I did say at the outset that Brexit was one topic no one really mentioned much. It's seems the closer to Westminster and the higher the socioeconomic status, the more psychological salience. On both sides. It's drifting into ancient history.
Its almost as if those who voted for it are a bit embarrassed about how it didn't improve their lives.
Well it isn’t because, as someone else said, normal people have moved on.
But if thinking this makes you happy, crack on 😉
Except then, if people were asked how it was going, they'd shrug. Instead, increasing percentages of people have concluded that it's definitely a failure and they'd like to reverse it.
It all seems more consistent with Brexit being the taboo topic at family gatherings, because if it gets mentioned Uncle Nigel will just go off on one again.
Ignoring the will of the people out of social awkwardness is very English, but also not indefinitely sustainable.
When prompted
Do you really think people spend their every waking moment wondering if Brexit has worked or not ? Or family gatherings are neutered over the possibility of Brexit being discussed.
Brexit appears to be an obsession between a hard core of FBPE loons and Diehard leaver loons, predominantly online, and most people just live their lives.
I did say at the outset that Brexit was one topic no one really mentioned much. It's seems the closer to Westminster and the higher the socioeconomic status, the more psychological salience. On both sides. It's drifting into ancient history.
Its almost as if those who voted for it are a bit embarrassed about how it didn't improve their lives.
Well it isn’t because, as someone else said, normal people have moved on.
But if thinking this makes you happy, crack on 😉
Except then, if people were asked how it was going, they'd shrug. Instead, increasing percentages of people have concluded that it's definitely a failure and they'd like to reverse it.
It all seems more consistent with Brexit being the taboo topic at family gatherings, because if it gets mentioned Uncle Nigel will just go off on one again.
Ignoring the will of the people out of social awkwardness is very English, but also not indefinitely sustainable.
When prompted
Do you really think people spend their every waking moment wondering if Brexit has worked or not ? Or family gatherings are neutered over the possibility of Brexit being discussed.
Brexit appears to be an obsession between a hard core of FBPE loons and Diehard leaver loons, predominantly online, and most people just live their lives.
No I don't. But Europe was famously low down people's list of top issues before 2016.
And describing people as hard core loons is the sort of thing people do when they want to enforce a one-sided taboo. And I do mean one-sided; consider how regularly Fleet Street runs BREXIT IS IN PERIL headlines.
I did say at the outset that Brexit was one topic no one really mentioned much. It's seems the closer to Westminster and the higher the socioeconomic status, the more psychological salience. On both sides. It's drifting into ancient history.
Its almost as if those who voted for it are a bit embarrassed about how it didn't improve their lives.
Well it isn’t because, as someone else said, normal people have moved on.
But if thinking this makes you happy, crack on 😉
Except then, if people were asked how it was going, they'd shrug. Instead, increasing percentages of people have concluded that it's definitely a failure and they'd like to reverse it.
It all seems more consistent with Brexit being the taboo topic at family gatherings, because if it gets mentioned Uncle Nigel will just go off on one again.
Ignoring the will of the people out of social awkwardness is very English, but also not indefinitely sustainable.
When prompted
Do you really think people spend their every waking moment wondering if Brexit has worked or not ? Or family gatherings are neutered over the possibility of Brexit being discussed.
Brexit appears to be an obsession between a hard core of FBPE loons and Diehard leaver loons, predominantly online, and most people just live their lives.
No I don't. But Europe was famously low down people's list of top issues before 2016.
And describing people as hard core loons is the sort of thing people do when they want to enforce a one-sided taboo. And I do mean one-sided; consider how regularly Fleet Street runs BREXIT IS IN PERIL headlines.
I agree. It was a minor issue and the referendum was something most people didn’t either want or need. It was simply a matter of internal Tory Party discipline.
"British armed forces have intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel the early hours of Sunday morning, Sir Keir Starmer has said."
I've never managed to watch it all the way to the end. The tedium always proved too much.
I have no idea whether they get to see the Wizard or not.
you have never lived
It's a hideous frightening film. I screamed in terror when taken to see it as a child - the moment the girl goes into the dark wood - so much so that I was taken home and have never seen it all the way through. When my children watched it, I had to leave the room.
"British armed forces have intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel the early hours of Sunday morning, Sir Keir Starmer has said."
How incredibly convenient given, only days earlier, grave fears over the readiness and capabilities of the British armed forces were voiced. They must think we are all complete fucking idiots.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
I did say at the outset that Brexit was one topic no one really mentioned much. It's seems the closer to Westminster and the higher the socioeconomic status, the more psychological salience. On both sides. It's drifting into ancient history.
Its almost as if those who voted for it are a bit embarrassed about how it didn't improve their lives.
Well it isn’t because, as someone else said, normal people have moved on.
But if thinking this makes you happy, crack on 😉
Except then, if people were asked how it was going, they'd shrug. Instead, increasing percentages of people have concluded that it's definitely a failure and they'd like to reverse it.
It all seems more consistent with Brexit being the taboo topic at family gatherings, because if it gets mentioned Uncle Nigel will just go off on one again.
Ignoring the will of the people out of social awkwardness is very English, but also not indefinitely sustainable.
When prompted
Do you really think people spend their every waking moment wondering if Brexit has worked or not ? Or family gatherings are neutered over the possibility of Brexit being discussed.
Brexit appears to be an obsession between a hard core of FBPE loons and Diehard leaver loons, predominantly online, and most people just live their lives.
No I don't. But Europe was famously low down people's list of top issues before 2016.
And describing people as hard core loons is the sort of thing people do when they want to enforce a one-sided taboo. And I do mean one-sided; consider how regularly Fleet Street runs BREXIT IS IN PERIL headlines.
I agree. It was a minor issue and the referendum was something most people didn’t either want or need. It was simply a matter of internal Tory Party discipline.
Yes, hardcore loons is fair. On both sides.
Pro-EU people didn't obsess about it prior to 2016 because we were in and seemed unlikely to leave. There was a Guardian commentator who identified it as a strategy used in former-communist countries, taking a fringe issue and building a culture war around it in order to gain support and power. It still has that culture war trigger, any attempt to have a rational discussion about the economic impact is met by the lauding of some intangible "benefit" which doesn't actually exist or dissolves on contact with reality.
It's now reduced to "OK, we've tried it, we're all worse off, how about going back to where we were" Vs "I like being worse off" and "I like you being worse off"
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
I've never managed to watch it all the way to the end. The tedium always proved too much.
I have no idea whether they get to see the Wizard or not.
you have never lived
It's a hideous frightening film. I screamed in terror when taken to see it as a child - the moment the girl goes into the dark wood - so much so that I was taken home and have never seen it all the way through. When my children watched it, I had to leave the room.
I'm still traumatised by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Child-Catcher (I think it was the first film I was ever taken to see).
BTW if @kinabalu is around, my response to his question to me on a previous thread (I was gardening so don't want him to think me rude for not answering) is this.
"Question for you: Do you see the permissive (compared to ours) laws on gender change that several countries have as a bigger threat to female equality/empowerment than the sort of reactionary attitudes that are fueling the populist right?"
No difference between them IMO. Horseshoe theory in action: both regard women as somehow less than fully human and undeserving of rights as of right but simply see such rights as something contingent on what men will permit insofar and for as long as it suits men. If you redefine women to include men, then you effectively erase women as a category which can be accurately described. What you cannot accurately describe you cannot attach rights to or protect. See Australia and Ireland for example. In the former, for instance, lesbians now need the state's permission to meet without the presence of men. Scotland wished to go further and make all such associations (greater than 24) unlawful. Note also how such a change harms those with a gay sexual orientation. Reform is equally bad with its approach to the Equality Act.
There is now no party in Britain which takes women's rights seriously or is unequivocal about protecting and maintaining them. None. And there is very little understanding of how this has happened or concern about it, as is seen here whenever I raise the topic. (I can sense the weary "she's off on her hobby horse again" from out here in the sticks. But it is nonetheless true and I have the receipts.) There has always been a strain in both right and left which seeks to control how women can act, dress, speak, live, look, what they can do with their bodies etc. Bossing and controlling women, exercising power over them is a very very old very nasty story and is found everywhere on the political spectrum.
It is delusional to attribute it, as some do, only to the left or right or the religious or particular religions or ideologies. The urge to domination is a shape shifter which finds a comfortable home in all sorts of places.
And now for some more gardening. I may be back later to explain why juries have no role in sentencing and why so much of the Filton hysteria is misguided.
I was taken to see the original Star Wars in 1978, aged 2 and a bit, and was so petrified by the big star cruiser chasing Leia's ship during the opening that Mum and Dad had to take me straight back out again
I was taken to see the original Star Wars in 1978, aged 2 and a bit, and was so petrified by the big star cruiser chasing Leia's ship during the opening that Mum and Dad had to take me straight back out again
The film has grown on me since then, mind!
Never seen any Star Wars film or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang either.
I've never managed to watch it all the way to the end. The tedium always proved too much.
I have no idea whether they get to see the Wizard or not.
you have never lived
It's a hideous frightening film. I screamed in terror when taken to see it as a child - the moment the girl goes into the dark wood - so much so that I was taken home and have never seen it all the way through. When my children watched it, I had to leave the room.
I'm still traumatised by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Child-Catcher (I think it was the first film I was ever taken to see).
Another film I've never watched all the way through.
I did say at the outset that Brexit was one topic no one really mentioned much. It's seems the closer to Westminster and the higher the socioeconomic status, the more psychological salience. On both sides. It's drifting into ancient history.
Its almost as if those who voted for it are a bit embarrassed about how it didn't improve their lives.
Well it isn’t because, as someone else said, normal people have moved on.
But if thinking this makes you happy, crack on 😉
Except then, if people were asked how it was going, they'd shrug. Instead, increasing percentages of people have concluded that it's definitely a failure and they'd like to reverse it.
It all seems more consistent with Brexit being the taboo topic at family gatherings, because if it gets mentioned Uncle Nigel will just go off on one again.
Ignoring the will of the people out of social awkwardness is very English, but also not indefinitely sustainable.
When prompted
Do you really think people spend their every waking moment wondering if Brexit has worked or not ? Or family gatherings are neutered over the possibility of Brexit being discussed.
Brexit appears to be an obsession between a hard core of FBPE loons and Diehard leaver loons, predominantly online, and most people just live their lives.
No I don't. But Europe was famously low down people's list of top issues before 2016.
And describing people as hard core loons is the sort of thing people do when they want to enforce a one-sided taboo. And I do mean one-sided; consider how regularly Fleet Street runs BREXIT IS IN PERIL headlines.
I agree. It was a minor issue and the referendum was something most people didn’t either want or need. It was simply a matter of internal Tory Party discipline.
Yes, hardcore loons is fair. On both sides.
Pro-EU people didn't obsess about it prior to 2016 because we were in and seemed unlikely to leave. There was a Guardian commentator who identified it as a strategy used in former-communist countries, taking a fringe issue and building a culture war around it in order to gain support and power. It still has that culture war trigger, any attempt to have a rational discussion about the economic impact is met by the lauding of some intangible "benefit" which doesn't actually exist or dissolves on contact with reality.
It's now reduced to "OK, we've tried it, we're all worse off, how about going back to where we were" Vs "I like being worse off" and "I like you being worse off"
"British armed forces have intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel the early hours of Sunday morning, Sir Keir Starmer has said."
How incredibly convenient given, only days earlier, grave fears over the readiness and capabilities of the British armed forces were voiced. They must think we are all complete fucking idiots.
Russia can’t even take and hold a few provinces in Ukraine.
How are they likely to invade the rest of Europe?
They do think people are fucking idiots. There’s a good reason for that.
I've never managed to watch it all the way to the end. The tedium always proved too much.
I have no idea whether they get to see the Wizard or not.
you have never lived
It's a hideous frightening film. I screamed in terror when taken to see it as a child - the moment the girl goes into the dark wood - so much so that I was taken home and have never seen it all the way through. When my children watched it, I had to leave the room.
I'm still traumatised by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Child-Catcher (I think it was the first film I was ever taken to see).
Another film I've never watched all the way through.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
I've never managed to watch it all the way to the end. The tedium always proved too much.
I have no idea whether they get to see the Wizard or not.
you have never lived
It's a hideous frightening film. I screamed in terror when taken to see it as a child - the moment the girl goes into the dark wood - so much so that I was taken home and have never seen it all the way through. When my children watched it, I had to leave the room.
I'm still traumatised by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Child-Catcher (I think it was the first film I was ever taken to see).
The child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was genuinely scary. His movement and look tapped into fears of what today would be regarded as paedophiles or child molesters. It was a more innocent time. No one would ever create such a monster today, certainly not for a children's film.
Marcellino: Pane e Vino - Spanish. Not much known here. Cried buckets.
The Railway Children - smoke on the platform, "Daddy, Oh my Daddy!"
Brief Encounter - when he puts his hand on her shoulder and walks out of her life. Lately, I rather wish Celia Johnson had pushed her irritating friend onto the tracks and run off with Trevor Howard instead of going back to darning socks in front of Boring Old Husband.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Can I connect this and the Brexit debate. If it weren't for very long term climate change we'd be speaking French and eating their cheese.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
"British armed forces have intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel the early hours of Sunday morning, Sir Keir Starmer has said."
How incredibly convenient given, only days earlier, grave fears over the readiness and capabilities of the British armed forces were voiced. They must think we are all complete fucking idiots.
There were complete fucking idiots on PB cheerleading VVP's so-called SMO from day one!
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Can I connect this and the Brexit debate. If it weren't for very long term climate change we'd be speaking French and eating their cheese.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Can I connect this and the Brexit debate. If it weren't for very long term climate change we'd be speaking French and eating their cheese.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Can I connect this and the Brexit debate. If it weren't for very long term climate change we'd be speaking French and eating their cheese.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
"British armed forces have intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel the early hours of Sunday morning, Sir Keir Starmer has said."
How incredibly convenient given, only days earlier, grave fears over the readiness and capabilities of the British armed forces were voiced. They must think we are all complete fucking idiots.
Russia can’t even take and hold a few provinces in Ukraine.
How are they likely to invade the rest of Europe?
They do think people are fucking idiots. There’s a good reason for that.
It’s like the Year 2K IT issues.
- There was a problem (IT failures due to dates, Putin deciding to play Risk the crazy way) - Mitigations were taken (Fixing and updating software, backing Ukraine) - Problem largely avoided - People claiming there was no problem.
If Putin had done what he wanted to do - conquer the whole of Ukraine and carve it up - then he would have moved to the next “absolutely my last territorial demand”
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Can I connect this and the Brexit debate. If it weren't for very long term climate change we'd be speaking French and eating their cheese.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
I wonder how much of the Kilted Army (if what I hear from Boston is correct) have rooms booked for the second stage of the competition.
Brilliant result. Scraping a 1-0 win against total no-hopers.
KIck and chase has its place in football - but against Brazil?
Did you watch the goal Morocco scored? A long, very skilled kick from the back placed right between Brazil's 2 centre backs, a forward running in between them and a lob over the goal keeper. So it works very well in fact, if done with enough skill.
Another large oil depot burning in Russia today, in Yaroslavl, NNE of Moscow. There's a video online showing a Ukrainian FP-1 drone languidly approaching the oil depot, which is already on fire in several locations, before it disappears into the smoke, there's briefly some small arms fire (presumably an attempt to shoot the drone down) a pause, and then a large bang as the drone explodes, and a new pillar of smoke appears.
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
I hope you were able to stifle your cackling.
"Will they eat it with glazed carrots, mummy?"
Reminds me of the sign supposedly put up in a butcher's window: Watership Down, you've read the book, you've seen the movie - now eat the cast.
We could apply this narrative by Congressman James Comer of Kentucky to the removal of welfare for genuinely poor people promoted by Lowe, Farage and Badenoch.
As far as I can see they are only proposing to remove it for immigrants, only Lowe completely and even Farage proposed removing the two child benefit cap for working families
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
In fairness we did with the pillars of Maastricht. But then Blair and Brown screwed it up by insisting we had to be at the heart of Europe and we ended up out. Major's solution was complex but really was the answer for the UK.
BBC going big on the shadow tanker and ar brave lads.
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
Is this it now then? War with Russia. Has it come before we're ready?
The two HMS warships used in the operation were HMS Sutherland (commissioned 4th July 1997) and HMS Ledbury (commissioned 11th June 1981).
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
BBC going big on the shadow tanker and ar brave lads.
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
Is this it now then? War with Russia. Has it come before we're ready?
The two HMS warships used in the operation were HMS Sutherland (commissioned 4th July 1997) and HMS Ledbury (commissioned 11th June 1981).
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
Incredibly, we're still doing neither.
We are doing the latter, and plenty are still not happy with it. The former does not command public support. And the fudge wasn't really liked either, or we wouldn't have had the vote we did.
My most traumatic moment in film probably came from Bambi. I was in a cinema in Singapore that was full of young kids (I would have been 7 I think). There was the shot and then a stunned silence in what had been quite a noisy cinema. Someone down the front gave a sob and within minutes the whole place was full of howling kids as the slower ones worked out what had happened.
Bambi is an 18-rated film for small kids.
Ha. I remember the Animals of Farthing Wood. Makes Game of Thrones look soft.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
In fairness we did with the pillars of Maastricht. But then Blair and Brown screwed it up by insisting we had to be at the heart of Europe and we ended up out. Major's solution was complex but really was the answer for the UK.
If memory serves, it wasn't just the UK which came to see the inadequacies of the "three pillars" after 15 years. Those who wanted deeper integration pushed for their removal as part of Lisbon.
Many on here (and elsewhere) have argued we should have had a referendum on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland did and rejected the treaty in the summer of 2008 only for a second referendum, once concessions had been made to Dublin, to prodice a two thirds majority in favour.
Had we also held a referendum, would we have rejected it and what would have happened if we had? I suspect it would have revealed deep splits in both the Labour and Conservative parties which, a year or so before a likely election, would have transformed the election agenda.
There's an interesting counterfactual on that which I must one day develop on alternatehistory.com
BBC going big on the shadow tanker and ar brave lads.
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
Is this it now then? War with Russia. Has it come before we're ready?
The two HMS warships used in the operation were HMS Sutherland (commissioned 4th July 1997) and HMS Ledbury (commissioned 11th June 1981).
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
The Japanese model is the one to follow.
Yup.
Decide how many ships you want in each category. Build them at a rate that sustains the numbers, with some flexibility for extra orders (such as foreign orders). A continuous production line.
Go for evolution over revolution (see US Navy failures).
45/55 to REJOIN... Wasn't that what Populus found for REMAIN, in a UK-wide poll, on their day of referendum, poll? (asking for a friend as I'm getting old and my memory is becoming hazy )
It's 55/45 in favour of staying out if the Euro and Schengen are on the table, and that's before any campaign begins.
FWIW, I think Rejoin could win by something like 63-37 if it were on the original terms, with additional opt-outs, even if that meant a higher UK contribution.
Conversely, I think Stay Out would win around 58-42 on 'standard terms' with expectations of eventual Euro adoption. Arguably it should be higher, but I suspect wider cultural and political issues would narrow the margin.
Either way, another referendum campaign would be massively divisive, irritate the whole country for years, and leave a lot of people unhappy with the result. So why it was called, who conducted it and how would be crucial.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
Incredibly, we're still doing neither.
We are doing the latter, and plenty are still not happy with it. The former does not command public support. And the fudge wasn't really liked either, or we wouldn't have had the vote we did.
So we will probably forever be unhappy.
I'll be honest - along with 30% of the miniscule 2015 LD vote, I voted to LEAVE in 2016.
There's so much about what has happened since then with which I am just completely dumbfounded.
From those who wouldn't accept the result and tried to reverse it (you knew that would happen and would have been the same the other way to those who wanted the result but seemed to have no clue as to what to do next.
There seemed a complete absence of thinking on the LEAVE side as to what could, should and would happen.
I'll also be fair - however we left the EU, we'd have still had the pandemic and likely the Russian invasion of Ukraine so I suspect in the longer term it's made less difference.
BTW if @kinabalu is around, my response to his question to me on a previous thread (I was gardening so don't want him to think me rude for not answering) is this.
"Question for you: Do you see the permissive (compared to ours) laws on gender change that several countries have as a bigger threat to female equality/empowerment than the sort of reactionary attitudes that are fueling the populist right?"
No difference between them IMO. Horseshoe theory in action: both regard women as somehow less than fully human and undeserving of rights as of right but simply see such rights as something contingent on what men will permit insofar and for as long as it suits men. If you redefine women to include men, then you effectively erase women as a category which can be accurately described. What you cannot accurately describe you cannot attach rights to or protect. See Australia and Ireland for example. In the former, for instance, lesbians now need the state's permission to meet without the presence of men. Scotland wished to go further and make all such associations (greater than 24) unlawful. Note also how such a change harms those with a gay sexual orientation. Reform is equally bad with its approach to the Equality Act.
There is now no party in Britain which takes women's rights seriously or is unequivocal about protecting and maintaining them. None. And there is very little understanding of how this has happened or concern about it, as is seen here whenever I raise the topic. (I can sense the weary "she's off on her hobby horse again" from out here in the sticks. But it is nonetheless true and I have the receipts.) There has always been a strain in both right and left which seeks to control how women can act, dress, speak, live, look, what they can do with their bodies etc. Bossing and controlling women, exercising power over them is a very very old very nasty story and is found everywhere on the political spectrum.
It is delusional to attribute it, as some do, only to the left or right or the religious or particular religions or ideologies. The urge to domination is a shape shifter which finds a comfortable home in all sorts of places.
And now for some more gardening. I may be back later to explain why juries have no role in sentencing and why so much of the Filton hysteria is misguided.
Cheers thanks. Gardening over talking to me is the right call. 🙂
Yes, not to debate trans again specifically, I was interested in how the threats (to female equality) stack up in your mind here in 2026.
The thing is, I agree with you (strongly) that this is still very much a man's world as regards where power lies. IMO attitudes of male supremacy are deep seated and widespread, ranging from patriarchal assumptions of a woman's place (to cheer and support and nurture and decorate) to the more obvious plain misogyny that leads to belittlement, abuse, and domination.
I see so much of all of that in the outputs of those who are part of (or support) this new populist right that are all over the place these days, turbocharged now by Trump MAGA in the US. For me, they are a huge threat to many things and one of those things is most certainly the position in society of women.
"Home Office limits ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal with France
Officials fear the border scheme to effectively trade small boat arrivals for asylum seekers brings in ‘young men more likely to engage in criminal activity’"
I was in Farnham last night for a meal with my wife.
I don't want to profile and at the same time two noisy motorbikes turned up suddenly on the high street outside our restaurant with two middle-eastern looking men on each of them, wearing bandanas covering their faces, and they had dark hair. They looked angry.
They did an about turn in the middle of the high-street, made a massive noise with their engines, and then revved off again. All my red flags were going off and I was ready to whip my wife out the restaurant on the high street, and head off out and away from there.
In the event nothing (that I could see) happened but it was all very weird and discomforting. Whole thing was about 8 seconds long and a flash in a pan. But where had they come from suddenly? Why were they there? What were they doing?
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
Incredibly, we're still doing neither.
We are doing the latter, and plenty are still not happy with it. The former does not command public support. And the fudge wasn't really liked either, or we wouldn't have had the vote we did.
So we will probably forever be unhappy.
I'll be honest - along with 30% of the miniscule 2015 LD vote, I voted to LEAVE in 2016.
There's so much about what has happened since then with which I am just completely dumbfounded.
From those who wouldn't accept the result and tried to reverse it (you knew that would happen and would have been the same the other way to those who wanted the result but seemed to have no clue as to what to do next.
There seemed a complete absence of thinking on the LEAVE side as to what could, should and would happen.
I'll also be fair - however we left the EU, we'd have still had the pandemic and likely the Russian invasion of Ukraine so I suspect in the longer term it's made less difference.
BBC going big on the shadow tanker and ar brave lads.
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
Is this it now then? War with Russia. Has it come before we're ready?
The two HMS warships used in the operation were HMS Sutherland (commissioned 4th July 1997) and HMS Ledbury (commissioned 11th June 1981).
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
The Japanese model is the one to follow.
Japan has a massive commercial shipbuilding industry and so has the industrial capacity and skills. The ONLY ships that are built in the UK are incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. So the Japan model isn't remotely feasible.
Building the hulls somewhere cheap and then adding all the high value systems like weapons and sensors in the UK would make a lot of sense and be a lot more effective. It'll never happen though as the UK now has three surface ship yards that are politically impossible to close down and so will have to be kept building incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. We're basically trying to be a Tier 1 warship builder without any commercial shipbuilding to support it which is impossible.
BBC going big on the shadow tanker and ar brave lads.
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
Is this it now then? War with Russia. Has it come before we're ready?
The two HMS warships used in the operation were HMS Sutherland (commissioned 4th July 1997) and HMS Ledbury (commissioned 11th June 1981).
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
The Japanese model is the one to follow.
Japan has a massive commercial shipbuilding industry and so has the industrial capacity and skills. The ONLY ships that are built in the UK are incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. So the Japan model isn't remotely feasible.
Building the hulls somewhere cheap and then adding all the high value systems like weapons and sensors in the UK would make a lot of sense and be a lot more effective. It'll never happen though as the UK now has three surface ship yards that are politically impossible to close down and so will have to be kept building incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. We're basically trying to be a Tier 1 warship builder without any commercial shipbuilding to support it which is impossible.
That's another good point.
"Back in the day" we had uber-commercial shipbuilding to smooth the load. And it was normal for yards to do both military and civilian contracts.
Chaotic events that seem beyond his control have become a signature theme of the Starmer regime. It is common for ministers to quit because of scandals. It is much rarer to see resignations from government on points of principle. Even cabinet members who remain sympathetic to Sir Keir acknowledge that it is highly damaging.
The Ministry of Defence wanted military spending taken up to 3% of GDP by 2030. The Treasury is inveterately, institutionally and often justifiably sceptical about the spending habits of the MoD, with its notorious tendency to squander resources on waste and mismanagement, especially in procurement programmes. The role of the prime minister when cabinet members are embroiled in this kind of row is to hammer out a compromise that both sides can live with.
When instinctive team players like [Healey] abandon the field of battle, you are in serious trouble. The most stinging accusation in the Healey resignation letter is his suggestion that the prime minister knows “what defence needs”, but was too feeble to insist that an obstructive Treasury come up with the goods. This hurts so much because it is of a piece with the diagnosis of others who have quit the government.
The element of Sir Keir’s personal brand that had survived all the slings and arrows of recent months was his reputation as surefooted in international affairs and sound on security. That’s all horribly undermined when the defence secretary quits saying that decisions made in Downing Street “could make the country less safe”.
About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.
45/55 to REJOIN... Wasn't that what Populus found for REMAIN, in a UK-wide poll, on their day of referendum, poll? (asking for a friend as I'm getting old and my memory is becoming hazy )
It's 55/45 in favour of staying out if the Euro and Schengen are on the table, and that's before any campaign begins.
FWIW, I think Rejoin could win by something like 63-37 if it were on the original terms, with additional opt-outs, even if that meant a higher UK contribution.
Conversely, I think Stay Out would win around 58-42 on 'standard terms' with expectations of eventual Euro adoption. Arguably it should be higher, but I suspect wider cultural and political issues would narrow the margin.
Either way, another referendum campaign would be massively divisive, irritate the whole country for years, and leave a lot of people unhappy with the result. So why it was called, who conducted it and how would be crucial.
There isn't going to be one because the LDs aren't going to win the next election.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Good morning Malc !
It i sindeed Matt, Scotland managed to do opposite of usual and win their first game
About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.
The same challenge also affects every other alternative Government including ones headed by Farage, Badenoch, Polanski and Davey.
It's the first of a series (I suspect) of such crunch issues which challenge how we have jogged on arguably over the last 5-7 years.
Essentially, the question is - IF you think more should be spent on defence, from where does the funding come absent significant economic growth? The options are either to cut spending - "welfare" seems the favoured option but whose welfare and by how much or raise taxes - a hypothecated 2p increase in basic rate tax to fund additional defence?
The problem is the former will be opposed by those who enjoy their welfare and benefits and the latter by those who think they pay too much tax as it is and each will point to the other and day they should pay.
The poor Government is caught in the middle - it has three options, pick a side, anatagonise both sides by doing both or doing neither and hoping, pace Micawber, something will turn up.
45/55 to REJOIN... Wasn't that what Populus found for REMAIN, in a UK-wide poll, on their day of referendum, poll? (asking for a friend as I'm getting old and my memory is becoming hazy )
It's 55/45 in favour of staying out if the Euro and Schengen are on the table, and that's before any campaign begins.
FWIW, I think Rejoin could win by something like 63-37 if it were on the original terms, with additional opt-outs, even if that meant a higher UK contribution.
Conversely, I think Stay Out would win around 58-42 on 'standard terms' with expectations of eventual Euro adoption. Arguably it should be higher, but I suspect wider cultural and political issues would narrow the margin.
Either way, another referendum campaign would be massively divisive, irritate the whole country for years, and leave a lot of people unhappy with the result. So why it was called, who conducted it and how would be crucial.
There isn't going to be one because the LDs aren't going to win the next election.
The LDs would be some of the worst people to make the case for Rejoin.
About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.
The same challenge also affects every other alternative Government including ones headed by Farage, Badenoch, Polanski and Davey.
It's the first of a series (I suspect) of such crunch issues which challenge how we have jogged on arguably over the last 5-7 years.
Essentially, the question is - IF you think more should be spent on defence, from where does the funding come absent significant economic growth? The options are either to cut spending - "welfare" seems the favoured option but whose welfare and by how much or raise taxes - a hypothecated 2p increase in basic rate tax to fund additional defence?
The problem is the former will be opposed by those who enjoy their welfare and benefits and the latter by those who think they pay too much tax as it is and each will point to the other and day they should pay.
The poor Government is caught in the middle - it has three options, pick a side, anatagonise both sides by doing both or doing neither and hoping, pace Micawber, something will turn up.
Does it actually have 3 options? They tried to cut welfare, as did the Tories before them, and neither could make it stick. Labour probably doesnt have the votes. The Tories didnt have the votes to raise taxes.
About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.
The same challenge also affects every other alternative Government including ones headed by Farage, Badenoch, Polanski and Davey.
It's the first of a series (I suspect) of such crunch issues which challenge how we have jogged on arguably over the last 5-7 years.
Essentially, the question is - IF you think more should be spent on defence, from where does the funding come absent significant economic growth? The options are either to cut spending - "welfare" seems the favoured option but whose welfare and by how much or raise taxes - a hypothecated 2p increase in basic rate tax to fund additional defence?
The problem is the former will be opposed by those who enjoy their welfare and benefits and the latter by those who think they pay too much tax as it is and each will point to the other and day they should pay.
The poor Government is caught in the middle - it has three options, pick a side, anatagonise both sides by doing both or doing neither and hoping, pace Micawber, something will turn up.
What governments have done recently is to find a short-term expedient that will make things look okay in the short-term, but make things even harder to sort out after the next election.
All the bills for the can-kicking of the past are falling due. The only sane way out is to convince the public that there's a tough road ahead, but we can get out of the hole if we're honest about the mistakes made in the past.
About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.
The same challenge also affects every other alternative Government including ones headed by Farage, Badenoch, Polanski and Davey.
It's the first of a series (I suspect) of such crunch issues which challenge how we have jogged on arguably over the last 5-7 years.
Essentially, the question is - IF you think more should be spent on defence, from where does the funding come absent significant economic growth? The options are either to cut spending - "welfare" seems the favoured option but whose welfare and by how much or raise taxes - a hypothecated 2p increase in basic rate tax to fund additional defence?
The problem is the former will be opposed by those who enjoy their welfare and benefits and the latter by those who think they pay too much tax as it is and each will point to the other and day they should pay.
The poor Government is caught in the middle - it has three options, pick a side, anatagonise both sides by doing both or doing neither and hoping, pace Micawber, something will turn up.
What governments have done recently is to find a short-term expedient that will make things look okay in the short-term, but make things even harder to sort out after the next election.
All the bills for the can-kicking of the past are falling due. The only sane way out is to convince the public that there's a tough road ahead, but we can get out of the hole if we're honest about the mistakes made in the past.
It might be quicker and easier to invent a time machine than trying to convince the voters of reality.
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
In fairness we did with the pillars of Maastricht. But then Blair and Brown screwed it up by insisting we had to be at the heart of Europe and we ended up out. Major's solution was complex but really was the answer for the UK.
If memory serves, it wasn't just the UK which came to see the inadequacies of the "three pillars" after 15 years. Those who wanted deeper integration pushed for their removal as part of Lisbon.
Many on here (and elsewhere) have argued we should have had a referendum on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland did and rejected the treaty in the summer of 2008 only for a second referendum, once concessions had been made to Dublin, to prodice a two thirds majority in favour.
Had we also held a referendum, would we have rejected it and what would have happened if we had? I suspect it would have revealed deep splits in both the Labour and Conservative parties which, a year or so before a likely election, would have transformed the election agenda.
There's an interesting counterfactual on that which I must one day develop on alternatehistory.com
I think the problem was that by that point it was very hard to conceive any version of the Lisbon treaty that we would consent to in a referendum. Brown certainly had his doubts which is why he avoided having one.
There was pressure from some countries to waive the opt outs that Maastricht had given but that pressure could have been resisted if our government had not been so out of touch with the views of the population. After all, Sweden has been "under pressure" to adopt the Euro for decades and France has basically been out of Schengen since about 2016.
Freedom of movement was the biggest challenge. Instead of tens of thousands we ended up with nearly 4m Europeans coming here which not only aggravated our housing and infrastructure limitations but also created massive competition for many of the indigenous population reducing both employment opportunities and wages.
Would a successful compromise have been possible? Well, the Cameron effort, which was somewhat half hearted, suggested that it would have been difficult but the powers that be in both the UK and the EU did not believe that people would ever vote to leave and felt able and entitled to override their wishes. The outcome of failing to find a compromise that worked has been fairly suboptimal for both sides. Even although the consequences of Brexit have been grossly overstated (as the series of thread headers on here showed recently) there was still a better way ahead if a compromise could have been found.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Thanks for your reply.
I think what you are describing as vicious calumnies are in fact just normal rhetoric. I know that David Milliband is not sending the rozzers round to confiscate peoples' dryers. What he is doing is introducing an intrusive and in my view unwarranted ban on the sale of the most effective forms of tumble dryer - those that work well in a garage - those that are quicker. It may make sense to save the energy - if that is so, the market will sort it out. If it isn't so, it's frankly none of Milliband's business. The same goes for the banning of underfloor heating systems that use 'too much' energy. 1. Fuck off you Stalinist little weasel, 2. I don't think 'giving up' is a particularly outrageous way to describe something being banned from sale. The net outcome will eventually be the same.
Regarding Milliband's carbon footprint, you seem to be implying that his ministerial flying is essential to his Ministerial duties, and should therefore be exempt from scrutiny. That is patently absurd. For comparison, we know after six months in the role, Milliband's department had spent £62,712 on international travel - Claire Coutinho spent £6,155 during her first six months in the same job. That is 10 times the amount. And Coutinho wasn't making some sort of 'anti Net Zero' point - the Tories policy was pro Net Zero at that time.
Was travelling to multiple cities in Brazil to highlight our climate leadership a particularly good use of carbon or money? Was a private jet (one way, he slummed it in Business the other way) to NYC for 'New York Climate Week' with over 100 civil servants from the deparment also in attendence? These things are at the Minister's discretion.
I love watching a former soldier turned MP getting found out, whichever side they're on. We need to stop putting them on a pedestal. It's not as common as thinking someone will be a good leader because they've "been in business" but it's just as silly.
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Thanks for your reply.
I think what you are describing as vicious calumnies are in fact just normal rhetoric. I know that David Milliband is not sending the rozzers round to confiscate peoples' dryers. What he is doing is introducing an intrusive and in my view unwarranted ban on the sale of the most effective forms of tumble dryer - those that work well in a garage - those that are quicker. It may make sense to save the energy - if that is so, the market will sort it out. If it isn't so, it's frankly none of Milliband's business. The same goes for the banning of underfloor heating systems that use 'too much' energy. 1. Fuck off you Stalinist little weasel, 2. I don't think 'giving up' is a particularly outrageous way to describe something being banned from sale. The net outcome will eventually be the same.
Regarding Milliband's carbon footprint, you seem to be implying that his ministerial flying is essential to his Ministerial duties, and should therefore be exempt from scrutiny. That is patently absurd. For comparison, we know after six months in the role, Milliband's department had spent £62,712 on international travel - Claire Coutinho spent £6,155 during her first six months in the same job. That is 10 times the amount. And Coutinho wasn't making some sort of 'anti Net Zero' point - the Tories policy was pro Net Zero at that time.
Was travelling to multiple cities in Brazil to highlight our climate leadership a particularly good use of carbon or money? Was a private jet (one way, he slummed it in Business the other way) to NYC for 'New York Climate Week' with over 100 civil servants from the deparment also in attendence? These things are at the Minister's discretion.
Claire Couthino was not doing her job properly. Miliband attands and is a ket global leader and respected for that in Eco matters. Thats the difference, some one who understands the calamity bearing down on us and wanting to do all he can to stop it and on the other hand a vaccuous minister who just wants to car and title!
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Can I connect this and the Brexit debate. If it weren't for very long term climate change we'd be speaking French and eating their cheese.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:
In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.
His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.
Thanks for the reply.
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.
Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
F888ing lunatic , go and have aeronautical sexual intercourse with a rolling doughnut you sad loser. I seriously hope I am here to see it and still be laughing at absolute arseholes like you benefits junkies.
BBC going big on the shadow tanker and ar brave lads.
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
Is this it now then? War with Russia. Has it come before we're ready?
The two HMS warships used in the operation were HMS Sutherland (commissioned 4th July 1997) and HMS Ledbury (commissioned 11th June 1981).
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
The Japanese model is the one to follow.
Japan has a massive commercial shipbuilding industry and so has the industrial capacity and skills. The ONLY ships that are built in the UK are incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. So the Japan model isn't remotely feasible.
Building the hulls somewhere cheap and then adding all the high value systems like weapons and sensors in the UK would make a lot of sense and be a lot more effective. It'll never happen though as the UK now has three surface ship yards that are politically impossible to close down and so will have to be kept building incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. We're basically trying to be a Tier 1 warship builder without any commercial shipbuilding to support it which is impossible.
That's another good point.
"Back in the day" we had uber-commercial shipbuilding to smooth the load. And it was normal for yards to do both military and civilian contracts.
It's not the civilian industry - though there's no good reason why we cannot have a civilian shipbuilding sector. Europe is dominant in cruise ships, and superyachts, energy services, perhaps ice protected ships, and other sectors. That's more a national attitude and culture here in the UK - perhaps a downside of being dominated by financial services, which needs feedstock.
Japan has a military shipbuilding heartbeat that is steady for decades, rather than feast and famine. Then if the size of the navy is adjusted, it is done by adjusting the service life rather than destroying the industry - sell it, scrap it, or put it in reserve. Here is the list of in service dates for ships - look at the consistency.
Comments
Do you really think people spend their every waking moment wondering if Brexit has worked or not ? Or family gatherings are neutered over the possibility of Brexit being discussed.
Brexit appears to be an obsession between a hard core of FBPE loons and Diehard leaver loons, predominantly online, and most people just live their lives.
And describing people as hard core loons is the sort of thing people do when they want to enforce a one-sided taboo. And I do mean one-sided; consider how regularly Fleet Street runs BREXIT IS IN PERIL headlines.
Yes, hardcore loons is fair. On both sides.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyek039l2vo
The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.
The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.
The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.
It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.
The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.
In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.
There was a Guardian commentator who identified it as a strategy used in former-communist countries, taking a fringe issue and building a culture war around it in order to gain support and power.
It still has that culture war trigger, any attempt to have a rational discussion about the economic impact is met by the lauding of some intangible "benefit" which doesn't actually exist or dissolves on contact with reality.
It's now reduced to "OK, we've tried it, we're all worse off, how about going back to where we were" Vs "I like being worse off" and "I like you being worse off"
I wonder how much of the Kilted Army (if what I hear from Boston is correct) have rooms booked for the second stage of the competition.
"Question for you: Do you see the permissive (compared to ours) laws on gender change that several countries have as a bigger threat to female equality/empowerment than the sort of reactionary attitudes that are fueling the populist right?"
No difference between them IMO. Horseshoe theory in action: both regard women as somehow less than fully human and undeserving of rights as of right but simply see such rights as something contingent on what men will permit insofar and for as long as it suits men. If you redefine women to include men, then you effectively erase women as a category which can be accurately described. What you cannot accurately describe you cannot attach rights to or protect. See Australia and Ireland for example. In the former, for instance, lesbians now need the state's permission to meet without the presence of men. Scotland wished to go further and make all such associations (greater than 24) unlawful. Note also how such a change harms those with a gay sexual orientation. Reform is equally bad with its approach to the Equality Act.
There is now no party in Britain which takes women's rights seriously or is unequivocal about protecting and maintaining them. None. And there is very little understanding of how this has happened or concern about it, as is seen here whenever I raise the topic. (I can sense the weary "she's off on her hobby horse again" from out here in the sticks. But it is nonetheless true and I have the receipts.) There has always been a strain in both right and left which seeks to control how women can act, dress, speak, live, look, what they can do with their bodies etc. Bossing and controlling women, exercising power over them is a very very old very nasty story and is found everywhere on the political spectrum.
It is delusional to attribute it, as some do, only to the left or right or the religious or particular religions or ideologies. The urge to domination is a shape shifter which finds a comfortable home in all sorts of places.
And now for some more gardening. I may be back later to explain why juries have no role in sentencing and why so much of the Filton hysteria is misguided.
The film has grown on me since then, mind!
That said I can see England losing to Croatia and I anticipate howls of joy from the frozen north…
How are they likely to invade the rest of Europe?
They do think people are fucking idiots. There’s a good reason for that.
In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph
Massive fan for 30 years
Brunson is inch for inch best player ever.
6 foot 2 ins they said you'd never win a title with a shorty
He's a colossus
Marcellino: Pane e Vino - Spanish. Not much known here. Cried buckets.
The Railway Children - smoke on the platform, "Daddy, Oh my Daddy!"
Brief Encounter - when he puts his hand on her shoulder and walks out of her life. Lately, I rather wish Celia Johnson had pushed her irritating friend onto the tracks and run off with Trevor Howard instead of going back to darning socks in front of Boring Old Husband.
Britain was last connected to mainland Europe by a massive, low-lying landmass known as Doggerland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
- There was a problem (IT failures due to dates, Putin deciding to play Risk the crazy way)
- Mitigations were taken (Fixing and updating software, backing Ukraine)
- Problem largely avoided
- People claiming there was no problem.
If Putin had done what he wanted to do - conquer the whole of Ukraine and carve it up - then he would have moved to the next “absolutely my last territorial demand”
Frank Gardner: ‘the English Channel, or La Manche as the French call it’
That’s why he gets the big bucks I suppose.
https://t.me/istrebin/43340
20-litre fuel purchase limits in Moscow now, and some fuel stations are insisting on cash payment.
Fingers crossed there really is a deal with Iran now, and we can see the oil price plummet for the oil Russia is able to get out of the country.
Other papers go with Emma Raducanu instead.
They aren’t at war with Russia.
Mmmmm…
Congratulations to Scotland on their win - Haiti had demolished the All Whites in their warm up game which makes me think the Kiwis will struggle against Iran tomorrow (or indeed the morning after).
On the EU, about which I fear we will be hearing plenty this coming week even though for betting types it's the greatest five days of the whole year at Ascot, we simply couldn't go on as we were with our half-hearted, rebate-obsessed membership.
Rather like the Hokey Cokey, ever since Messina, there have only been two coherent positions - our whole selves in or our whole selves out. We COULD have gone in enthusaistically moving to the Euro, Schengen and pushing for deeper and faster political integration.
We could equally have sat on the sidelines, wishing the project well and enjoying some form of free trade agreement.
Incredibly, we did neither.
They're a good example of how salami-slicing the defence budget has made it so inefficient. You cut the budget for new ships, and instead rely on extending the life of your existing ships. You spend loads of money on refits, and life-extension repairs for your existing ships, during which time they aren't available for use. You end up spending more money than you planned, to have a less capable ship, mostly not available for service.
And now it means you need to build ships twice as fast to catch up on the ship-building you deferred, but the shipyards are closed and the skilled staff were let go, so to recreate the ship-building capacity you will need to pay £££.
When you've had a period of sweating your existing assets to destruction it's always going to cost lots to make good the situation. You can't do that just by making the existing budget more "efficient". One of the reasons the budget became inefficient was that it wasn't big enough.
So we will probably forever be unhappy.
Many on here (and elsewhere) have argued we should have had a referendum on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland did and rejected the treaty in the summer of 2008 only for a second referendum, once concessions had been made to Dublin, to prodice a two thirds majority in favour.
Had we also held a referendum, would we have rejected it and what would have happened if we had? I suspect it would have revealed deep splits in both the Labour and Conservative parties which, a year or so before a likely election, would have transformed the election agenda.
There's an interesting counterfactual on that which I must one day develop on alternatehistory.com
Today, it's by the army garrison in Aldershot.
Decide how many ships you want in each category. Build them at a rate that sustains the numbers, with some flexibility for extra orders (such as foreign orders). A continuous production line.
Go for evolution over revolution (see US Navy failures).
https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2065915767837569505?s=46&t=Gsn9rlDEZH5vXP97Cgifnw
Burnham coronation.
FWIW, I think Rejoin could win by something like 63-37 if it were on the original terms, with additional opt-outs, even if that meant a higher UK contribution.
Conversely, I think Stay Out would win around 58-42 on 'standard terms' with expectations of eventual Euro adoption. Arguably it should be higher, but I suspect wider cultural and political issues would narrow the margin.
Either way, another referendum campaign would be massively divisive, irritate the whole country for years, and leave a lot of people unhappy with the result. So why it was called, who conducted it and how would be crucial.
There's so much about what has happened since then with which I am just completely dumbfounded.
From those who wouldn't accept the result and tried to reverse it (you knew that would happen and would have been the same the other way to those who wanted the result but seemed to have no clue as to what to do next.
There seemed a complete absence of thinking on the LEAVE side as to what could, should and would happen.
I'll also be fair - however we left the EU, we'd have still had the pandemic and likely the Russian invasion of Ukraine so I suspect in the longer term it's made less difference.
Yes, not to debate trans again specifically, I was interested in how the threats (to female equality) stack up in your mind here in 2026.
The thing is, I agree with you (strongly) that this is still very much a man's world as regards where power lies. IMO attitudes of male supremacy are deep seated and widespread, ranging from patriarchal assumptions of a woman's place (to cheer and support and nurture and decorate) to the more obvious plain misogyny that leads to belittlement, abuse, and domination.
I see so much of all of that in the outputs of those who are part of (or support) this new populist right that are all over the place these days, turbocharged now by Trump MAGA in the US. For me, they are a huge threat to many things and one of those things is most certainly the position in society of women.
I don't want to profile and at the same time two noisy motorbikes turned up suddenly on the high street outside our restaurant with two middle-eastern looking men on each of them, wearing bandanas covering their faces, and they had dark hair. They looked angry.
They did an about turn in the middle of the high-street, made a massive noise with their engines, and then revved off again. All my red flags were going off and I was ready to whip my wife out the restaurant on the high street, and head off out and away from there.
In the event nothing (that I could see) happened but it was all very weird and discomforting. Whole thing was about 8 seconds long and a flash in a pan. But where had they come from suddenly? Why were they there? What were they doing?
Maybe they just wanted a ride.
Building the hulls somewhere cheap and then adding all the high value systems like weapons and sensors in the UK would make a lot of sense and be a lot more effective. It'll never happen though as the UK now has three surface ship yards that are politically impossible to close down and so will have to be kept building incredibly expensive and massively delayed warships. We're basically trying to be a Tier 1 warship builder without any commercial shipbuilding to support it which is impossible.
"Back in the day" we had uber-commercial shipbuilding to smooth the load. And it was normal for yards to do both military and civilian contracts.
Chaotic events that seem beyond his control have become a signature theme of the Starmer regime. It is common for ministers to quit because of scandals. It is much rarer to see resignations from government on points of principle. Even cabinet members who remain sympathetic to Sir Keir acknowledge that it is highly damaging.
The Ministry of Defence wanted military spending taken up to 3% of GDP by 2030. The Treasury is inveterately, institutionally and often justifiably sceptical about the spending habits of the MoD, with its notorious tendency to squander resources on waste and mismanagement, especially in procurement programmes. The role of the prime minister when cabinet members are embroiled in this kind of row is to hammer out a compromise that both sides can live with.
When instinctive team players like [Healey] abandon the field of battle, you are in serious trouble. The most stinging accusation in the Healey resignation letter is his suggestion that the prime minister knows “what defence needs”, but was too feeble to insist that an obstructive Treasury come up with the goods. This hurts so much because it is of a piece with the diagnosis of others who have quit the government.
The element of Sir Keir’s personal brand that had survived all the slings and arrows of recent months was his reputation as surefooted in international affairs and sound on security. That’s all horribly undermined when the defence secretary quits saying that decisions made in Downing Street “could make the country less safe”.
About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.
The same challenge also affects every other alternative Government including ones headed by Farage, Badenoch, Polanski and Davey.
It's the first of a series (I suspect) of such crunch issues which challenge how we have jogged on arguably over the last 5-7 years.
Essentially, the question is - IF you think more should be spent on defence, from where does the funding come absent significant economic growth? The options are either to cut spending - "welfare" seems the favoured option but whose welfare and by how much or raise taxes - a hypothecated 2p increase in basic rate tax to fund additional defence?
The problem is the former will be opposed by those who enjoy their welfare and benefits and the latter by those who think they pay too much tax as it is and each will point to the other and day they should pay.
The poor Government is caught in the middle - it has three options, pick a side, anatagonise both sides by doing both or doing neither and hoping, pace Micawber, something will turn up.
Pomposity would ooze from every pore.
No wonder we get drift and inertia.
All the bills for the can-kicking of the past are falling due. The only sane way out is to convince the public that there's a tough road ahead, but we can get out of the hole if we're honest about the mistakes made in the past.
https://x.com/weeshug72/status/2066083380551184878?s=20
There was pressure from some countries to waive the opt outs that Maastricht had given but that pressure could have been resisted if our government had not been so out of touch with the views of the population. After all, Sweden has been "under pressure" to adopt the Euro for decades and France has basically been out of Schengen since about 2016.
Freedom of movement was the biggest challenge. Instead of tens of thousands we ended up with nearly 4m Europeans coming here which not only aggravated our housing and infrastructure limitations but also created massive competition for many of the indigenous population reducing both employment opportunities and wages.
Would a successful compromise have been possible? Well, the Cameron effort, which was somewhat half hearted, suggested that it would have been difficult but the powers that be in both the UK and the EU did not believe that people would ever vote to leave and felt able and entitled to override their wishes. The outcome of failing to find a compromise that worked has been fairly suboptimal for both sides. Even although the consequences of Brexit have been grossly overstated (as the series of thread headers on here showed recently) there was still a better way ahead if a compromise could have been found.
I think what you are describing as vicious calumnies are in fact just normal rhetoric. I know that David Milliband is not sending the rozzers round to confiscate peoples' dryers. What he is doing is introducing an intrusive and in my view unwarranted ban on the sale of the most effective forms of tumble dryer - those that work well in a garage - those that are quicker. It may make sense to save the energy - if that is so, the market will sort it out. If it isn't so, it's frankly none of Milliband's business. The same goes for the banning of underfloor heating systems that use 'too much' energy. 1. Fuck off you Stalinist little weasel, 2. I don't think 'giving up' is a particularly outrageous way to describe something being banned from sale. The net outcome will eventually be the same.
Regarding Milliband's carbon footprint, you seem to be implying that his ministerial flying is essential to his Ministerial duties, and should therefore be exempt from scrutiny. That is patently absurd. For comparison, we know after six months in the role, Milliband's department had spent £62,712 on international travel - Claire Coutinho spent £6,155 during her first six months in the same job. That is 10 times the amount. And Coutinho wasn't making some sort of 'anti Net Zero' point - the Tories policy was pro Net Zero at that time.
Was travelling to multiple cities in Brazil to highlight our climate leadership a particularly good use of carbon or money? Was a private jet (one way, he slummed it in Business the other way) to NYC for 'New York Climate Week' with over 100 civil servants from the deparment also in attendence? These things are at the Minister's discretion.
Not another one!
Japan has a military shipbuilding heartbeat that is steady for decades, rather than feast and famine. Then if the size of the navy is adjusted, it is done by adjusting the service life rather than destroying the industry - sell it, scrap it, or put it in reserve. Here is the list of in service dates for ships - look at the consistency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Japan_Maritime_Self-Defense_Force_ships
Even if we were running one frigate / destroyer every 2-3 years at 2 yards, and one submarine every 2 years, it could follow the same principle.