05-Feb 2024 : LAB 45% / CON 24% / REF 12% / LDM 9%

[crossbat11]

ptarmigan

My instinctive gag reflex to cant and piety in all its forms probably led me too far down the road of defending Sunak's interview with Morgan and the now infamous wager, although I think I made it fairly clear in my post on the subject that I felt Sunak was crass to be drawn into the exchange. The whole episode exposed his political gaucheness and naivete. We've all piled in on him in that regard and I think it's now an accepted fact that his political skills are limited. He's a very easy and safe target in that regard.

Without labouring it, I do still think he was more sinned against than sinning in this particular case. Some of the elongated and solemn condemnation of him has been absurd. There are plenty of other much better examples of his tin ear and wealth induced distance and other worldliness than this facile and essentially trivial journalistic gotcha with Morgan.

Silly Sunak thought he was being with-it and down the pub like. The whole episode was risible and hardly worthy of the pompous in depth analysis it seems to have provoked.

Morgan is revelling in the exposure too, I expect.

[neilj]

The thing with Sunak is that he picks interviews with the people he thinks wil give him an easy time, but he still manages to muck them up
He's just not good at interviews or any public scrutiny
The more people see of him the worse his approval rating is, come the General Election campaign proper he will be a liability

[domjg]

Feb 7, 2024 3:55:16 GMT pjw1961 said:

Feb 7, 2024 0:57:03 GMT ptarmigan said:

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at the "PopCons". On the one hand, they feel easy to dismiss. They don't seem particularly well organised as a group and no one's really buying what they're selling. Also, Liz Truss as the face of "popular Conservatism"... satire must be dead. 

On the other hand, I feel really quite uneasy that a lot of the ideas and policies they're advocating now seem to be a proper feature of mainstream Conservatism in the UK and this will likely be even more true after the next election. Really hoping some of the very worst culprits lose their seats at the forthcoming election.

What is alarming is that increasingly science, facts, rationality and generally living in the actual world as it is, are being defined as liberal/elite/left-wing concepts, which can be dismissed and replaced with whatever fantasy you want to believe in. This was present yesterday in both the PopCon launch and Trump's latest rants.

This is massively dangerous for the future of human civilisation, although good news for the secretive billionaires who fund these characters* since the resulting policies invariably include them carrying on getting fabulously rich. 

*Not a conspiracy theory, btw: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/06/rishi-sunak-javier-milei-donald-trump-atlas-network

It's almost the ultimate, absurd triumph of ueber-individualism. They demand the right for the actual physical, outside world to conform to their own fevered desires and imaginings, for black to be white and white to be black and to feel oppressed by anyone pointing out that can't actually be the case. 
It's ironic in a sense as they like to rail against those supposedly choosing their gender identity for example yet they want to feel free to chose whatever perception of reality makes them feel better about themselves. OK, so obviously that's something that all human beings do to one extent or another but they take it to a macro level.  

Part of what allows this is the breakdown of trusted information. When I was growing up in the 80s 90s pretty much everyone in western Europe got their broadcast information at least from mostly state run public service providers most of which, at least then, were in large part objective, reliable and took their responsibilities very seriously. Obviously newspapers were partisan but at least they wore their allegiances on their sleeves and you knew where you were with them.

Now with massive information overload and confusion people tune out and then re-focus in only on what hooks them in or makes them feel validated and that may be something potentially quite dangerous. We're in a spot. I wonder if we'll ever again experience something like the relative societal calm and consensus of say the Blair years? 

[steve]

"In the US and other insurance based systems, it's the insurers struggling, often refusing claims due to the lack of clear medical definition of the condition. "

It's the same excuse they use in relation to a whole range of post viral syndromes and impacts.

Comes from having a health service financed on the principle of avoiding paying for care but paying stockholders.

[crossbat11]

Feb 7, 2024 8:47:42 GMT neilj said:

The thing with Sunak is that he picks interviews with the people he thinks wil give him an easy time, but he still manages to muck them up
He's just not good at interviews or any public scrutiny
The more people see of him the worse his approval rating is, come the General Election campaign proper he will be a liability

I think this is the key point here. Not that he's essentially a cruel, callous and heartless man, which I very much doubt that he is in reality, but that he is a monumentally hopeless politician.

Certainly in terms of his presentation and communication skills. Like you, I think he will be horribly exposed in the political hothouse of an election campaign.

Anybody who can get owned by Rebecca Long-Bailey and Liz Truss in live TV debates is likely to be in desperate trouble when it really matters!!

[eor]

Meanwhile in Nevada... the electoral silly season rolls on. In New Hampshire this year's clever games and power struggles about primary dates and schedules gave us Biden winning by a landslide in a vote he was boycotting. Now in Nevada we have Nikki Haley losing comfortably despite running unopposed.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/nevada-2024-primary-results/story?id=106641436

Doesn't really mean anything, nor will the other Nevada vote later in the week where Trump is running unopposed. The next vote of any consequence on the Republican side remains South Carolina on 24th Feb (assuming Haley doesn't drop out before that).

[neilj]

I know there is no upper age for US Presidents (perhaps there should be), but only just realised there is a minimum age of 35
Seems wrong to me

[steve]

"Not that he's essentially a cruel, callous and heartless man"

Well that's open to debate, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, in common with many others who have known nothing but privilege and comfort he's emotionally stunted.
When I was at university my girlfriend at the time had come from a very wealthy background , she'd been to Roedean.

She was a lovely grounded young woman but some of her family and old school friends seemed to be from another planet.

[steve]

neilj

The US has some bizarre age requirements 21 to drink alcohol in most states but you can drive and buy a modified assault rifle at 12.

The age for appointment as a senator is a minimum of 30, for the house it's 25.For vice president it's 35 the vice President or failing that the speaker of the house automatically become President if the incumbent is incapable of serving  or dies in office so it's theoretically possible to have a 25 year old president but they would be term limited

There is of course no upper age limit☺

Taylor Swift will be 35 this December just in time for her inauguration in January as vice president😁

[Deleted]

Feb 7, 2024 8:51:04 GMT domjg said:

Feb 7, 2024 3:55:16 GMT pjw1961 said:

Now with massive information overload and confusion people tune out and then re-focus in only on what hooks them in or makes them feel validated and that may be something potentially quite dangerous. We're in a spot. I wonder if we'll ever again experience something like the relative societal calm and consensus of say the Blair years? 

I was discussing this with a grandson last w/e. He is in the arts business and I was asking him about the effects of Tik Tok on attention span and intellectual "breadth".

He said he posted a group of factual videos about a play he was in. Reaction was low level. He posted a video of his own feet immitating something or other in the performance with him singing a made up song about it. It got 7000 likes.

I think you are spot on with your comments. And like so many other things these days it is happening by stealth with no political oversight.

[steve]

" Labour has been campaigning hard recently on the dire state of NHS dentistry, which is near-impossible to access to many places, and today the government is responding by publicising its own NHS dental recovery plan. The British Dental Association has been scathing about it. It is normal, with a government initiative like this, for the relevant to professional body to say that it is a step in the right direction but does not go far enough etc. But, in its response, the BDA does not even bother with the usual niceties. It is wholly critical, saying the plan is “incapable of even beginning to honour Rishi Sunak’s promise to ‘restore’ NHS dentistry, or in any way meet the government’s stated ambition to provide access to NHS dentistry for ‘all who need it’”.
Useless Health Secretary Victoria Atkins took this as an opportunity to polish up her anti woke credentials and have a pop at Labour.

"Labour seems to think that no parent can be trusted to brush their children’s teeth. We do not take that approach. We say the overwhelming majority of parents do a great job looking after their children."

Actually Labour and Tory policies on children brushing their teeth are nearly identical

NHS England’s plan says:

The plan will also see the government roll out a new ‘Smile For Life’ programme which will see parents and parents-to-be offered advice for baby gums and milk teeth, with the aim that by the time children go to school, every child will see tooth brushing as a normal part of their day.

And Labour proposed: “Supervised toothbrushing in schools for 3-5 year olds, targeted at the areas with highest childhood tooth decay.”

But that didn't stop Victoria.

[crossbat11]

Feb 7, 2024 9:09:19 GMT steve said:

"Not that he's essentially a cruel, callous and heartless man"

Well that's open to debate, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, in common with many others who have known nothing but privilege and comfort he's emotionally stunted.
When I was at university my girlfriend at the time had come from a very wealthy background , she'd been to Roedean.

She was a lovely grounded young woman but some of her family and old school friends seemed to be from another planet.

I think this is the problem for Sunak politically. All the opinion polls and focus groups home in on his lack of relatability. A horrible PR corpospeak word, I admit, but I think it derives from his wealth and manner. The another planet feeling about him that you refer to.

It was why I always thought he was both a strange and unwise choice as Tory leader. Relatability, or lack of it, is a general problem for Tory politicians, but surely someone like Hunt, Javid, Stewart or Mordaunt would have been better?

Sunak made no sense to me at all beyond Tory members and MPs banking on some rather briefly bursting popularity bubble he enjoyed as Chancellor during the first lockdown.

EDIT: I rather agreed with everyone's favourite ROC UKPR poster, NeilA, on Sunak. Once he picked up his FPN for contravening lockdown rules in Downing Street, that should have ruled him out as a potential leader and PM.

[shevii]

Feb 6, 2024 23:21:12 GMT steve said:

"Biden is clearly in the not-so-early stages of dementia"

Except he isn't he's just old and tired.
This was president Biden yesterday when he wasn't so tired.

youtu.be/GZTX-kxff0c?si=UMhxhCx2VFohC0BK

Old and tired is good enough though without needing a medical assessment- also possible that better video clip is using a teleprompter however well delivered it was?

We see various politicians here making serious slips ups- the Diane Abbott one when she had low sugars, the Lib Dem by election candidate stuttering through her first media appearance, but honestly there's no comparison to that Biden clip and if Sunak or Starmer did even one media appearance like that one are we seriously saying their parties wouldn't be desperately considering an alternative PM/LOTO?  That's why it's so dangerous to have Biden being the one facing up to Trump because, whatever anyone on here might warn about amateurs making dementia diagnoses, a lot of the general public won't and quite clearly there are a lot of undecided voters (10% plus) who may be swung by things like that even before the Republicans go to town on it. I think many of us would have discussed elderly family relatives and might be saying "showing signs of dementia" which is of course a gradual thing anyway so no reason American voters wouldn't be saying the same.

[Deleted]

The European Commission has announced it will scrap a 30 per cent reduction target in methane, nitrogen and other gases linked to farming from a new “road map” on how to hit overall emissions goals.

Ursula von der Leyen, announced the decision in Strasbourg. she said that farmers had not been adequately consulted over the proposals .

She also announced that Brussels will withdraw a proposal to slash the use of pesticides by 2030 saying “The proposal has become a symbol of polarisation,”
Under its European Green Deal, the EU has targeted a 50 per cent cut in the overall use of pesticides and other hazardous substances by the end of the decade.

The EU had already backtracked on a requirement for farmers to leave about 5 per cent of their land aside for nature restoration.VdL said “Farmers need a worthwhile business case for nature-enhancing measures. Perhaps we have not made that case convincingly,”

So the EU farmers have stopped decarbonising & environmental priorities in their tracks.

Whether this will be enough to stop the protests by farmers , and by voters at upcoming elections remains to be seen.

But its a lesson in the political consequences of rapid change without consensus.

Sunak was doing something similar when he altered the energy transition timetable-and it hasn't saved him.

[eor]

Feb 7, 2024 9:06:55 GMT neilj said:

I know there is no upper age for US Presidents (perhaps there should be), but only just realised there is a minimum age of 35
Seems wrong to me

I don't know for sure but it comes from a time when child-kings were common enough - I think the intent was probably that anyone aspiring to the office would have to have some professional life of their own to run on, and not just be a famous man's son.

[wb61]

John Crace always makes me smile

on Liz Truss and the comedy stylings of the PopCon launch:

"Because she and we can’t bear to part from one another. Not yet. The last hurrah of Westminster’s Norma Desmond. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr De Mille.” Unleash the smile. Feel the love. We need to treasure her while we can."

[barbara]

Feb 6, 2024 23:08:58 GMT mercian said:

shevii
Biden is clearly in the not-so-early stages of dementia. The alternative is deranged. With some people Altzheimer's makes them very aggressive in my experience though I'm happy to be corrected by any of our many medical experts.
If the US election ends up being between those two expect a big move from China whoever wins. They may be a little more cautious if Trump wins because he's so unpredictable.

I thpught his hesitancy in that clip was him being aware of treading on eggshells and being very careful to think before he answered in case he inflamed the very difficult situation. He actually said, 'Let me frame my words carefully.'

[alec]

Great to see the National Trust trolling their 'anti-woke reformist' critics -

[wb61]

Feb 7, 2024 9:48:01 GMT eor said:

Feb 7, 2024 9:06:55 GMT neilj said:

I know there is no upper age for US Presidents (perhaps there should be), but only just realised there is a minimum age of 35
Seems wrong to me

I don't know for sure but it comes from a time when child-kings were common enough - I think the intent was probably that anyone aspiring to the office would have to have some professional life of their own to run on, and not just be a famous man's son.

Actually the age limit is lifted from the Ancient Roman Republic (SPQR) where in Order to become Consul (a post occupied by two people, together, each year where they exercised the executive power of a King, but where one could veto the other) a person had to be 42 or older. The American Founding Fathers included classical scholars who looked back to the Roman and Greek classical democracies for inspiration. 


www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195389661/obo-9780195389661-0391.xml#:~:text=Consulship%20was%20part%20of%20a,power%20to%20veto%20his%20colleague.

[athena]

domjg 'Part of what allows this is the breakdown of trusted information.'

I agree and I think the importance of the seismic upheaval in the media landscape tends to get overlooked. I can't see effective content regulation being introduced - I'm not sure it's feasible, even in theory - so we have to do a much better job of teaching people to evaluate sources of information and the informaton itself.

To me the really troubling development is that so many people seem to have responded to the proliferation of unreliable sources by becoming universally sceptical - they don't trust anything anyone says, even demonstrably credentialled experts speaking on the area of expertise.

I can understand how this happens. When you are not knowledgeable about a field, it is not really possible to evaluate an expert presentation critically. In my own scientific field I could give two completely different, entirely accurate presentations of the same topic and thus direct an intelligent lay audience to different conclusions. I'd probably be reasonably successful even if forced to use the same data for both presentations. I wouldn't need to lie or distort the data. I'm very much aware of this when I listen to an expert making an argument - if s/he is any good at all then what s/he says will be intellectually coherent, with relevant evidence adduced, so it'll sound plausible. But because I don't have deep background knowledge I won't be able to spot the problems. If I then get to hear from Expert 2, who takes the contrary position, s/he'll pull apart what Expert 1 said - and again, it'll be coherent and seem plausible - but I still won't know who is offering the stronger, more credible account. All I can do is evaluate their credentials (even that's not necessarily straightforward) or try to work out what the consensus is (ditto).

By way of an aside, I think an important battle was lost when Facebook et al. were allowed to define themselves as platforms, rather than publishers and thus largely evade responsibility for content. AI may reduce the task of reviewing and moderating all online content to manageable proportions (final oversight needs to rest with humans, due to well-publicised shortcomings in the algorithmic approach), so I suppose it's possile this could be revisited eventually.

[alec]

steve - "It's the same excuse they use in relation to a whole range of post viral syndromes and impacts.

Comes from having a health service financed on the principle of avoiding paying for care but paying stockholders."

Agreed, but this misses the point. The NHS is, if anything, much worse than the US system for dealing with long covid. At least in the US, if you have symptoms and a decent insurance policy, you will get a battery of tests which are simply not available on the NHS. It's the same in Germany. The problems in the US start once you've been diagnosed with LC, as the insurers don't want to be on the hook for a condition no one understands and which might well be permanent, meaning potentially decades of costs for an individual policy holder. The NHS largely avoids the issue by telling patients it's all in their heads and pretending everything will just go away, so you don't even get a diagnosis.

colin - really interesting to see the EU backtrack on those agricultural emissions targets. I have a sense that this is another expression of governments faith in market economics falling short. Much of the time, these regulations are drafted with two factors in mind. Firstly, the objective that it is desired to achieve, and secondly, the idea that once given the target, the competitive market will find a way to deliver it. It's the latter that so often falls down and creates the problem.

In reality, I think we need a far more interventionist approach. Like in the UK, where once upon a time a state owned monopoly was task with, and delivered magnificently, the job of converting the entire gas network to natural gas, the job of converting from fossil fuels to renewable heating is largely left to the market place, and it's been an abject failure.

Reliance on market solutions is yet another of the neoliberal mantras that has been demonstrated to have failed time and time again, yet policy makers continue to see it as the only viable option.

[Danny]

R4 having a health tips morning. Tim Spector was talking about milk, and that skimmed milk is worse for you than full fat milk. The original idea was that removing the fat helped lose weight, but that has proven not to be true at all. Apaprt from that, when you take away the fat you also take away vitamins and sundry chemicals considered to be beneficial to health, which are dissolved in the fat. He considered whole milk a net plus, with much past advice it could be causing allergies totally bogus (obviously not for all, but it was grossly over done), but the potential down side is the huge farming resources which go into rearing cattle to make the milk and therefore the high CO2 and pollution cost of milk as compared to simpler foods. Rotten milk also good in the form of yogurts, but again totally natural ones made from whole milk allowed to go off in a controlled manner are good for you, but most yogurts use low fat milk, which again is distinctly bad inherently, but also have lots of exciting thickeners and stabilisers added which arent good at all.

Last week he noted a similar thing about artificial sweetners, that they do not help lose weight as replacements for sugar, and have other negative effects on health. I wonder what MPs who recently voted for a sugar tax, thereby harming the UKs health because it will not reduce weight but will cause other bad effects, have to say about this?

While the other radio doctor Michael Mosley today was talking about whole grain instead of processed grains being better for you, for similar reasons that the processing removes the good stuff. I recall him previously talking about apples, that the peel is by far the best bit in health terms.

Last week Spector was saying that as a rule of thumb, the less processed your food is then the better, and that seems to be the message. He ranked for example potato good, conventional crisps just fried potatoe and salt medium, processed snacks made from cooked and reconstituted potato paste with added chemicals worst.

Anyone worrying about the state of the nations health just now, might like to consider some of the rather bad advice we have had in our lifetimes and changes to unhealthy diets. Obviously modest compared to some of the stuff food producers got up to in the 19th century, but an awful lot from the 20th was also sheer marketing of harmful stuff with false claims.

To improve our health in these respects might not be especially expensive, but needs to make sure the best advice reaches the public. I still hear repeatedly that full fat milk and butter are bad for you, they arent and are better than modern alternatives. (though obviously too much of anything is bad, another piece of advice is to improve the variety of our diets).

[Danny]

Feb 7, 2024 8:37:33 GMT crossbat11 said:

We've all piled in on him in that regard and I think it's now an accepted fact that his political skills are limited.

Well he was a banker. They generally are considered a fairly safe pair of hands.... though they did cause a world recession threatening collapse of the entire world financial system in 2008.

Feb 7, 2024 9:32:36 GMT crossbat11 said:

It was why I always thought he was both a strange and unwise choice as Tory leader.

That boat sailed after Cameron! Cameron was a traditional choice, respectable, patrician, wealthy yes but a caring sort of rich. Ever since its all been about Brexit amd now the legacy of a failing brexit in terms of who amongst those now in parliament has any capacity to appeal to voters but still be acceptable to the diehard leavers.

[domjg]

Feb 7, 2024 9:32:36 GMT crossbat11 said:

Feb 7, 2024 9:09:19 GMT steve said:

"Not that he's essentially a cruel, callous and heartless man"

Well that's open to debate, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, in common with many others who have known nothing but privilege and comfort he's emotionally stunted.
When I was at university my girlfriend at the time had come from a very wealthy background , she'd been to Roedean.

She was a lovely grounded young woman but some of her family and old school friends seemed to be from another planet.

I think this is the problem for Sunak politically. All the opinion polls and focus groups home in on his lack of relatability. A horrible PR corpospeak word, I admit, but I think it derives from his wealth and manner. The another planet feeling about him that you refer to.

It was why I always thought he was both a strange and unwise choice as Tory leader. Relatability, or lack of it, is a general problem for Tory politicians, but surely someone like Hunt, Javid, Stewart or Mordaunt would have been better?

Sunak made no sense to me at all beyond Tory members and MPs banking on some rather briefly bursting popularity bubble he enjoyed as Chancellor during the first lockdown.

EDIT: I rather agreed with everyone's favourite ROC UKPR poster, NeilA, on Sunak. Once he picked up his FPN for contravening lockdown rules in Downing Street, that should have ruled him out as a potential leader and PM.

Hunt and Stewart were out because of their ideological impurity, not being brexit true believers. That's why Sunak's where he is and also why he got to be chancellor. 

[domjg]

Feb 7, 2024 9:59:14 GMT athena said:

domjg 'Part of what allows this is the breakdown of trusted information.'

I agree and I think the importance of the seismic upheaval in the media landscape tends to get overlooked. I can't see effective content regulation being introduced - I'm not sure it's feasible, even in theory - so we have to do a much better job of teaching people to evaluate sources of information and the informaton itself.

To me the really troubling development is that so many people seem to have responded to the proliferation of unreliable sources by becoming universally sceptical - they don't trust anything anyone says, even demonstrably credentialled experts speaking on the area of expertise.

I can understand how this happens. When you are not knowledgeable about a field, it is not really possible to evaluate an expert presentation critically. In my own scientific field I could give two completely different, entirely accurate presentations of the same topic and thus direct an intelligent lay audience to different conclusions. I'd probably be reasonably successful even if forced to use the same data for both presentations. I wouldn't need to lie or distort the data. I'm very much aware of this when I listen to an expert making an argument - if s/he is any good at all then what s/he says will be intellectually coherent, with relevant evidence adduced, so it'll sound plausible. But because I don't have deep background knowledge I won't be able to spot the problems. If I then get to hear from Expert 2, who takes the contrary position, s/he'll pull apart what Expert 1 said - and again, it'll be coherent and seem plausible - but I still won't know who is offering the stronger, more credible account. All I can do is evaluate their credentials (even that's not necessarily straightforward) or try to work out what the consensus is (ditto).

By way of an aside, I think an important battle was lost when Facebook et al. were allowed to define themselves as platforms, rather than publishers and thus largely evade responsibility for content. AI may reduce the task of reviewing and moderating all online content to manageable proportions (final oversight needs to rest with humans, due to well-publicised shortcomings in the algorithmic approach), so I suppose it's possile this could be revisited eventually.

"I can't see effective content regulation being introduced - I'm not sure it's feasible, even in theory - so we have to do a much better job of teaching people to evaluate sources of information and the informaton itself." - That is absolutely true but there is also a space to crack down harder legislatively on fake news sources and sources facilitating the preaching of hatred. The EU will probably be at the forefront of moves in this direction.

We also need to recognise that this problem isn't just something that's arisen inevitably and somehow naturally due to a multitude of and de-professionalising of sources but is far more due to very deliberate and malign attempts to undermine our societies coming from Russia especially and from wealthy, extreme ideological American groups. 

" But because I don't have deep background knowledge I won't be able to spot the problems" - That's why knowing what the consensus is and messaging that to the public is so important and it's this especially that the proliferation of information sources have put at risk. When even a respected broadcaster puts the consensual view of climate change on a falsely equal footing with a climate change denier with very little credibility or wider support then we're in trouble. 

[Danny]

Feb 7, 2024 9:44:16 GMT colin said:

So the EU farmers have stopped decarbonising & environmental priorities in their tracks.

One of the biggest drivers for cutting EU farm subsidies was because of threats to sue the EU under WTO rules about fair competition. Thus changing from eg subsidies to grow sugar to more general ones to maintain the land in good health or maintain hedges. Similarly when the UK and France wanted different things from CAP not least because of having different kinds of farming, the EU obliged and allowed countries to tailor how subsidy was allocated. The EU usually listens to objections. Indeed, its a mistake to call this the EU, its pandering to the image portrayed by leavers of some monolithic state, The EU is contolled by appointees of all the member governments and by directly elected MEPs. It has strong veto rules ensuring consensus, which many in Britain should be prepared to die for to try to inject some democracy into goverment. Its more of a national conference to decide a joint strategy.

As to decarbonisation, 'more or less' this morning reported that allotment growing of vegetables cost x5 as much carbon as commercial agriculture. This is mainly because most people do this as a hobby, so they have fancy sheds, paving, add on extras which bump up the carbon costs. The most efficient 25% of such growers have comparable carbon emmisions to commercial farmers. The rest, well best to regard it is a hobby in which case it could indeed cost less carbon than other activities they might engage in, and some vegetables is a bonus on top.

Meanwhile another story this morning was again about river polution in the Uk caused by in particular the poultry industry. But in general by ineffectual rules against permitting runoff of fertilisers into rivers.

In general it is quite clear the world is not going to meet decarbonisation targets. One of the main reasons is governments refusing to take a pro active role in doing this, which often means providing genuine financial incentives. Not of course like the Irish 'ash for cash'. But equally introducing planning rules banning land based wind turbines was quite insane in terms of the Uk economy or decarbonisation.

[Danny]

Feb 7, 2024 9:53:43 GMT alec said:

Great to see the National Trust trolling their 'anti-woke reformist' critics -

Whats shameful about kinky dogging?

[Danny]

Feb 7, 2024 9:54:27 GMT wb61 said:

Actually the age limit is lifted from the Ancient Roman Republic (SPQR) where in Order to become Consul (a post occupied by two people, together, each year where they exercised the executive power of a King, but where one could veto the other) a person had to be 42 or older. The American Founding Fathers included classical scholars who looked back to the Roman and Greek classical democracies for inspiration. [/quote]At that time people would be much more likely to die younger from something, before reaching an extreme age where you risked having a president with dementia. Its the curse of our age that people are dying from generalised old age because they lived that long.

[crossbat11]

Feb 7, 2024 9:53:43 GMT alec said:

Great to see the National Trust trolling their 'anti-woke reformist' critics -

That's disappointing. At first glance, it looked like Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire, a NT owned stately home where I occasionally volunteer.

As a car park attendant I thought my shifts were missing these rather interesting extracurricular activities! It would appear, however, that the habits of National Trust members in Cheshire are a little more exotic than those of their counterparts in my neck of the woods. All above board at Hanbury Hall it would appear.

I will keep my eyes peeled in future though.

[steve]

shevii

I raise you peppa pig

m.youtube.com/watch?v=8zHURhs0DbM