonfire et al will work very well there.
It is on land it might be a problem. How many automated point systems are you going to have? If the drone is 2m above the ground what else are you going to be pointing at?
If you pile all your assets into one place within the drone defence curtain, you then need to watch out for something bigger and much much faster.
Should be higher than that. I walked and cycled to school. My kids walked/walk to school. It's good exercise and will help to reduce the number of overweight/obese kids, who will become overweight/obese adults and cost the NHS £billions.
What about those SEND kids in taxis costing the taxpayer a small fortune. Plenty of who could easily walk. Hope it includes them
That should actually be a fairly straightforward target to meet, since our schools tend to have geographical catchment, and we already have places that aiui meet the target eg Portsmouth.
I'd argue we should also use it as an opportunity to improve and expand our public footpath network.
I would be interested to see new urban designs (for new towns) that have vehicle, footpaths and cycle lanes segregated from each other.
I saw a design the other day - with road (in the style of the old coal lanes) at the bottom of back gardens (with garages/car standing on the plots, not in the road), and the front gardens opening onto pavements with cycle lanes between them.
Lots of places adopt similar principles, or some similar principles - such as "Span" estates from the 1950s to the 1970s of which there are some around London. It separates modes and creates a different mix of compromises.
So much of it is about imagination, and taking off our existing cultural spectacles to see alternatives.
Here there's a 2500 pupil secondary Academy near me where they have around 4-5% cycling, but they could perhaps save 1000 vehicle movements per day if the Local Highways Authority would create a 120m segment of public footpath and the school open their campus back gate twice a day, to help the 1/3 of the catchment on the other side of the bypass. A network of excellent paths and a bridge already exist.
Instead Councillors have been wibbling on for years and years about multi-million pound "link roads", rather than being straightforward, practical and sensible and taking the easy option of reducing traffic.
I admit I have not yet tried engaging Ref UK Councillors on this one.
I see that, as usual, we fucked it up in this country. My mother-in-law had a house on one such estate in Epping, where they made access by all vehicle forms problematic and created a maze of walkways and entries with lots of dark corners.
The 90s built estate is relatively excellent - they preserved the existing public footpaths through the fields and used part of the "green space" requirement to turn them into 5-20m green corridors running everywhere with hedges and trees, and I get kg of blackberries and sloes every year.
But there is little continuity for long enough to keep the good practice rolling for decades, which is what we need. The best we can do is islands of excellence in space and time.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
It isn’t that simple. The Ukraine/Russia front is the obsession night now, but throw in directed energy weapons and high end electronic warfare to take on the drones, and you’ll be back to infantry and protected mobility in no time.
Indeed. People who are saying we should go all-in on drones don't seem to understand we're in a period where a new weapon is highly effective because countermeasures have not been deployed at scale. Current air defence systems are designed to counter aircraft and missiles, not small slow flying drones.
All those Russian tanks died because they had no way of taking out the drones. That will not be the case in future. Similarly, Ukraine is having success with their larger, long-range drones because Russia has almost no functional air-defence network left and what little they have is protecting Putin's bunkers.
Directed energy weapons, either laser or RF, will murder drones when they become common. There's no way to protect a drone against those weapons with making it unfeasibly large and heavy.
How big an area do you intend to protect with these energy weapons? At the moment they need a big power supply. It is fine if you've got a ship to protect and two turrets but covering any sort of land asset is nigh on impossible.
Drones are not slow compared to their size. A tiny drone moving at 100km/h+ low to the ground is not an easy target.
You have to stop them being launched in the first place.
100kmph is a snails pace to an automated point defence system. Existing cannon based systems can hit supersonic sea skimmers moving at 1000kmph+.
A laser system won't have to worry about projectile velocity, trajectory or leading the target.
It is fine if you are at sea, there's nothing much in the way. I expect Dragonfire et al will work very well there.
It is on land it might be a problem. How many automated point systems are you going to have? If the drone is 2m above the ground what else are you going to be pointing at?
If you pile all your assets into one place within the drone defence curtain, you then need to watch out for something bigger and much much faster.
I don't think it is _that_ easy.
It's not easy, but missile point defence systems have been deployed on tanks and are in service now. And they are dealing with incoming missiles, which are much faster than drones,
The defence investment plan will no longer be published on Monday as planned, raising questions about where Dan Jarvis stands on the plan. Will be very awkward for Jarvis heading to NATO defence ministerials next week https://x.com/larisamlbrown/status/2065382271658451104
For the love of God man, go!
Starmer has reached Johnsonian levels of Prime Ministerial comedy. OK, not the venal corruption but the incalculable incompetence.
It's way, way overdue, but the defence review whose recommendations it is supposed to fund is now pretty clearly obsolete and/or unfundable under the current Chancellor.
So there's very little that can be done about it until Starmer is gone.
In the meantime, Dan can collect his salary, and accrue pension increments.
Should we tell Japan and Italy that GCAP is dead, or ought we to string them along until we have a replacement PM ? And who is likely to make that decision, as if it's left to Starmer, it won't be made this year.
I was very hopeful that Starmer would grow into the job of PM as he did LOTO but he has got worse. Reeves seems to have Starmer's ear, yet she has even less political acumen than Starmer.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
West sounds hysterical ! Is he expecting Russia to invade ? The whole debate has gone off the rails .
It’s either breakfasts for poor kids or stopping the Russkis shooting them. At least Colonel Blimp was a sensitive, honourable man capable of change underneath the reactionary old fool, whereas this guy..
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Rachel and Sir Keir slashed that in half, but now it's breakfast clubs that are the problem. What gives?
All of it is unnecessary, especially whilst we run a budget deficit and have to go cap in hand to the bond markets to fund spending.
Scrap overseas aid. Scrap taxpayer funded breakfasts. Scrap motability. Stop blocking roads in the same of sodding active travel. Come out of ECHR. Get rid of the laws that have left us vulnerable to being sued by activist lawyers. Insist that anyone who arrives here on a small boat gets processed elsewhere. Get rid of the laws that lead to lawsuits faced by Brum council and now big supermarkets.
The list of pet hates to fund defence continues to grow. About £30 billion per annum gets us to 3% of GDP.
Breakfast clubs: £0.3 billion, enables those raising future soldiers to get to work
Overseas aid: £10 billion, mainly stuff that keeps us safe like disease monitoring, humanitarian etc etc
Active travel: £0.2 billion, stops us being a nation of sedentary fatties unable to run 5K or pick up a rifle
Motability : £1 billion, already largely cut
Leave the ECHR: ?
Rwanda scheme: actually costs money
Net Zero CfD contracts: saved us £4 billion in costs during Ukraine invasion, versus £50 billion subsiding fossil fuels (would have saved us well over £20 billion if the whole grid was based on them).
Beaver reintroduction: £2.55
Triple lock: possibly nothing if inflation picks up
The King: £0.07 Billion
Have I missed anything? Happy to keep a log.
Chagos?
Sell at auction between the Chinese, Indians and Americans. Highest bidder gets the island, with the Chagos Islanders as free labour.
EDIT: Part of the price is that the winner has to get UN resolutions that selling the island to them and enslaving the former islanders is actually 100% AOK. So we would be following Strict International Law
It could catch on. We could get Greece, Turkey, France and Israel to bid for the Cypriot bases.
That should actually be a fairly straightforward target to meet, since our schools tend to have geographical catchment, and we already have places that aiui meet the target eg Portsmouth.
I'd argue we should also use it as an opportunity to improve and expand our public footpath network.
I would be interested to see new urban designs (for new towns) that have vehicle, footpaths and cycle lanes segregated from each other.
I saw a design the other day - with road (in the style of the old coal lanes) at the bottom of back gardens (with garages/car standing on the plots, not in the road), and the front gardens opening onto pavements with cycle lanes between them.
In current projects, Waterbeach near Cambridge is a development aiming to be "sustainable" from the outset.
The actual presentation starts at the second section, and they outline some quite interesting challenges and balances they had to work through with current expectations and current practice. One interesting one is how to prioritise pedestrians and de-emphasise vehicles, when VIPs (visually impaired people) actually want kerbs to help them navigate. Exhibition Road in London is an interesting case in point.
My dad was involved as an architect in laying out things in our town in the late 1960s early 1970s, and I could show you things here with similar principles in some respects.
Here's a little area that is like that - essentially reversed, with cars at the back and front gardens away from the road. This is about 1969: https://maps.app.goo.gl/juGQKhRaFXaDXgi6A
Obviously there is a futile anti-wheelchair barrier at the end of the path in from the main road. Gotta make life as hard as possible for disabled people. That style of barrier with "sleeve corners" is probably early to mid-1970s: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WECBJgxKpfd57E2U6
Gardaí believe two Swedish men were on their way to carry out a feud-related murder in the Munster region when they went the wrong way in their car and caused a fatal crash as they attempted to turn around.
The man who was killed in the crash in Co Limerick on Monday was wearing a balaclava and had a loaded pistol, which was recovered. ... The men were not involved in any feuding in Ireland. However, gardaí believe one side in a bitter feud in the south of the country had contracted the men to shoot dead one of their rivals.
It is understood the two Swedish nationals were following a satnav route to their intended location when they went off course. As they tried to turn their car on Monday night on the N21, between Abbeyfeale and Newcastle West, they caused the three-car crash.
"Don't mention the dip": @thetimes reveals what happened behind closed doors at the launch of today's new drone facility on the outskirts of Swindon. The media was banned from attending at the last minute but we obtained a recording of Dan Jarvis' speech and spoke to the disgruntled attendees
Should be higher than that. I walked and cycled to school. My kids walked/walk to school. It's good exercise and will help to reduce the number of overweight/obese kids, who will become overweight/obese adults and cost the NHS £billions.
My expectation is that the number of secondary school pupils being driven to school is pretty small, and most of those are being driven by parents who are going that way anyway. Secondary school children are independently mobile and the majority either live within walking distance of their school or have public transport options.
The problem is at primary school. Culturally, we tend not to trust the under tens to be independently mobile in the way we did a generation or two ago. So we accompany them (indeed, schools have rules that they must be handed over from parent to teacher and vice versa.) But also nowadays most parents work. So parents need to be at school at 8.50 and then at work ten minutes later. So they trip-chain - drive to school so they are able to drive straight onto the next destination of the day. This is by far the main reason people drive their children to primary school. It is not laziness, and it is rarely a lack of safe routes (though I am all in favour of safe routes, of course). This is just one of many ways societally we contrive to make things very difficult for those trying to raise children. It's no wonder the birth rate is dropping.
It isn’t that simple. The Ukraine/Russia front is the obsession night now, but throw in directed energy weapons and high end electronic warfare to take on the drones, and you’ll be back to infantry and protected mobility in no time.
Indeed. People who are saying we should go all-in on drones don't seem to understand we're in a period where a new weapon is highly effective because countermeasures have not been deployed at scale. Current air defence systems are designed to counter aircraft and missiles, not small slow flying drones.
All those Russian tanks died because they had no way of taking out the drones. That will not be the case in future. Similarly, Ukraine is having success with their larger, long-range drones because Russia has almost no functional air-defence network left and what little they have is protecting Putin's bunkers.
Directed energy weapons, either laser or RF, will murder drones when they become common. There's no way to protect a drone against those weapons with making it unfeasibly large and heavy.
How big an area do you intend to protect with these energy weapons? At the moment they need a big power supply. It is fine if you've got a ship to protect and two turrets but covering any sort of land asset is nigh on impossible.
Drones are not slow compared to their size. A tiny drone moving at 100km/h+ low to the ground is not an easy target.
You have to stop them being launched in the first place.
The Ukrainians have an anti-drone laser system that is battery powered and fits on a trailer.
The technology has developed. It will continue to develop.
Keir Starmer and his Attorney General are still trying to open up prosecutions against Northern Ireland veterans.
Is it any surprise that they're not taking our country's security seriously, when this is how they treat people who've risked their lives to keep us safe?
Risked their lives? I guess Soldier F could have got a nasty blister from the amount of rounds he fired on Bloody Sunday.
Someone wanted the army sent in to shoot the rioters yesterday. Is soldier F busy, or can he do consultancy?
If my memory serves me, his conclusion as to what constituted a rioter wasn't fantastic, although he turned out to be a brilliant recruiting sergeant for top drawer Nationalist rioters and bone fide terrorists. Is that the sort of experience and quality you had in mind?
I was being sarcastic. The suggestion that the Army shooting at rioters would improve the situation. Or indeed The Peace Process.
Which is, apparently, sacred.
So was I. Personally as a regular visitor to the Northern part of the Emerald Isle I wouldn't dick about with the GFA either.
I still reject the idea that the GFA necessarily includes non-prosecution of criminals for murder, mass drug dealing, bank robberies and arson with side order of racism.
That wasn’t what we voted for. The politicians just found peace at any price the easy way forward.
EDIT: note the firebomb attack in Manchester. The Peace Process visiting the mainland?
Sorry, but have you gone completely loony? The Peace Process has nothing to do with the firebombing of an imam in Manchester.
I am drawing a line between scum doing racist firebombing in Northern Ireland and scum doing racist firebombing in Manchester.
Monkey see. Monkey do.
Remember all the EDL/BNP/etc efforts to pal up with the Community Leaders in NI?
To the racist scum here, the Peace Process style is what they want. Power for them. on the streets.
I know. You keep repeating yourself. But it's still bonkers.
It's not bonkers to state that the Community Leaders have been given qualified immunity to Carry On Being Criminal. They have.
It's not bonkers to point out that this now includes ethnic cleansing. It does
It's not bonkers to point out the frequent attempts by the extreme right, in the UK, to join up with the Ulster paramilitaries. See stories in the Guardian and BBC.
If you let the scum be scum, you get scummy behaviour.
Sure. But my reading of your view based on the many posts we've had on it in the last few days is as follows:
The Northern Island peace process, which ended the thirty year orgy of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, was in fact a straight up appeasement of sectarian violence. The persistence of sectarian violence today, albeit at vastly reduced levels, proves this and shows what a big mistake it was.
It's an odd view but clearly a passionate one. I sense there's a personal axe in this for you. Would that be right?
Gardaí believe two Swedish men were on their way to carry out a feud-related murder in the Munster region when they went the wrong way in their car and caused a fatal crash as they attempted to turn around.
The man who was killed in the crash in Co Limerick on Monday was wearing a balaclava and had a loaded pistol, which was recovered. ... The men were not involved in any feuding in Ireland. However, gardaí believe one side in a bitter feud in the south of the country had contracted the men to shoot dead one of their rivals.
It is understood the two Swedish nationals were following a satnav route to their intended location when they went off course. As they tried to turn their car on Monday night on the N21, between Abbeyfeale and Newcastle West, they caused the three-car crash.
Scandinavian hitmen don't seem to be particularly competent, on recent evidence.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Mad because the British Army rejects about 25,000 applications a year on health grounds. Having healthy working-class adolescents is absolutely essential for fielding an army.
I guess with drones that might not be necessary any more.
Gardaí believe two Swedish men were on their way to carry out a feud-related murder in the Munster region when they went the wrong way in their car and caused a fatal crash as they attempted to turn around.
The man who was killed in the crash in Co Limerick on Monday was wearing a balaclava and had a loaded pistol, which was recovered. ... The men were not involved in any feuding in Ireland. However, gardaí believe one side in a bitter feud in the south of the country had contracted the men to shoot dead one of their rivals.
It is understood the two Swedish nationals were following a satnav route to their intended location when they went off course. As they tried to turn their car on Monday night on the N21, between Abbeyfeale and Newcastle West, they caused the three-car crash.
Ken: [Ray walks into the bar high on cocaine] How'd your date go? Ray: My date involved two instances of extreme violence, one instance of her hand on my cock and my finger up her thing which lasted all too briefly - isn't that always the way? - , one instance of me stealing five grams of very high-quality cocaine and one instance of me blinding a poofy little skinhead: so all in all... my evening pretty much balanced out, fine.
"Don't mention the dip": @thetimes reveals what happened behind closed doors at the launch of today's new drone facility on the outskirts of Swindon. The media was banned from attending at the last minute but we obtained a recording of Dan Jarvis' speech and spoke to the disgruntled attendees
My first action as PM would be to ban the use of that phrase. ..The site at Panattoni Park had been hailed as “world-leading” by the Ministry of Defence..
It’s either breakfasts for poor kids or stopping the Russkis shooting them. At least Colonel Blimp was a sensitive, honourable man capable of change underneath the reactionary old fool, whereas this guy..
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Rachel and Sir Keir slashed that in half, but now it's breakfast clubs that are the problem. What gives?
Lord Alan West (why am I reminded of Walk on the Wild side?) is an excellent argument for Members of the Lords to retire at 80.
Lord West is 78. Former First Sea Lord who had his ship sunk during the Falklands. A "fighting admiral" who is a Labour peer and made security minister by Gordon Brown. A useful person to have in the Lords, I would have thought.
I'm very familiar with Lord West.
To me these days he seems to be a classic Daily Telegraph retired Admiral, commentating from how things were several decades ago.
I'd say he is more suited for the Telegraph than the Lords.
IMO he needs to consider the the effect of free school meals, including breakfasts, on children's health and the effectiveness of their education.
Given how much we spend on education, making sure children have been fed enough so they can actually concentrate and learn is money well spent.
But that shouldn't be attached to the amount of interest we charge on student loans for those who wanted to go to university.
Yes - I agree.
Perhaps we should fund it by means testing state pensions for those with incomes over perhaps 80k or 100k.
Pensions are an interesting example of where the system is not wrong, but has been caught out by events. Someone who has never contributed will get £3 a week less than someone on full pension who has contributed for 30-35 years. And since Pension Credit is a gateway to other benefits, the full pension is actually less value. Ignore WASPI and sort pensions.
Likely solution is to remove the link between NI and pensions by removing NI and making all pensions means tested. No more indexing to RPI but based, as Pension Credit is, on a person's/couple's actual needs.
That's easy. Scrap parental choice of schools and return to the days when children went to their nearest school which would, almost by definition, generally be within walking distance. Parental choice sounds great on paper but in practice means we end up with the same numbers of pupils in the same number of schools, but needing to travel further.
Should be higher than that. I walked and cycled to school. My kids walked/walk to school. It's good exercise and will help to reduce the number of overweight/obese kids, who will become overweight/obese adults and cost the NHS £billions.
My expectation is that the number of secondary school pupils being driven to school is pretty small, and most of those are being driven by parents who are going that way anyway. Secondary school children are independently mobile and the majority either live within walking distance of their school or have public transport options.
The problem is at primary school. Culturally, we tend not to trust the under tens to be independently mobile in the way we did a generation or two ago. So we accompany them (indeed, schools have rules that they must be handed over from parent to teacher and vice versa.) But also nowadays most parents work. So parents need to be at school at 8.50 and then at work ten minutes later. So they trip-chain - drive to school so they are able to drive straight onto the next destination of the day. This is by far the main reason people drive their children to primary school. It is not laziness, and it is rarely a lack of safe routes (though I am all in favour of safe routes, of course). This is just one of many ways societally we contrive to make things very difficult for those trying to raise children. It's no wonder the birth rate is dropping.
Yes I imagine that is often the way. Older primary school children can walk to school without their parents IMHO, we let ours walk with friends in year 6. When I was a kid I think I walked on my own or with friends after infant school, and I reckon my neighbourhood was more objectively dangerous in the early 80s than my current neighbourhood is now, although we seem to have become more risk averse as a society. My wife usually did the school run when the kids wete younger and would walk them to school and then get the train or WFH. Neither of us drives to work. So this may be another London vs the rest of the country thing. When I was a kid I wasn't in London, mind, but my parents couldn't afford a car so driving wasn't an option anyway.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
How does someone quite this silly get to be First Sea Lord?
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
How does someone quite this silly get to be First Sea Lord?
That's actually a very good question. Although he is, tbf, knocking on.
Keir Starmer and his Attorney General are still trying to open up prosecutions against Northern Ireland veterans.
Is it any surprise that they're not taking our country's security seriously, when this is how they treat people who've risked their lives to keep us safe?
Risked their lives? I guess Soldier F could have got a nasty blister from the amount of rounds he fired on Bloody Sunday.
Someone wanted the army sent in to shoot the rioters yesterday. Is soldier F busy, or can he do consultancy?
If my memory serves me, his conclusion as to what constituted a rioter wasn't fantastic, although he turned out to be a brilliant recruiting sergeant for top drawer Nationalist rioters and bone fide terrorists. Is that the sort of experience and quality you had in mind?
I was being sarcastic. The suggestion that the Army shooting at rioters would improve the situation. Or indeed The Peace Process.
Which is, apparently, sacred.
So was I. Personally as a regular visitor to the Northern part of the Emerald Isle I wouldn't dick about with the GFA either.
I still reject the idea that the GFA necessarily includes non-prosecution of criminals for murder, mass drug dealing, bank robberies and arson with side order of racism.
That wasn’t what we voted for. The politicians just found peace at any price the easy way forward.
EDIT: note the firebomb attack in Manchester. The Peace Process visiting the mainland?
Sorry, but have you gone completely loony? The Peace Process has nothing to do with the firebombing of an imam in Manchester.
I am drawing a line between scum doing racist firebombing in Northern Ireland and scum doing racist firebombing in Manchester.
Monkey see. Monkey do.
Remember all the EDL/BNP/etc efforts to pal up with the Community Leaders in NI?
To the racist scum here, the Peace Process style is what they want. Power for them. on the streets.
I know. You keep repeating yourself. But it's still bonkers.
It's not bonkers to state that the Community Leaders have been given qualified immunity to Carry On Being Criminal. They have.
It's not bonkers to point out that this now includes ethnic cleansing. It does
It's not bonkers to point out the frequent attempts by the extreme right, in the UK, to join up with the Ulster paramilitaries. See stories in the Guardian and BBC.
If you let the scum be scum, you get scummy behaviour.
Sure. But my reading of your view based on the many posts we've had on it in the last few days is as follows:
The Northern Island peace process, which ended the thirty year orgy of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, was in fact a straight up appeasement of sectarian violence. The persistence of sectarian violence today, albeit at vastly reduced levels, proves this and shows what a big mistake it was.
It's an odd view but clearly a passionate one. I sense there's a personal axe in this for you. Would that be right?
No, the Peace Process *was* a political settlement, in which both sides agreed to use democratic norms to settle differences, by getting elected to an assembly and forming a partnership government.
The Men of Violence were persuaded to stop murdering by a combination of force and the offer of jobs.
As the peace process progressed, the MoV pushed against what they saw as annoying things. Like being arrested for entirely civilian crimes.
The response of the Governments in London and Dublin was to give them whatever they wanted. So, after each riot or permeative terroristic attack, the police were pulled back further and investigations were dropped. The alternative was not an instant return to WAR!!!! but some possibility of violence, if the investigations were continued.
This appeasement then created a situation in which the social democratic politicians were seen as increasingly irrelevant, on the streets. So the SDLP gave way to SF and in Unionist politics, the ratchet followed, as the UUP faded, the DUP came in etc etc.
The final result of this ratcheting of the appeasement is that racist firebombing of homes is not a prosecutable crime.
Caring for the planet is not mad but Britain’s Net Zero policies are.
Britain has some of the most expensive energy in the world. If energy is expensive everything is expensive.
Labour is fighting the wrong battle and some of the best among them now openly admit they know it.
Al Carns is far too right-wing (within a Labour party context) to ever be chosen as leader. Surely he must know that himself.
If Reform care about cheap energy why do they oppose renewables and want to put cables underground at great expense which will only makes things even more expensive?
They don’t oppose renewables, they oppose vast government subsidies for renewables.
Why?
And why do they want to put cables underground?
And in any case you’re wrong, Farage has said publicly they’d oppose renewable developments in their council areas. Why?
I’d make an argument that visual pollution is real. It wouldn’t be my first choice for limited funds but it’s not ludicrous decision
The defence investment plan will no longer be published on Monday as planned, raising questions about where Dan Jarvis stands on the plan. Will be very awkward for Jarvis heading to NATO defence ministerials next week https://x.com/larisamlbrown/status/2065382271658451104
For the love of God man, go!
Starmer has reached Johnsonian levels of Prime Ministerial comedy. OK, not the venal corruption but the incalculable incompetence.
Russia is currently in Phase Zero against UK and Europe. The last thing you do is publish a plan. You JFDI as they are doing with JV's with Ukraine and others.
Keir Starmer and his Attorney General are still trying to open up prosecutions against Northern Ireland veterans.
Is it any surprise that they're not taking our country's security seriously, when this is how they treat people who've risked their lives to keep us safe?
Risked their lives? I guess Soldier F could have got a nasty blister from the amount of rounds he fired on Bloody Sunday.
Someone wanted the army sent in to shoot the rioters yesterday. Is soldier F busy, or can he do consultancy?
If my memory serves me, his conclusion as to what constituted a rioter wasn't fantastic, although he turned out to be a brilliant recruiting sergeant for top drawer Nationalist rioters and bone fide terrorists. Is that the sort of experience and quality you had in mind?
I was being sarcastic. The suggestion that the Army shooting at rioters would improve the situation. Or indeed The Peace Process.
Which is, apparently, sacred.
So was I. Personally as a regular visitor to the Northern part of the Emerald Isle I wouldn't dick about with the GFA either.
I still reject the idea that the GFA necessarily includes non-prosecution of criminals for murder, mass drug dealing, bank robberies and arson with side order of racism.
That wasn’t what we voted for. The politicians just found peace at any price the easy way forward.
EDIT: note the firebomb attack in Manchester. The Peace Process visiting the mainland?
Sorry, but have you gone completely loony? The Peace Process has nothing to do with the firebombing of an imam in Manchester.
I am drawing a line between scum doing racist firebombing in Northern Ireland and scum doing racist firebombing in Manchester.
Monkey see. Monkey do.
Remember all the EDL/BNP/etc efforts to pal up with the Community Leaders in NI?
To the racist scum here, the Peace Process style is what they want. Power for them. on the streets.
I know. You keep repeating yourself. But it's still bonkers.
It's not bonkers to state that the Community Leaders have been given qualified immunity to Carry On Being Criminal. They have.
It's not bonkers to point out that this now includes ethnic cleansing. It does
It's not bonkers to point out the frequent attempts by the extreme right, in the UK, to join up with the Ulster paramilitaries. See stories in the Guardian and BBC.
If you let the scum be scum, you get scummy behaviour.
Sure. But my reading of your view based on the many posts we've had on it in the last few days is as follows:
The Northern Island peace process, which ended the thirty year orgy of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, was in fact a straight up appeasement of sectarian violence. The persistence of sectarian violence today, albeit at vastly reduced levels, proves this and shows what a big mistake it was.
It's an odd view but clearly a passionate one. I sense there's a personal axe in this for you. Would that be right?
No, the Peace Process *was* a political settlement, in which both sides agreed to use democratic norms to settle differences, by getting elected to an assembly and forming a partnership government.
The Men of Violence were persuaded to stop murdering by a combination of force and the offer of jobs.
As the peace process progressed, the MoV pushed against what they saw as annoying things. Like being arrested for entirely civilian crimes.
The response of the Governments in London and Dublin was to give them whatever they wanted. So, after each riot or permeative terroristic attack, the police were pulled back further and investigations were dropped. The alternative was not an instant return to WAR!!!! but some possibility of violence, if the investigations were continued.
This appeasement then created a situation in which the social democratic politicians were seen as increasingly irrelevant, on the streets. So the SDLP gave way to SF and in Unionist politics, the ratchet followed, as the UUP faded, the DUP came in etc etc.
The final result of this ratcheting of the appeasement is that racist firebombing of homes is not a prosecutable crime.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Yeah, bloody kids eating the defence budget, the selfish little shits.
Good job we have all those high-quality Ajax tanks to defend us...what? Why are you laughing?
Gardaí believe two Swedish men were on their way to carry out a feud-related murder in the Munster region when they went the wrong way in their car and caused a fatal crash as they attempted to turn around.
The man who was killed in the crash in Co Limerick on Monday was wearing a balaclava and had a loaded pistol, which was recovered. ... The men were not involved in any feuding in Ireland. However, gardaí believe one side in a bitter feud in the south of the country had contracted the men to shoot dead one of their rivals.
It is understood the two Swedish nationals were following a satnav route to their intended location when they went off course. As they tried to turn their car on Monday night on the N21, between Abbeyfeale and Newcastle West, they caused the three-car crash.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Yeah, bloody kids eating the defence budget, the selfish little shits.
Good job we have all those high-quality Ajax tanks to defend us...what? Why are you laughing?
The state so responsible for defending us
It should not be responsible for feeding little Tiffany and Kade.
It isn’t that simple. The Ukraine/Russia front is the obsession night now, but throw in directed energy weapons and high end electronic warfare to take on the drones, and you’ll be back to infantry and protected mobility in no time.
Indeed. People who are saying we should go all-in on drones don't seem to understand we're in a period where a new weapon is highly effective because countermeasures have not been deployed at scale. Current air defence systems are designed to counter aircraft and missiles, not small slow flying drones.
All those Russian tanks died because they had no way of taking out the drones. That will not be the case in future. Similarly, Ukraine is having success with their larger, long-range drones because Russia has almost no functional air-defence network left and what little they have is protecting Putin's bunkers.
Directed energy weapons, either laser or RF, will murder drones when they become common. There's no way to protect a drone against those weapons with making it unfeasibly large and heavy.
How big an area do you intend to protect with these energy weapons? At the moment they need a big power supply. It is fine if you've got a ship to protect and two turrets but covering any sort of land asset is nigh on impossible.
Drones are not slow compared to their size. A tiny drone moving at 100km/h+ low to the ground is not an easy target.
You have to stop them being launched in the first place.
The Ukrainians have an anti-drone laser system that is battery powered and fits on a trailer.
The technology has developed. It will continue to develop.
Drones that attack infantry on land in Ukraine size between 0.5 to two or three metres and are subsonic. Counter-drone systems cannot rely on large power supplies being available and have to defend against hundreds of drones in a given attack
Drones that attack ships at sea are usually larger and faster, and counter-drone systems can rely on large power supplies because a ship is a large mobile power generator. Shipborne counter-drone systems have to defend against tens of drones in a given attack.
Although there is some crossover (laser-based ground defence is available) generally a system built for sea will not cope well on land and vice-versa.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Yeah, bloody kids eating the defence budget, the selfish little shits.
Good job we have all those high-quality Ajax tanks to defend us...what? Why are you laughing?
The state so responsible for defending us
It should not be responsible for feeding little Tiffany and Kade.
If the defence budget is reliant on the money being spent on breakfast clubs the country is beyond fucked, so, meh.
That's easy. Scrap parental choice of schools and return to the days when children went to their nearest school which would, almost by definition, generally be within walking distance. Parental choice sounds great on paper but in practice means we end up with the same numbers of pupils in the same number of schools, but needing to travel further.
My school was 13 miles away but I had a 2.5 miles walk to the bus and from the bus at night.
It isn’t that simple. The Ukraine/Russia front is the obsession night now, but throw in directed energy weapons and high end electronic warfare to take on the drones, and you’ll be back to infantry and protected mobility in no time.
Indeed. People who are saying we should go all-in on drones don't seem to understand we're in a period where a new weapon is highly effective because countermeasures have not been deployed at scale. Current air defence systems are designed to counter aircraft and missiles, not small slow flying drones.
All those Russian tanks died because they had no way of taking out the drones. That will not be the case in future. Similarly, Ukraine is having success with their larger, long-range drones because Russia has almost no functional air-defence network left and what little they have is protecting Putin's bunkers.
Directed energy weapons, either laser or RF, will murder drones when they become common. There's no way to protect a drone against those weapons with making it unfeasibly large and heavy.
How big an area do you intend to protect with these energy weapons? At the moment they need a big power supply. It is fine if you've got a ship to protect and two turrets but covering any sort of land asset is nigh on impossible.
Drones are not slow compared to their size. A tiny drone moving at 100km/h+ low to the ground is not an easy target.
You have to stop them being launched in the first place.
The Ukrainians have an anti-drone laser system that is battery powered and fits on a trailer.
The technology has developed. It will continue to develop.
Drones that attack infantry on land in Ukraine size between 0.5 to two or three metres and are subsonic. Counter-drone systems cannot rely on large power supplies being available and have to defend against hundreds of drones in a given attack
Drones that attack ships at sea are usually larger and faster, and counter-drone systems can rely on large power supplies because a ship is a large mobile power generator. Shipborne counter-drone systems have to defend against tens of drones in a given attack.
Although there is some crossover (laser-based ground defence is available) generally a system built for sea will not cope well on land and vice-versa.
Your theory is all well and good, but Ukraine have a laser anti-drone system that has had good results in practice. At the moment it's only available on limited numbers and is being used to defend forward command posts, but the technology will continue to develop.
Sometimes you have to adjust theory to keep up with developments in reality.
Keir Starmer and his Attorney General are still trying to open up prosecutions against Northern Ireland veterans.
Is it any surprise that they're not taking our country's security seriously, when this is how they treat people who've risked their lives to keep us safe?
Risked their lives? I guess Soldier F could have got a nasty blister from the amount of rounds he fired on Bloody Sunday.
Is it a two way street? Are we still pursuing IRA terrorists? If yes then fine I have few issues going after soldiers who exceeded their orders. If not then sorry, its time for truth and reconciliation, not witch hunts.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Yeah, bloody kids eating the defence budget, the selfish little shits.
Good job we have all those high-quality Ajax tanks to defend us...what? Why are you laughing?
The state so responsible for defending us
It should not be responsible for feeding little Tiffany and Kade.
If the defence budget is reliant on the money being spent on breakfast clubs the country is beyond fucked, so, meh.
Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
West sounds hysterical ! Is he expecting Russia to invade ? The whole debate has gone off the rails .
IMHO he's establishing a principle that, without defence, a lot of the things we take for granted just wouldn't be there at all. It's much more likely that, if Russia (Putin or whoever follows him) decides it would be the best plan, they'd simply chuck their nukes over at us.
It isn’t that simple. The Ukraine/Russia front is the obsession night now, but throw in directed energy weapons and high end electronic warfare to take on the drones, and you’ll be back to infantry and protected mobility in no time.
Indeed. People who are saying we should go all-in on drones don't seem to understand we're in a period where a new weapon is highly effective because countermeasures have not been deployed at scale. Current air defence systems are designed to counter aircraft and missiles, not small slow flying drones.
All those Russian tanks died because they had no way of taking out the drones. That will not be the case in future. Similarly, Ukraine is having success with their larger, long-range drones because Russia has almost no functional air-defence network left and what little they have is protecting Putin's bunkers.
Directed energy weapons, either laser or RF, will murder drones when they become common. There's no way to protect a drone against those weapons with making it unfeasibly large and heavy.
How big an area do you intend to protect with these energy weapons? At the moment they need a big power supply. It is fine if you've got a ship to protect and two turrets but covering any sort of land asset is nigh on impossible.
Drones are not slow compared to their size. A tiny drone moving at 100km/h+ low to the ground is not an easy target.
You have to stop them being launched in the first place.
The Ukrainians have an anti-drone laser system that is battery powered and fits on a trailer.
The technology has developed. It will continue to develop.
Drones that attack infantry on land in Ukraine size between 0.5 to two or three metres and are subsonic. Counter-drone systems cannot rely on large power supplies being available and have to defend against hundreds of drones in a given attack
Drones that attack ships at sea are usually larger and faster, and counter-drone systems can rely on large power supplies because a ship is a large mobile power generator. Shipborne counter-drone systems have to defend against tens of drones in a given attack.
Although there is some crossover (laser-based ground defence is available) generally a system built for sea will not cope well on land and vice-versa.
Your theory is all well and good, but Ukraine have a laser anti-drone system that has had good results in practice. At the moment it's only available on limited numbers and is being used to defend forward command posts, but the technology will continue to develop.
Sometimes you have to adjust theory to keep up with developments in reality.
Well as long as we can get the enemy to promise they won’t attack when it’s heavy rain snow or fog, our lasers will be just what we need!!!!
Comments
So there's very little that can be done about it until Starmer is gone.
In the meantime, Dan can collect his salary, and accrue pension increments.
Should we tell Japan and Italy that GCAP is dead, or ought we to string them along until we have a replacement PM ?
And who is likely to make that decision, as if it's left to Starmer, it won't be made this year.
EDIT: Part of the price is that the winner has to get UN resolutions that selling the island to them and enslaving the former islanders is actually 100% AOK. So we would be following Strict International Law
Article:
https://ww3.rics.org/uk/en/modus/built-environment/homes-and-communities/waterbeach-blueprint-new-town.html
Active Travel Cafe presentation:
The actual presentation starts at the second section, and they outline some quite interesting challenges and balances they had to work through with current expectations and current practice. One interesting one is how to prioritise pedestrians and de-emphasise vehicles, when VIPs (visually impaired people) actually want kerbs to help them navigate. Exhibition Road in London is an interesting case in point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVCgReNi3nM
My dad was involved as an architect in laying out things in our town in the late 1960s early 1970s, and I could show you things here with similar principles in some respects.
Make it all benefits and also tax UC and PIP where above the tax free earning limit, or whatever it’s called.
Why is it with people like you it’s always pensions in the firing line but other benefits can just increase and increase ?
It is on land it might be a problem. How many automated point systems are you going to have? If the drone is 2m above the ground what else are you going to be pointing at?
If you pile all your assets into one place within the drone defence curtain, you then need to watch out for something bigger and much much faster.
I don't think it is _that_ easy.
But there is little continuity for long enough to keep the good practice rolling for decades, which is what we need. The best we can do is islands of excellence in space and time.
Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/juGQKhRaFXaDXgi6A
Obviously there is a futile anti-wheelchair barrier at the end of the path in from the main road. Gotta make life as hard as possible for disabled people. That style of barrier with "sleeve corners" is probably early to mid-1970s:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/WECBJgxKpfd57E2U6
Swedish man killed in Limerick crash was on his way to carry out contract killing
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2026/06/12/swedish-man-killed-in-limerick-crash-was-on-his-way-to-carry-out-contract-killing/
Gardaí believe two Swedish men were on their way to carry out a feud-related murder in the Munster region when they went the wrong way in their car and caused a fatal crash as they attempted to turn around.
The man who was killed in the crash in Co Limerick on Monday was wearing a balaclava and had a loaded pistol, which was recovered.
...
The men were not involved in any feuding in Ireland. However, gardaí believe one side in a bitter feud in the south of the country had contracted the men to shoot dead one of their rivals.
It is understood the two Swedish nationals were following a satnav route to their intended location when they went off course. As they tried to turn their car on Monday night on the N21, between Abbeyfeale and Newcastle West, they caused the three-car crash.
"Don't mention the dip": @thetimes reveals what happened behind closed doors at the launch of today's new drone facility on the outskirts of Swindon. The media was banned from attending at the last minute but we obtained a recording of Dan Jarvis' speech and spoke to the disgruntled attendees
The problem is at primary school. Culturally, we tend not to trust the under tens to be independently mobile in the way we did a generation or two ago. So we accompany them (indeed, schools have rules that they must be handed over from parent to teacher and vice versa.) But also nowadays most parents work. So parents need to be at school at 8.50 and then at work ten minutes later. So they trip-chain - drive to school so they are able to drive straight onto the next destination of the day.
This is by far the main reason people drive their children to primary school. It is not laziness, and it is rarely a lack of safe routes (though I am all in favour of safe routes, of course).
This is just one of many ways societally we contrive to make things very difficult for those trying to raise children. It's no wonder the birth rate is dropping.
The technology has developed. It will continue to develop.
Green - Won 1
Cons - Won 1
Lib Dem - Won 1
Reform UK finished third in two and fourth in one.
The Northern Island peace process, which ended the thirty year orgy of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, was in fact a straight up appeasement of sectarian violence. The persistence of sectarian violence today, albeit at vastly reduced levels, proves this and shows what a big mistake it was.
It's an odd view but clearly a passionate one. I sense there's a personal axe in this for you. Would that be right?
Cippenham Green (Slough) Council By-Election Result:
🌍 GRN: 24.5% (New)
🌳 CON: 24.2% (-19.9)
🌹 LAB: 21.3% (-6.9)
➡️ RFM: 19.5% (New)
🔶 LDM: 10.5% (+1.0)
No Ind (-13.3) or HER (-4.8) as previous.
Green GAIN from Conservative.
Changes w/ 2023.
Christleton & Huntington (Cheshire West & Chester) Council By-Election Result:
🌳 CON: 32.9% (+8.5)
🌍 GRN: 30.4% (+8.5)
➡️ RFM: 17.2% (New)
🌹 LAB: 10.5% (-9.3)
🔶 LDM: 9.0% (-7.7)
No Ind (-17.1) as previous.
Conservative HOLD.
Changes w/ 2023.
Alleged hitman mimed shooting police during arrest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1lygry7n0qo
I guess with drones that might not be necessary any more.
Apsley & Corner Hall (Dacorum) Council By-Election Result:
🔶 LDM: 32.9% (-15.6)
➡️ RFM: 24.5% (New)
🌳 CON: 17.9% (-14.9)
🙋 Ind: 9.5% (New)
🌍 GRN: 8.0% (New)
🌹 LAB: 7.1% (-11.5)
Ken: [Ray walks into the bar high on cocaine] How'd your date go?
Ray: My date involved two instances of extreme violence, one instance of her hand on my cock and my finger up her thing which lasted all too briefly - isn't that always the way? - , one instance of me stealing five grams of very high-quality cocaine and one instance of me blinding a poofy little skinhead: so all in all... my evening pretty much balanced out, fine.
..The site at Panattoni Park had been hailed as “world-leading” by the Ministry of Defence..
Likely solution is to remove the link between NI and pensions by removing NI and making all pensions means tested. No more indexing to RPI but based, as Pension Credit is, on a person's/couple's actual needs.
NEW THREAD
The Men of Violence were persuaded to stop murdering by a combination of force and the offer of jobs.
As the peace process progressed, the MoV pushed against what they saw as annoying things. Like being arrested for entirely civilian crimes.
The response of the Governments in London and Dublin was to give them whatever they wanted. So, after each riot or permeative terroristic attack, the police were pulled back further and investigations were dropped. The alternative was not an instant return to WAR!!!! but some possibility of violence, if the investigations were continued.
This appeasement then created a situation in which the social democratic politicians were seen as increasingly irrelevant, on the streets. So the SDLP gave way to SF and in Unionist politics, the ratchet followed, as the UUP faded, the DUP came in etc etc.
The final result of this ratcheting of the appeasement is that racist firebombing of homes is not a prosecutable crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_generation_warfare
Good job we have all those high-quality Ajax tanks to defend us...what? Why are you laughing?
It should not be responsible for feeding little Tiffany and Kade.
Drones that attack ships at sea are usually larger and faster, and counter-drone systems can rely on large power supplies because a ship is a large mobile power generator. Shipborne counter-drone systems have to defend against tens of drones in a given attack.
Although there is some crossover (laser-based ground defence is available) generally a system built for sea will not cope well on land and vice-versa.
Sometimes you have to adjust theory to keep up with developments in reality.
Just pointing out the blindingly obvious.
Peter.