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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 14:07:13 GMT
"The massive disappointment was to discover that [the £840-a-roll gold wallpaper] had started to peel off of its own accord... Hells bells. I'd have gone back to the store and demanded a refund under the Sale of Goods Act, or Trades Descriptions Act, or both. Just goes to show there are cowboys at all levels of society. Maybe the wallpaper might have been rebelling |
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alurqa
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Post by alurqa on Nov 25, 2022 14:08:47 GMT
Why should Guardian readers look away? ESA is not part of the EU. The good thing about ESA is it keeps us tied closely to other high-tech manufacturers in Europe. The brexit nutters have done great damage to our economy. The last thing we want them to do is drag us out of ESA and do even more. |
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 14:10:21 GMT
Woohoo!! (Is there a catch though? OMG, what if there’s a catch??) |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Nov 25, 2022 14:13:06 GMT
By the 1920s Ireland was already almost exclusively English speaking. Didn't dampen the distinct Irish culture and passion for self government. Also Switzerland has no less than three official languages: French, German, and Italian. Some Swiss speak a fourth, Romansh. I was told a long time ago, that if two German-speaking Swiss were conversing and a French-speaking Swiss joined them, they would immediately switch to French out of respect for the newcomer. As a speaker of German I find Switzerland a weird place to be (as does my brother in law's wife, who is from Hamburg. They live in Zurich at the moment). Everything in writing all around you is in standard German yet the language people are using is impenetrable. Swiss German is basically not German and to my mind should be considered a language in it's own right. You can see this on the few occasions it is written down. I understand it even differs from canton to canton to an extent that can make comprehension difficult. They do however all understand and speak standard German and will use this if you address them in it but frankly it seems to make as much sense there to use English.. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 25, 2022 14:16:01 GMT
Why should Guardian readers look away? ESA is not part of the EU. The good thing about ESA is it keeps us tied closely to other high-tech manufacturers in Europe. The brexit nutters have done great damage to our economy. The last thing we want them to do is drag us out of ESA and do even more. Agree, it is good news that 'UK government commits £1.84 billion for important space programmes at this year’s European Space Agency Council of Ministers meeting, held in Paris' Also, as you say, nothing to do with the EU |
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 14:16:12 GMT
Just how complex the world is (even if it is underreported in the newspapers...). Kharkiv's mayor was fined by about £80 for breaching the state language act: the very much Ukrainian mayor dared to address the population of the city in Russian... (When I've been in Karmic in 2002, practically everybody conversed in Russian in bars, restaurants, and on local TV). ...........and in other news from Kharkiv:- www.itv.com/news/2022-11-23/ukrainian-cities-lyiv-and-kharkiv-lose-power-after-missile-strikesSaid in the Telegraph that targeting Ukrainian power system - esp. things like substations that are hard to fix - was a way to indirectly undermine the European energy situation. “The damage deprives Europe of crucial electricity imports from Ukrainian plants. Power will have to flow in the opposite direction to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Ukrainian cities. The switch in flows is large enough to change a fragile energy balance. It compounds a fresh gas squeeze already in the works. The effect is to shave Europe’s margin of energy security to wafer-thin levels and to ratchet up the pain through 2023, pushing Europe’s industries closer to the wall.” |
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alurqa
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Post by alurqa on Nov 25, 2022 14:20:55 GMT
And he got rid of the indigenous Tartars from Crimea: In 1944, under the pretext of alleged collaboration of the Crimean Tatars with the Nazi occupation regime, the Soviet government on orders of Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria deported the Crimean Tatar people from Crimea.I seem to remember they were put on two ships and sailed out into the Black Sea where the ships were sunk. But one village was missed, so they went in and executed everyone. That's not mentioned in the above link, so maybe I've mis-remembered.
says they were put on trains and boxcars, but if they were deported to Central Asia without food, it's not surprising if many starved to death. I thought I read it somewhere but couldn't be arsed to check. Now you've challenged it, I decided to pull my lazy finger out and do an Internet search. It wasn't on Wiki where I read about it, but here's what they say: On 4 July 1944, the NKVD officially informed Stalin that the resettlement was complete. However, not long after that report, the NKVD found out that one of its units had forgotten to deport people from the Arabat Spit. Instead of preparing an additional transfer in trains, on 20 July the NKVD boarded hundreds of Crimean Tatars onto an old boat, took it to the middle of the Azov Sea, and sank the ship. Those who did not drown were finished off by machine-guns. |
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Post by moby on Nov 25, 2022 14:23:39 GMT
Also Switzerland has no less than three official languages: French, German, and Italian. Some Swiss speak a fourth, Romansh. I was told a long time ago, that if two German-speaking Swiss were conversing and a French-speaking Swiss joined them, they would immediately switch to French out of respect for the newcomer. As a speaker of German I find Switzerland a weird place to be (as does my brother in law's wife, who is from Hamburg. They live in Zurich at the moment). Everything in writing all around you is in standard German yet the language people are using is impenetrable. Swiss German is basically not German and to my mind should be considered a language in it's own right. You can see this on the few occasions it is written down. I understand it even differs from canton to canton to an extent that can make comprehension difficult. They do however all understand and speak standard German and will use this if you address them in it but frankly it seems to make as much sense there to use English.. I used to go and regularly visit a friend residing in St Gallen. He had a lovely little apartment in the town centre. The place was spotless and so civilised. He had to follow a timetable which required him to sweep outside his apartment corridor on certain days of the week and he was only allowed to use the laundry on proscribed days. I remember going to a gig with him; loads of casually dressed young people but all their jeans were nicely pressed and the grafitti in the spotless toilets looked like it had been done professionally. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 25, 2022 14:26:08 GMT
hiretonI would have been happy to see brexit prevented before it was enacted before the transition period ended and believe the question should be revisited soon,given the substantial change in public views shown by opinion polls and the dissembling of the leave campaign and the Tory regime. Just as I feel a new referendum is valid because of Brexit in Scotland, however there has been no significant change in opinion in Scotland and it's difficult to argue that either party in the first referendum actively misled the electorate. So it's probably prudent to wait until a significant change of opinion reflected in opinion polls. If I lived in Scotland out with of a liberal democrat constituency I would quite likely vote SNP as an effective government but it wouldn't be because of their secessionist beliefs. Equating a vote for SNP or the Greens or Alba as a defacto vote for secession is I feel a conceit of the SNP it's highly likely that a significant minority of their voters vote for them despite their secessionst position not because of it. However it's ludicrous that this should be revisited every time there's a change of government it would mean economic and social turmoil
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Post by Mark on Nov 25, 2022 14:32:03 GMT
I think a new polling thread is overdue...time kind of passed me by on this, for which I apologise).
I will get the new one started when the next major poll is released, likel sometime over the weekend...
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Post by leftieliberal on Nov 25, 2022 14:36:34 GMT
hireton I don't think the mandate for holding a Scottish referendum should be based on the current success of the snp after all for the four decades prior to 2005 Labour were the predominant party and before that the conservative/unionist party. If secession was achieved particularly by a narrow margin say 52:48 and say Labour won the subsequent election would you be happy to see another referendum on rejoining the union straight away. I do think that Scotland deserves another chance to decide when ever it wants but I do think it's prudent that it shouldn't take place until there is at least clear indication of a significant preference, preferences in polling for Rejoining the European union now suggest a margin approaching 20% it might be politically advisable not to go down the massively divisive rout without some indicators that significantly more than half the people agree with. Yes I would just as you would have been happy to see the Brexit referendum reversed by a UK General Election result. It's called democracy. No it isn't. Unlike a referendum where the question is clear and simple, people vote for parties in General Elections for all sorts of reasons. Once Harold Wilson and the Labour Government decided in 1975 that there should be a referendum to decide if the UK should stay in the Common Market, that established the precedent in law that this decision should only be decided by a referendum not by a General Election. At that time, the Labour Party could (assuming it was in their General Election manifesto) have brought the UK out of the Common Market without a referendum, but they decided (wisely, in my view) that it was such an important decision that it needed to be decided by the people in a referendum. This is why I was so opposed to Jo Swinson saying that if the Liberal Democrats won a majority in the 2019 General Election they would reverse Brexit without another referendum (not because I supported Brexit, which I have never done, but because I regarded it as unconstitutional). Allow party leaders this much power and you open the door to all the worst features of populism. When you look at Brexit, it is clear that all parties were split over it as Lord Ashcroft's polling at the time showed: lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/Tories Remain 42%: Leave 58% Labour 63%: 37% Lib Dems 70%: 30% Greens 75%: 25% (he didn't distinguish between E&W Greens and Scottish Greens even though they are separate parties) SNP 64%: 36% Even 4% of UKIP voters voted for Remain. |
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 14:38:20 GMT
Foreign students face ban from UK universitiesMinisters explore plans for admissions to top institutions only in attempt to cut immigration All foreign students will also have new restrictions on bringing family members with them after the number of dependants almost tripled in a year.
Times Rats in the sack (part1) As mentioned y'day (Immigration thread) then I'm very concerned about a 'knee-jerk' reaction to y'days data. IIRC then Zahawi's comments were not specifically aimed at foreign students (and IMO he made a valid point). However, I'm worried that in attempt to see overall numbers drop Rishi adopts stupid policies. IMO Rishi+CON HMG should explain the numbers had a lot of 'one-off' factors and ONS should be asked to present the data more clearly (eg with student numbers being stated separately below the (head)line) We'll now see Rishi+H.Sec fight HMT+Education with the risk of bad decisions being made  Yeah, I think just focusing on the numbers obscures the important issue of what are we doing to minimise the difficulties and maximise the upsides, really. Where I live there are a lot of foreign students and it makes things nicely cosmopolitan, and I’m quite positive about population growth, but it would be handy if there were more good jobs created for everybody, more affordable housing (while being eco) etc. |
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Post by somerjohn on Nov 25, 2022 14:43:03 GMT
Alurqa: " Why should Guardian readers look away? ESA is not part of the EU."
Yes, it would have made more sense to write "brexiteers look away now" as they are the ones likely to be upset at the idea of the UK contributing £1.84bn to a European body in order to retain a share of joint programmes.
Could it be that our wannabe sage was caught out by the slippery government wording "UK secures £1.84 billion investment for ESA programmes"? A superficial, credulous reader might take that to mean the UK was the recipient, not the donor.
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alurqa
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Post by alurqa on Nov 25, 2022 14:44:04 GMT
Said in the Telegraph that targeting Ukrainian power system - esp. things like substations that are hard to fix - was a way to indirectly undermine the European energy situation. “The damage deprives Europe of crucial electricity imports from Ukrainian plants. Power will have to flow in the opposite direction to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Ukrainian cities. The switch in flows is large enough to change a fragile energy balance. It compounds a fresh gas squeeze already in the works. The effect is to shave Europe’s margin of energy security to wafer-thin levels and to ratchet up the pain through 2023, pushing Europe’s industries closer to the wall.” OK, the very first link I found relating to my search for "ukraine europe electricity network" tells me this: www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/connecting-ukraine-to-europes-electricity-gridUkraine is pushing for a connection by 2023 and initially wanted to break away from the Russian IPS as early as winter 2021–2022. At first, the Ukrainian power grid will be operated in island mode, meaning that it will be isolated from all neighbours and controlled and balanced by itself. Only after several test runs will it be synchronised with the continental European grid.The Torygraph seems to have a death wish for the EU and wants to paint everything that goes on there as the prelude to its imminent collapse. If the EU ever did collapse, the internecine horrors that would follow would be disasterous for both our economy and our nation/s. One must be careful what one wishes for. Having said that the Torygraph's primary aim it to sell papers, so I suppose it has to have stuff like this to encourage people to buy it. |
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 14:45:52 GMT
Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have joined a backbench rebellion over energy policy in their first major parliamentary interventions since leaving No 10. “The two former prime ministers have signed an amendment to the government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill in an effort to end a ban on new onshore wind farms.
While he was in office Johnson supported the ban, which has been in place since 2015, but he will now try to overturn it.
The amendment is being tabled by Simon Clarke, who served as levelling up secretary under Truss.
It is the latest in a string of challenges to Rishi Sunak’s authority from within his own party.” Rats in the sack (part2) Rishi is wrong about onshore wind farms and I'm sure there would be an overwhelming majority in HoC would back ending the 'ban' on new onshore wind farms. He was however right to maintain the 'ban' on fracking The broader issue of return of 'Rats in sack' is that some CON MPs/factions are trying to score petty vendettas whereas some are trying to ensure HoC pass legislation that is in the best interests of our country. For partisan reasons then PMs do not seek votes across the aisle but the result is either 'dither+delay' or 'bad policy'. GE'24 can't come soon enough. The 'Rats in the sack' might agree on a few things and Rishi will have to focus on those. Everything else is likely to be kicked into the long grass and be easy pickings for Sir Keir+co to put into LAB manifesto GE'24 and over-turn/implement as soon as they take over. How much is it an ideological opposition by MPs do you think Trev, as compared with worried they might be unseated by NIMBY constituents? |
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Post by hireton on Nov 25, 2022 14:51:25 GMT
I can understand the frustration of Scottish Nationalists with their current political predicament, and the likelihood of it pertaining for some time, but frustrated minority interests in an essentially majoritarian democracy are inevitable. Persuasion that those interests are really those of the majority is what democratic debate is about. You have to win the argument, not try to bend the constitution or legality to your will. Why the SNP or the the independence movement in general are surprised that a UK Government and legislature are determined to preserve the nation state they govern is curious. There seems nothing undemocratic about that determination too and they are serving the interests of the people who elected them. They granted a referendum in 2014 where independence was rejected by a majority of the Scottish electorate. I can't quite see why an SNP majority, only recently obtained in terms of an overall one in the devolved assembly in Scotland, represents an irresistible case for another referendum. That seems a self serving interpretation of what the Scottish people are saying when they elect the SNP to run the devolved assembly. They are obviously the Scottish voters preferred party to run the devolved government, but maybe for a variety of reasons that I suspect have nothing much to do with an enthusiasm for independence. The unpopularity of the two main UK political parties being one of them. Both have been poorly led in Scotland for decades. And isn't the current stasis in opinion in the polls, showing no momentum for the independence cause, an encouragement/justification for the UK government to carry on resisting calls for another referendum so soon after the last one? 1. There has been a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament since 2011. 2. The current pro-independence majority is the highest it has ever been ( equivalent to about a 40 seat working majority in the House of Commons). 3. The SNP and the SGP campaigned on a second independence referendum in the 2021 Scottish General Election, the British national parties campaigned against it so there is clarity about the issue. 4. The Scottish electorate voted in the 2019 Scottish General Election to return 48 Scottish MPs supporting a second independence referendum out of 59 Scottish MPs in total. 5. The Scottish Parliament has been called that since its establishment and its name is legislated for in the first clause of the Scotland Act 1998. If the Labour Party forms the next government you will, I am sure, say that it has only recently obtained a majority, there can be no certainty about why people voted for the party, it would be self serving for it to say that it was because of what was in its manifesto and it should not implement any of its proposals until there is clear and sustained polling support for them. You will say that, won't you? |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Nov 25, 2022 14:54:07 GMT
As a speaker of German I find Switzerland a weird place to be (as does my brother in law's wife, who is from Hamburg. They live in Zurich at the moment). Everything in writing all around you is in standard German yet the language people are using is impenetrable. Swiss German is basically not German and to my mind should be considered a language in it's own right. You can see this on the few occasions it is written down. I understand it even differs from canton to canton to an extent that can make comprehension difficult. They do however all understand and speak standard German and will use this if you address them in it but frankly it seems to make as much sense there to use English.. I used to go and regularly visit a friend residing in St Gallen. He had a lovely little apartment in the town centre. The place was spotless and so civilised. He had to follow a timetable which required him to sweep outside his apartment corridor on certain days of the week and he was only allowed to use the laundry on proscribed days. I remember going to a gig with him; loads of casually dressed young people but all their jeans were nicely pressed and the grafitti in the spotless toilets looked like it had been done professionally. Lol yeah that sounds like Switzerland as well as no doubt charging a fortune for the drinks at the gig! Beautiful scenery but not a place I'd ever want to live. |
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alurqa
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Post by alurqa on Nov 25, 2022 14:54:18 GMT
Alurqa: " Why should Guardian readers look away? ESA is not part of the EU."Yes, it would have made more sense to write "brexiteers look away now" as they are the ones likely to be upset at the idea of the UK contributing £1.84bn to a European body in order to retain a share of joint programmes. Could it be that our wannabe sage was caught out by the slippery government wording "UK secures £1.84 billion investment for ESA programmes"? A superficial, credulous reader might take that to mean the UK was the recipient, not the donor. Haha. And we know that some UKIPpers were not the sharpest tools in the box: :-)
Even 4% of UKIP voters voted for Remain. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2022 14:58:02 GMT
Said in the Telegraph that targeting Ukrainian power system - esp. things like substations that are hard to fix - was a way to indirectly undermine the European energy situation. “The damage deprives Europe of crucial electricity imports from Ukrainian plants. Power will have to flow in the opposite direction to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Ukrainian cities. The switch in flows is large enough to change a fragile energy balance. It compounds a fresh gas squeeze already in the works. The effect is to shave Europe’s margin of energy security to wafer-thin levels and to ratchet up the pain through 2023, pushing Europe’s industries closer to the wall.” But mainly to plunge Ukrainians into a dark freezing winter. |
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 14:58:42 GMT
Said in the Telegraph that targeting Ukrainian power system - esp. things like substations that are hard to fix - was a way to indirectly undermine the European energy situation. “The damage deprives Europe of crucial electricity imports from Ukrainian plants. Power will have to flow in the opposite direction to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Ukrainian cities. The switch in flows is large enough to change a fragile energy balance. It compounds a fresh gas squeeze already in the works. The effect is to shave Europe’s margin of energy security to wafer-thin levels and to ratchet up the pain through 2023, pushing Europe’s industries closer to the wall.” OK, the very first link I found relating to my search for "ukraine europe electricity network" tells me this: www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/connecting-ukraine-to-europes-electricity-gridUkraine is pushing for a connection by 2023 and initially wanted to break away from the Russian IPS as early as winter 2021–2022. At first, the Ukrainian power grid will be operated in island mode, meaning that it will be isolated from all neighbours and controlled and balanced by itself. Only after several test runs will it be synchronised with the continental European grid.The Torygraph seems to have a death wish for the EU and wants to paint everything that goes on there as the prelude to its imminent collapse. If the EU ever did collapse, the internecine horrors that would follow would be disasterous for both our economy and our nation/s. One must be careful what one wishes for. Having said that the Torygraph's primary aim it to sell papers, so I suppose it has to have stuff like this to encourage people to buy it. “The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity announced today that electricity trade between Ukraine and the EU will start this week, on 30 June. I welcome this development that follows the successful emergency synchronisation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan grids with the European Continental Grid in March. This is the next step in integrating the energy systems of these two countries with Europe and has a special significance now that they have received EU candidate country status.” Your article is from 2021, mine is 2022: obviously the war has accelerated the need to connect the grids. And obviously constantly nixing the Ukrainian grid will hamper quick integration! I take your point that the Telegraph isn’t the most pro-EU but that doesn’t mean you have to discount all it says any more than one would discount all the Guardian says just because it was a right-wing Pro-EU, pro-austerity affair. The article wasn’t talking about just the EU anyway but the impact on Europe including us. “His goal is to set off an uprising of European consumers against their own governments. He wants a Yellow Vest 2.0, this time on steroids,” said Helima Croft, an ex-energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency now at RBC Capital. ...He may also break Rishi Sunak’s Government and Britain’s social stability unless gas storage levels are massively increased by next winter, and buttressed by an emergency campaign to insulate buildings.” |
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Post by graham on Nov 25, 2022 15:01:39 GMT
Yes I would just as you would have been happy to see the Brexit referendum reversed by a UK General Election result. It's called democracy. No it isn't. Unlike a referendum where the question is clear and simple, people vote for parties in General Elections for all sorts of reasons. Once Harold Wilson and the Labour Government decided in 1975 that there should be a referendum to decide if the UK should stay in the Common Market, that established the precedent in law that this decision should only be decided by a referendum not by a General Election. At that time, the Labour Party could (assuming it was in their General Election manifesto) have brought the UK out of the Common Market without a referendum, but they decided (wisely, in my view) that it was such an important decision that it needed to be decided by the people in a referendum. This is why I was so opposed to Jo Swinson saying that if the Liberal Democrats won a majority in the 2019 General Election they would reverse Brexit without another referendum (not because I supported Brexit, which I have never done, but because I regarded it as unconstitutional). Allow party leaders this much power and you open the door to all the worst features of populism. When you look at Brexit, it is clear that all parties were split over it as Lord Ashcroft's polling at the time showed: lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/Tories Remain 42%: Leave 58% Labour 63%: 37% Lib Dems 70%: 30% Greens 75%: 25% (he didn't distinguish between E&W Greens and Scottish Greens even though they are separate parties) SNP 64%: 36% Even 4% of UKIP voters voted for Remain. Labour did fight the 1983 election under Michael Foot with a commitment to withdraw from the EEC without any referendum being proposed. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2022 15:05:17 GMT
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Post by steamdrivenandy on Nov 25, 2022 15:18:32 GMT
Looks like the Welsh dream is over. Don't look back in Bangor. All the fault of the LIB DEM/tory coalition government.  If you look down the team sheet the Goalkeeping coach is a guy called Clegg. |
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alurqa
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Post by alurqa on Nov 25, 2022 15:33:35 GMT
alurqa “The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity announced today that electricity trade between Ukraine and the EU will start this week, on 30 June. I welcome this development that follows the successful emergency synchronisation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan grids with the European Continental Grid in March. This is the next step in integrating the energy systems of these two countries with Europe and has a special significance now that they have received EU candidate country status.” And obviously constantly nixing the Ukrainian grid will hamper quick integration! I take your point that the Telegraph isn’t the most pro-EU but the article wasn’t talking about just the EU but the impact on Europe including us. “His goal is to set off an uprising of European consumers against their own governments. He wants a Yellow Vest 2.0, this time on steroids,” said Helima Croft, an ex-energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency now at RBC Capital. ...He may also break Rishi Sunak’s Government and Britain’s social stability unless gas storage levels are massively increased by next winter, and buttressed by an emergency campaign to insulate buildings.” Running a grid of any size demands thought given to stability. I don't know how resilient the wider European grid system is, nor how stable each individual component is, but I do know that the UK's has been criticised for not having sufficient reslience, as cost is taken out. Like any DR (disaster recovery) system, you have to pay for equipment and capacity that is not to be used, except in the case of an emergency. And we have had a significant power failure only recently:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49305250
UK power cut: Why it caused so much disruption
When two power stations disconnected from the National Grid for 15 minutes, rail travellers ended up stranded for hours.
How did it happen and why did it have such a big impact?
The move to a different type of electricity generation and its management means investing in other infrastructure as well to help support this -- transmission lines and storage systems, for instance. Are we, as always, trying to get away with doing it on the cheap, or pushing the problems out to the private sector (National Grid) to let that damned invisible magic hand wave its wand...? :-)
We don't need Putin to piss off UK consumers -- we are perfectly capable of doing that without his help, thank you very much!
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 25, 2022 15:45:32 GMT
Popularity and unpopularity of PMs
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 25, 2022 15:47:40 GMT
Not surprising
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 25, 2022 15:48:05 GMT
alurqa “The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity announced today that electricity trade between Ukraine and the EU will start this week, on 30 June. I welcome this development that follows the successful emergency synchronisation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan grids with the European Continental Grid in March. This is the next step in integrating the energy systems of these two countries with Europe and has a special significance now that they have received EU candidate country status.” And obviously constantly nixing the Ukrainian grid will hamper quick integration! I take your point that the Telegraph isn’t the most pro-EU but the article wasn’t talking about just the EU but the impact on Europe including us. “His goal is to set off an uprising of European consumers against their own governments. He wants a Yellow Vest 2.0, this time on steroids,” said Helima Croft, an ex-energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency now at RBC Capital. ...He may also break Rishi Sunak’s Government and Britain’s social stability unless gas storage levels are massively increased by next winter, and buttressed by an emergency campaign to insulate buildings.” Running a grid of any size demands thought given to stability. I don't know how resilient the wider European grid system is, nor how stable each individual component is, but I do know that the UK's has been criticised for not having sufficient reslience, as cost is taken out. Like any DR (disaster recovery) system, you have to pay for equipment and capacity that is not to be used, except in the case of an emergency. And we have had a significant power failure only recently:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49305250
UK power cut: Why it caused so much disruption
When two power stations disconnected from the National Grid for 15 minutes, rail travellers ended up stranded for hours.
How did it happen and why did it have such a big impact?
The move to a different type of electricity generation and its management means investing in other infrastructure as well to help support this -- transmission lines and storage systems, for instance. Are we, as always, trying to get away with doing it on the cheap, or pushing the problems out to the private sector (National Grid) to let that damned invisible magic hand wave its wand...? :-)
We don't need Putin to piss off UK consumers -- we are perfectly capable of doing that without his help, thank you very much!
Well I agree with quite a bit of that, Al! And so does the article, e.g. when it argues that we may leave ourselves vulnerable by not investing enough in gas storage for example, and this can be exploited as part of hampering European energy supplies. If we, and indeed many in Europe, had a more resilient approach to energy, rather than the globalist approach we adopted, it would be harder to exploit a weakness. |
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Post by mandolinist on Nov 25, 2022 16:19:52 GMT
I did that YouGov poll yesterday, it is the first one I have done which concentrated on politics rather than cars! It had a big section on sexual haressment too.
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Mr Poppy
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Post by Mr Poppy on Nov 25, 2022 16:24:06 GMT
Woohoo!! (Is there a catch though? OMG, what if there’s a catch??) I can't see any catch. UK has been deemed the best place for a chunk of ESA* programmes - simples. It's certainly not my area of expertise but I thought you'd like it and maybe be able to post more info on some of the specifics. We left the EU, we did not leave Europe  To reply to your other posts: ONSHORE WINDFARMS. I expect there is a lot of 'NIMBY' opposition from CON MPs which isn't quite the same thing as 'ideological' opposition. A lot of CON MPs represent areas highly prone to NIMBYism and hence why it is a shame that HoC has such a partisan culture. I would expect most Sir Keir and vast majority of LAB MPs would back onshore windfarms and if Rishi kicks the can they will happen anyway, just with a bit more of an avoidable delay. FOREIGN STUDENTS. IMO they should be excluded from the headline and reported separately. It is quite separate to 'jobs' as only 18% end up staying/coming back via work visas and in most cases those jobs are in high quality 'value-add' areas. You don't come to UK and spend £10,000s on a degree and living expenses for 3yr+ in order to just drive an HGV, etc. Good point about 'cosmopolitan' as most unis are in cities and judging by the unis I've visited in the last few years most unis have been built a load of high density housing for students (ie the right housing in the right places). Shame on Rishi and Braverman if they conflate the 'graduate farm' issue of crap courses for English** students with immigration. * Not quite as many countries as the European Song Contest but the list of 22 and 23rd Canada: www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/Member_States_Cooperating_States** Education is devolved. |
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Mr Poppy
Member
Teaching assistant and now your elected PM
Posts: 3,774
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Post by Mr Poppy on Nov 25, 2022 16:38:54 GMT
I was hoping for an announcement from BEIS so I could check the details, which was why I stumbled across the ESA info. Anyway, UKPR2a's favourite source has picked up the story so I'll post that. UK government to introduce grants to make homes more energy efficientThree-year scheme to provide up to £15,000 for middle-income households will start in April 2023www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/25/uk-government-to-introduce-grants-to-make-homes-more-energy-efficientI'll wait for the detailed info before putting the bunting out and note other schemes were/are available and as per polling posted y'day a lot of folks are working out the need to reduce their energy bills by themselves. Good to see HMG offering more 'help' though, even if Hunt's main reasoning is probably more to do with HMT wishing to reduce the bill they are picking up from the EPC (£5bn/mth from Jan-Apr but lower after that as the EPC will rise and the 'non-EPC cap' set by Ofgem will be lower from Apr - see Energy thread posts from a few days back, but rough guess is just over £2bn/mth from April*) * See also: "The consultancy Cornwall Insight has predicted the EPG will cost the government £42bn in its entirety, representing about £2.3bn a month (which includes the higher cost/mth ahead of Apr'23)"www.theguardian.com/money/2022/nov/24/annual-uk-energy-bills-would-have-hit-4279-without-emergency-support-ofgem-says |
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