Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
No prisons would be an even more expensive way of making good people much worse.
I really worry about the ways things seem to be pointing. We can't deport violent foreign criminals; we haven't enough space to imprison all those who should be imprisoned; violent criminals are being let out too early; the push for medically-assisted suicide is being brought back to parliament. I really do worry that all these things will come together and we'll end up with the death penalty again. It isn't unthinkable because Rupert Lowe is already saying it. Proclaiming it, even.
We deport thousands of foreign criminals every year, and the latest figures were up 36%. Don't believe what you read in the papers about occasional exceptions.
I've seen comments "below the line" on shorts and videos that are pro-nonce, Nazi-sympathising (and enthusiastically so), defending Tate and so on. This then seems to encourage others, and discourage or push off those who try and oppose it.
There really are some messed up people out there, and it worries me.
I mentioned it before the mother of a friend of mine has been utterly radicalised by Facebook from being a centrist to thinking Rupert Lowe is a race traitor tor letting his son marry a Muslim.
Before you know it, they'll be letting people wearing loud shoes in a built up area. Or walk around in public with an offensive wife.
Something Must Be Done
{For some reason, at this point, I envisage a chap with a moustache, in a three piece pinstripe suit, bowler hat and a very, very tightly rolled umbrella. Is this an Enoch Powell thing bouncing around in my brain??}
Enoch Powell bouncing, you say?
When I was little, I had a coat like those girls are wearing.
And I had a pogo stick almost identical to the old racist's.
@DougSeal You also have to find an appropriate site, and buy it if required: 6-12 months. Procure the project team: 6 months. Procure a main contractor: 6 months.
Site investigations, design development, who knows.
Plus the penny on income tax to pay for it, if you subscribe to the simplistic Household Budget analogy.
He's showing signs of going for an early election.
He isn't, he would win a landslide in Manchester but he also knows on the latest UK polls this week though Labour wouldn't even win most seats and would lose its majority to a hung parliament. Burnham would at minimum need LD and Green and probably SNP support as well to stay in No 10
The latest UK polls are a nowcast not a forecast. Under GE conditions, with Farage out of Parliament, or in disarray following a 2nd by-election, he could match Starmer's GE2024 result or better.
Bear in mind, Burnham has access to focus group and private polling data we don't.
He's showing signs of going for an early election.
He isn't, he would win a landslide in Manchester, on the latest UK polls this week though Labour wouldn't even win most seats and would lose its majority to a hung parliament
It would only make sense if you had a pathological hatred of your predecessor, and being dependent on the majority he won was causing you deep psychic pain. And probably if your Love Of The North meant that you didn't really want 100-plus nancy southerners as part of your Parliamentary team.
Put like that... when's he calling it?
(Though how you align it with Lascelles, flip knows.)
I expect if he even tried the Cabinet would tie him to his chair
"You'll all be very pleased with your new cabinet jobs...shame most of you won't be in them for long" "What was that you muttered, Andy?" "Oh nothing"
I've seen comments "below the line" on shorts and videos that are pro-nonce, Nazi-sympathising (and enthusiastically so), defending Tate and so on. This then seems to encourage others, and discourage or push off those who try and oppose it.
There really are some messed up people out there, and it worries me.
I mentioned it before the mother of a friend of mine has been utterly radicalised by Facebook from being a centrist to thinking Rupert Lowe is a race traitor tor letting his son marry a Muslim.
Before you know it, they'll be letting people wearing loud shoes in a built up area. Or walk around in public with an offensive wife.
Something Must Be Done
{For some reason, at this point, I envisage a chap with a moustache, in a three piece pinstripe suit, bowler hat and a very, very tightly rolled umbrella. Is this an Enoch Powell thing bouncing around in my brain??}
Enoch Powell bouncing, you say?
When I was little, I had a coat like those girls are wearing.
I've seen comments "below the line" on shorts and videos that are pro-nonce, Nazi-sympathising (and enthusiastically so), defending Tate and so on. This then seems to encourage others, and discourage or push off those who try and oppose it.
There really are some messed up people out there, and it worries me.
I mentioned it before the mother of a friend of mine has been utterly radicalised by Facebook from being a centrist to thinking Rupert Lowe is a race traitor tor letting his son marry a Muslim.
Before you know it, they'll be letting people wearing loud shoes in a built up area. Or walk around in public with an offensive wife.
Something Must Be Done
{For some reason, at this point, I envisage a chap with a moustache, in a three piece pinstripe suit, bowler hat and a very, very tightly rolled umbrella. Is this an Enoch Powell thing bouncing around in my brain??}
Enoch Powell bouncing, you say?
When I was little, I had a coat like those girls are wearing.
And they look like Clarke's sandals to me.
I'm so old I remember Clarke children's shoe shops had some kind of mini x-ray machine to check on feet size etc.
He's showing signs of going for an early election.
He isn't, he would win a landslide in Manchester but he also knows on the latest UK polls this week though Labour wouldn't even win most seats and would lose its majority to a hung parliament. Burnham would at minimum need LD and Green and probably SNP support as well to stay in No 10
The latest UK polls are a nowcast not a forecast. Under GE conditions, with Farage out of Parliament, or in disarray following a 2nd by-election, he could match Starmer's GE2024 result or better.
Bear in mind, Burnham has access to focus group and private polling data we don't.
This might be the best shot he has.
No it would be the stupidest move of any PM in history electorally. Even more stupid than May's 2017 election call as she only had a tiny majority and at the start of the campaign a big poll lead, whereas Burnham has a huge majority for 3 more years if he wants but polls showing Labour only neck and neck with Reform at best. I highly doubt he will
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
No prisons would be an even more expensive way of making good people much worse.
I really worry about the ways things seem to be pointing. We can't deport violent foreign criminals; we haven't enough space to imprison all those who should be imprisoned; violent criminals are being let out too early; the push for medically-assisted suicide is being brought back to parliament. I really do worry that all these things will come together and we'll end up with the death penalty again. It isn't unthinkable because Rupert Lowe is already saying it. Proclaiming it, even.
We deport thousands of foreign criminals every year, and the latest figures were up 36%. Don't believe what you read in the papers about occasional exceptions.
About one in eight of those held in UK jails are foreign nationals I believe.
The grotesque failure of prison policy under the Conservatives can't be overstated. It was bad enough failing to create much in the way of additional prison capacity but when Johnson and later Sunak extended custodial sentences for certain offences it was seemingly done so without considering the impact of extending sentences on existing capacity.
It's not just about building more prisons of course - there's a serious debate to be had about what crimes merit custodial sentences and how much we really want to spend on incarcerating people at a time of financial stringency (we are told).
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
The main purpose of prison is to keep criminals away from the public.
Which works until they get released, which will happen one day for all but a tiny part of the prison population.
Keeping criminals away from the public isn't the purpose for over 99% of the prison population.
It absolutely is part of the purpose. Not the sole purpose, but it is a huge factor.
A huge proportion of crime is done by the same few individuals. Time behind bars is time those individuals are not committing crimes, even if they will eventually be released.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
The main purpose of prison is to keep criminals away from the public.
Which works until they get released, which will happen one day for all but a tiny part of the prison population.
Keeping criminals away from the public isn't the purpose for over 99% of the prison population.
It absolutely is part of the purpose. Not the sole purpose, but it is a huge factor.
A huge proportion of crime is done by the same few individuals. Time behind bars is time those individuals are not committing crimes, even if they will eventually be released.
Punishment/Deterrence Public Protection Rehabilitation
All important. The rehabilitation part is probably the hardest to achieve but has huge benefits if it can be.
I've seen comments "below the line" on shorts and videos that are pro-nonce, Nazi-sympathising (and enthusiastically so), defending Tate and so on. This then seems to encourage others, and discourage or push off those who try and oppose it.
There really are some messed up people out there, and it worries me.
The Internet is enshittified. FB was fun. I reconnected with a friend on FB in 2009 who is now closer to me than we were at school. We’ve both deleted our FB accounts.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
Having surrendered its onetime leadership in solar, there is a very short term economic advantage for the US in drilling for cheap oil and gas. But it won't do them much good for very long.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
That is not the emotional button being pressed by the slogan. It's "away with all your climate bleating, oil is king, oil is money, this great rugged nation of ours was built on it".
'One of the improvements we’re making to our candidate selection process is screening for this tendency. Conservatives are weeding out the self-absorbed who come into politics because they couldn’t get into showbiz.
For these poseurs, being an MP is not about legislating to make people’s lives easier, safer and richer but a platform to campaign for their personal hobby-horses and other self-promoting activity.
They waste a lot of Parliament’s time with trivia, creating unwelcome delays and distraction from their colleagues’ work and focus on serious matters.'
A sensible Trumpian policy would be to say: "We will remove all subsidies for wind power. If someone wants to build wind, and wants to have it compete at selling into the grid, good for them. But consumers shouldn't die on the altar of greenery."
And it is worth noting that the (almost entirely Republican) Great Plains States have put in a lot of wind, and it has resulted in generally lower electricity prices for consumers. See Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas. (And, for that matter, Doug Bergum.)
Such a policy would result in a lot less wind being built, but it would not result in no wind. Because there are some places in the US with lots of wind, and lots of electricity demand, and which are a long way away from the shale gas fields of the Marcellus.
Remember what I've said multiple times this week, without that early release program there isn't the capacity to hold the prisoners scheduled to be jailed...
Build some jails.
Change the law to build them without planning bollocks.
The number of people who think it possible to design and build a fucking prison (not a house, a prison, a building that by definition has to be secured) in a matter of weeks and just stick it somewhere where no-one is going to object is staggering.
I'm a solicitor and I'm sure someone better placed than me can correct me if I'm wrong -
Feasibility and Architecture (3–6 months): Creating blueprints, engineering plans, and budgeting.
Site Preparation (1–2 months): Clearing land, grading, and excavation.
Deep Foundations (2–6 months): Driving steel piles and pouring massive concrete foundation slabs which need to be deeper than normal to prevent tunnelling.
Superstructure (6–12+ months): Constructing the steel, concrete (or timber if you're feeling kinky) skeleton frame floor by floor.
Building Enclosure / Envelope (3–6 months): Installing exterior walls and roofing to make the shell weatherproof
Staff training (2-4 months): training on the new building will be required even for experienced prison officers.
If there's a stage here you can skip please let me know. As I say I'm not in construction. But the dribblings of people on here who say you can turn out a new shitting PRISON by the Autumn does make me wonder about the basic comprehension skills involved.
20 years ago I worked with G4S on building prisons and courts.
One major issue the low IQ posters who think building prisons is easy don't appreciate there are several types of prisons (Cat A to Cat D) which require so much different levels of work.
Kitting out a a Cat A prison takes 9 to 12 months and that's after the build time.
My only experience working with G4S was delivering employment law training at a site in Trafford (an industrial estate but can’t remember which specific part of the borough) that dealt with ankle tags in c.2007. Plugged my BlackBerry into a port that was supposed to be charging such a tag. I wasn’t popular.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
Having surrendered its onetime leadership in solar, there is a very short term economic advantage for the US in drilling for cheap oil and gas. But it won't do them much good for very long.
It's mainly the fracking iiuc. That has paid off bigtime for them.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
Surely more wind used in electricity generation allows the US to export more gas, and is therefore good for the balance of payments?
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
That is not the emotional button being pressed by the slogan. It's "away with all your climate bleating, oil is king, oil is money, this great rugged nation of ours was built on it".
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
The main purpose of prison is to keep criminals away from the public.
Which works until they get released, which will happen one day for all but a tiny part of the prison population.
Keeping criminals away from the public isn't the purpose for over 99% of the prison population.
It absolutely is part of the purpose. Not the sole purpose, but it is a huge factor.
A huge proportion of crime is done by the same few individuals. Time behind bars is time those individuals are not committing crimes, even if they will eventually be released.
Punishment/Deterrence Public Protection Rehabilitation
All important. The rehabilitation part is probably the hardest to achieve but has huge benefits if it can be.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
Surely more wind used in electricity generation allows the US to export more gas, and is therefore good for the balance of payments?
They can export the gas to the UK if we insist on leaving our reserves in the ground while building new CCGT and Blue Hydrogen plants.
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
No prisons would be an even more expensive way of making good people much worse.
I really worry about the ways things seem to be pointing. We can't deport violent foreign criminals; we haven't enough space to imprison all those who should be imprisoned; violent criminals are being let out too early; the push for medically-assisted suicide is being brought back to parliament. I really do worry that all these things will come together and we'll end up with the death penalty again. It isn't unthinkable because Rupert Lowe is already saying it. Proclaiming it, even.
We deport criminals all the time. It just doesn’t get reported
Remember what I've said multiple times this week, without that early release program there isn't the capacity to hold the prisoners scheduled to be jailed...
Build some jails.
Change the law to build them without planning bollocks.
The number of people who think it possible to design and build a fucking prison (not a house, a prison, a building that by definition has to be secured) in a matter of weeks and just stick it somewhere where no-one is going to object is staggering.
I'm a solicitor and I'm sure someone better placed than me can correct me if I'm wrong -
Feasibility and Architecture (3–6 months): Creating blueprints, engineering plans, and budgeting.
Site Preparation (1–2 months): Clearing land, grading, and excavation.
Deep Foundations (2–6 months): Driving steel piles and pouring massive concrete foundation slabs which need to be deeper than normal to prevent tunnelling.
Superstructure (6–12+ months): Constructing the steel, concrete (or timber if you're feeling kinky) skeleton frame floor by floor.
Building Enclosure / Envelope (3–6 months): Installing exterior walls and roofing to make the shell weatherproof
Staff training (2-4 months): training on the new building will be required even for experienced prison officers.
If there's a stage here you can skip please let me know. As I say I'm not in construction. But the dribblings of people on here who say you can turn out a new shitting PRISON by the Autumn does make me wonder about the basic comprehension skills involved.
20 years ago I worked with G4S on building prisons and courts.
One major issue the low IQ posters who think building prisons is easy don't appreciate there are several types of prisons (Cat A to Cat D) which require so much different levels of work.
Kitting out a a Cat A prison takes 9 to 12 months and that's after the build time.
My only experience working with G4S was delivering employment law training at a site in Trafford (an industrial estate but can’t remember which specific part of the borough) that dealt with ankle tags in c.2007. Plugged my BlackBerry into a port that was supposed to be charging such a tag. I wasn’t popular.
My claim to fame is that I once spent a night in prison and I've also worn an ankle tag all thanks to G4S.
At the prison a prison officer lost his master key and the whole place went into lockdown until they found it.
An amusing thing about the ankle tags, the box they connected which had a SIM card in it to let G4S know if you were breaking curfew which connected to Vodafone which had shit signal in parts of the country, thus plenty of those tags were as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
I've seen comments "below the line" on shorts and videos that are pro-nonce, Nazi-sympathising (and enthusiastically so), defending Tate and so on. This then seems to encourage others, and discourage or push off those who try and oppose it.
There really are some messed up people out there, and it worries me.
I mentioned it before the mother of a friend of mine has been utterly radicalised by Facebook from being a centrist to thinking Rupert Lowe is a race traitor tor letting his son marry a Muslim.
Before you know it, they'll be letting people wearing loud shoes in a built up area. Or walk around in public with an offensive wife.
Something Must Be Done
{For some reason, at this point, I envisage a chap with a moustache, in a three piece pinstripe suit, bowler hat and a very, very tightly rolled umbrella. Is this an Enoch Powell thing bouncing around in my brain??}
Enoch Powell bouncing, you say?
When I was little, I had a coat like those girls are wearing.
And they look like Clarke's sandals to me.
I'm so old I remember Clarke children's shoe shops had some kind of mini x-ray machine to check on feet size etc.
I recall those, too, they were fascinating.
I had my feet in one of those so often I should really get checked for cancer
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
The main purpose of prison is to keep criminals away from the public.
Which works until they get released, which will happen one day for all but a tiny part of the prison population.
Keeping criminals away from the public isn't the purpose for over 99% of the prison population.
It absolutely is part of the purpose. Not the sole purpose, but it is a huge factor.
A huge proportion of crime is done by the same few individuals. Time behind bars is time those individuals are not committing crimes, even if they will eventually be released.
Punishment/Deterrence Public Protection Rehabilitation
All important. The rehabilitation part is probably the hardest to achieve but has huge benefits if it can be.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
That is not the emotional button being pressed by the slogan. It's "away with all your climate bleating, oil is king, oil is money, this great rugged nation of ours was built on it".
But I'm talking reality, not bollocks.
The slogan is 'button push' bollocks. That's exactly the point.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
It's to do with jobs, retaining an industrial base, and balance of payments.
Surely more wind used in electricity generation allows the US to export more gas, and is therefore good for the balance of payments?
They can export the gas to the UK if we insist on leaving our reserves in the ground while building new CCGT and Blue Hydrogen plants.
There's no shortage of people who want to buy their natural gas.
The great irony is that given the relatively long lead times associated with building new modern horizontal rigs etc in the US, the first order impact of stopping wind is to reduce the likelihood of the US being able to export gas.
Texas has 40 GW of wind turbines. So even in a state full of red-capped morons they know that wind power make sense.
Indeed, when there was the massive cold snap in Texas a few years ago, it actually caused some of the gas transmission lines to freeze up, and it was only thanks to wind that they were able to keep the power on at all.
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
The main purpose of prison is to keep criminals away from the public.
Which works until they get released, which will happen one day for all but a tiny part of the prison population.
Keeping criminals away from the public isn't the purpose for over 99% of the prison population.
It absolutely is part of the purpose. Not the sole purpose, but it is a huge factor.
A huge proportion of crime is done by the same few individuals. Time behind bars is time those individuals are not committing crimes, even if they will eventually be released.
Punishment/Deterrence Public Protection Rehabilitation
All important. The rehabilitation part is probably the hardest to achieve but has huge benefits if it can be.
For the most heinous crimes - Retribution.
Well that is the extreme end of punishment. In this country the 'whole of life' sentence.
A sensible Trumpian policy would be to say: "We will remove all subsidies for wind power. If someone wants to build wind, and wants to have it compete at selling into the grid, good for them. But consumers shouldn't die on the altar of greenery."
And it is worth noting that the (almost entirely Republican) Great Plains States have put in a lot of wind, and it has resulted in generally lower electricity prices for consumers. See Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas. (And, for that matter, Doug Bergum.)
Such a policy would result in a lot less wind being built, but it would not result in no wind. Because there are some places in the US with lots of wind, and lots of electricity demand, and which are a long way away from the shale gas fields of the Marcellus.
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
No prisons would be an even more expensive way of making good people much worse.
I really worry about the ways things seem to be pointing. We can't deport violent foreign criminals; we haven't enough space to imprison all those who should be imprisoned; violent criminals are being let out too early; the push for medically-assisted suicide is being brought back to parliament. I really do worry that all these things will come together and we'll end up with the death penalty again. It isn't unthinkable because Rupert Lowe is already saying it. Proclaiming it, even.
We deport thousands of foreign criminals every year, and the latest figures were up 36%. Don't believe what you read in the papers about occasional exceptions.
About one in eight of those held in UK jails are foreign nationals I believe.
The grotesque failure of prison policy under the Conservatives can't be overstated. It was bad enough failing to create much in the way of additional prison capacity but when Johnson and later Sunak extended custodial sentences for certain offences it was seemingly done so without considering the impact of extending sentences on existing capacity.
It's not just about building more prisons of course - there's a serious debate to be had about what crimes merit custodial sentences and how much we really want to spend on incarcerating people at a time of financial stringency (we are told).
As TSE said the other day, one of the few (my words not his) tragedies about Brexit was it cut short Michael Gove's tenure as Justice Minister. He was actua;;ly trying to make prisons places of reform and rehabilitation.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
Having surrendered its onetime leadership in solar, there is a very short term economic advantage for the US in drilling for cheap oil and gas. But it won't do them much good for very long.
It's mainly the fracking iiuc. That has paid off bigtime for them.
I believe the US shale oil and gas boom is quite time limited. Because the fuel is extracted under pressure you get the most production at the start and it begins to tail off immediately. After a while you move onto the next well, but they exploited the easiest wells first. Before too long you get a situation where the most lucrative wells become depleted and you're stuck exploiting wells with higher costs and smaller returns and that situation I think is starting in the next few years.
A sensible Trumpian policy would be to say: "We will remove all subsidies for wind power. If someone wants to build wind, and wants to have it compete at selling into the grid, good for them. But consumers shouldn't die on the altar of greenery."
And it is worth noting that the (almost entirely Republican) Great Plains States have put in a lot of wind, and it has resulted in generally lower electricity prices for consumers. See Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas. (And, for that matter, Doug Bergum.)
Such a policy would result in a lot less wind being built, but it would not result in no wind. Because there are some places in the US with lots of wind, and lots of electricity demand, and which are a long way away from the shale gas fields of the Marcellus.
Just following up on this, I think it's very easy to look at the US and look at the Henry Hub price and assume that is the price that you would pay for natural gas in the US. That is not the case. The reality is that every part of the US has different natural gas prices according to whether there is indigenous production, where the gas pipeline network goes to, how much gas pipeline capacity there is, and whether there is local storage in depleted salt zones, for example.
In Boston, for example, the spot-market gas price today is about six times that of Henry Hub.
Vibes are more important than truth to the populist right.
That's right. Drill baby drill is a cry of yearning for the time before climate change and civil rights and women in the workplace and all the rest of the uptight overthinking modern world. It's got nothing to do with energy economics.
Having surrendered its onetime leadership in solar, there is a very short term economic advantage for the US in drilling for cheap oil and gas. But it won't do them much good for very long.
It's mainly the fracking iiuc. That has paid off bigtime for them.
I believe the US shale oil and gas boom is quite time limited. Because the fuel is extracted under pressure you get the most production at the start and it begins to tail off immediately. After a while you move onto the next well, but they exploited the easiest wells first. Before too long you get a situation where the most lucrative wells become depleted and you're stuck exploiting wells with smaller returns and that situation I think is starting in the next few years.
I'm not sure your analogy is quite right.
The big shale formations have hundreds of thousands of drilling locations. And we're getting better at drilling all the time. The two therefore largely offset each other: yes, we're not in the very best locations any more... but we know more about the geology than we used to.
So, the returns on drilling an incremental shale well in the Marcellus have been largely flat: it's a simple question of (a) what's the gas price? (b) what's the day rate of a good horizontal rig (and costs of renting the pumping equipment).
With that said... there's not that much opportunity for things to get much cheaper either. The big learnings, when things moved really quickly, happened twenty years ago. Nowadays, it's all pretty slick.
Tried sitting outside about an hour ago and it was genuinely cold because of the 10mph northerly wind. Strange because it was really warm earlier in the day.
Caught the start of Newsnight ,and Nick sodding Clegg is lecturing others about sanctimony.
He's been popping up a bit recently.
Tell me he's not planning a return to frontline politics some way or other?
His coalition was one if the best periods of government in recent decades. Maybe I am in a minority of one, but I think he put the country ahead of his party and himself and should be given credit for that. I would give him a knighthood.
Caught the start of Newsnight ,and Nick sodding Clegg is lecturing others about sanctimony.
He's been popping up a bit recently.
Tell me he's not planning a return to frontline politics some way or other?
He's left Meta but has apparently joined some UK AI start up, so there's a risk he might be keen to get back in. London Mayoralty? He's been very. vocal about not going to the Lords on principle.
Caught the start of Newsnight ,and Nick sodding Clegg is lecturing others about sanctimony.
He's been popping up a bit recently.
Tell me he's not planning a return to frontline politics some way or other?
His coalition was one if the best periods of government in recent decades. Maybe I am in a minority of one, but I think he put the country ahead of his party and himself and should be given credit for that. I would give him a knighthood.
He put himself ahead of his party, that's for sure.
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
No surprise that an 80 year old might be in physical decline. He never had any intention of standing again, no matter what some people liked to say.
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
Its a shame we don't have someone like Jim Mattis still in Trump's cainet and prepared to tackle him if he shows any signs of going for the nuclear football.
Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse
No prisons would be an even more expensive way of making good people much worse.
I really worry about the ways things seem to be pointing. We can't deport violent foreign criminals; we haven't enough space to imprison all those who should be imprisoned; violent criminals are being let out too early; the push for medically-assisted suicide is being brought back to parliament. I really do worry that all these things will come together and we'll end up with the death penalty again. It isn't unthinkable because Rupert Lowe is already saying it. Proclaiming it, even.
We deport thousands of foreign criminals every year, and the latest figures were up 36%. Don't believe what you read in the papers about occasional exceptions.
About one in eight of those held in UK jails are foreign nationals I believe.
The grotesque failure of prison policy under the Conservatives can't be overstated. It was bad enough failing to create much in the way of additional prison capacity but when Johnson and later Sunak extended custodial sentences for certain offences it was seemingly done so without considering the impact of extending sentences on existing capacity.
It's not just about building more prisons of course - there's a serious debate to be had about what crimes merit custodial sentences and how much we really want to spend on incarcerating people at a time of financial stringency (we are told).
As TSE said the other day, one of the few (my words not his) tragedies about Brexit was it cut short Michael Gove's tenure as Justice Minister. He was actua;;ly trying to make prisons places of reform and rehabilitation.
I was at Tory Party Conference in 2015 and it was quite remarkable chalk and cheese the contrast between Gove as Justice and May as Home Secretary.
Gove's speech was all about rehabilitation and reform and was really, really positive. IIRC Timpson was there as well as part of his speech, certainly someone like that.
May's OTOH was incredibly nasty and xenophobic. Made me feel very uncomfortable.
Incredibly different, and I certainly prefer Gove's approach.
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
I was actually thinking this morning reading the headlines about him imposing tariffs, again, that he is acting just like someone with dementia. Its not just deja vu, but he keeps repeating the same mistakes, like he doesn't know he's already made them.
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
No surprise that an 80 year old might be in physical decline. He never had any intention of standing again, no matter what some people liked to say.
He might have intention but he isn't going to be well enough in two years time to stand again.
The idea that bridges should not be targeted in war is absolute batshit crazy nonsense.
People spouting that shite should read up on history. We deliberately targeted bridges in WWII and we were right to do so, it helped lead to the collapse of the Nazis as they were no longer able to operate.
Read up on the Transport Plan then bleat on about war crimes. Utter codswallop. Bridges are a legitimate military target.
Comments
Can you feel it
If we could buy it now
How long would it last"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXzs47qy2Pk
Bear in mind, Burnham has access to focus group and private polling data we don't.
This might be the best shot he has.
Perhaps we should build an oil refinery and a coal fired power station in Balmedie.
Peter.
Peter.
The grotesque failure of prison policy under the Conservatives can't be overstated. It was bad enough failing to create much in the way of additional prison capacity but when Johnson and later Sunak extended custodial sentences for certain offences it was seemingly done so without considering the impact of extending sentences on existing capacity.
It's not just about building more prisons of course - there's a serious debate to be had about what crimes merit custodial sentences and how much we really want to spend on incarcerating people at a time of financial stringency (we are told).
Keeping criminals away from the public isn't the purpose for over 99% of the prison population.
A huge proportion of crime is done by the same few individuals. Time behind bars is time those individuals are not committing crimes, even if they will eventually be released.
Public Protection
Rehabilitation
All important. The rehabilitation part is probably the hardest to achieve but has huge benefits if it can be.
But it won't do them much good for very long.
And it is worth noting that the (almost entirely Republican) Great Plains States have put in a lot of wind, and it has resulted in generally lower electricity prices for consumers. See Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas. (And, for that matter, Doug Bergum.)
Such a policy would result in a lot less wind being built, but it would not result in no wind. Because there are some places in the US with lots of wind, and lots of electricity demand, and which are a long way away from the shale gas fields of the Marcellus.
The boundary between County Durham and Yorkshire is the River Tees.
At the prison a prison officer lost his master key and the whole place went into lockdown until they found it.
An amusing thing about the ankle tags, the box they connected which had a SIM card in it to let G4S know if you were breaking curfew which connected to Vodafone which had shit signal in parts of the country, thus plenty of those tags were as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
The great irony is that given the relatively long lead times associated with building new modern horizontal rigs etc in the US, the first order impact of stopping wind is to reduce the likelihood of the US being able to export gas.
I mean, I spend lots of time saying people should have real world experience of what they're talking about.
Trump: "I wont respond to that. Who are you with?"
NY Times: "NY Times"
Trump: "That figures, you are failing. Next question."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/10/bills-trump-clean-energy-coal
In Boston, for example, the spot-market gas price today is about six times that of Henry Hub.
The big shale formations have hundreds of thousands of drilling locations. And we're getting better at drilling all the time. The two therefore largely offset each other: yes, we're not in the very best locations any more... but we know more about the geology than we used to.
So, the returns on drilling an incremental shale well in the Marcellus have been largely flat: it's a simple question of (a) what's the gas price? (b) what's the day rate of a good horizontal rig (and costs of renting the pumping equipment).
With that said... there's not that much opportunity for things to get much cheaper either. The big learnings, when things moved really quickly, happened twenty years ago. Nowadays, it's all pretty slick.
Tell me he's not planning a return to frontline politics some way or other?
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
Donald Trump is said to be 'in decline' both physically and mentally, and he is reportedly so frustrated with the war in Iran that he has entered 'revenge mode'
The war isn’t just consuming Trump’s presidency. It’s taking its toll on the President himself. During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he ranted against Iran’s leaders, calling them ‘scumbags’ and ‘lunatics’ in an expletive-ridden diatribe. There is growing concern for his physical health and mental stability.
‘Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes,’ I was told in Washington this week by a close confidant who sees him regularly. ‘His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.’
"No. Next question."
Gove's speech was all about rehabilitation and reform and was really, really positive. IIRC Timpson was there as well as part of his speech, certainly someone like that.
May's OTOH was incredibly nasty and xenophobic. Made me feel very uncomfortable.
Incredibly different, and I certainly prefer Gove's approach.
People spouting that shite should read up on history. We deliberately targeted bridges in WWII and we were right to do so, it helped lead to the collapse of the Nazis as they were no longer able to operate.
Read up on the Transport Plan then bleat on about war crimes. Utter codswallop. Bridges are a legitimate military target.