Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 3, 2024 10:45:21 GMT
"Come off it, if that land was controlled by a private individual, no one would bat an eye at them charging as much as they could for the use of it." But it isn't and if a private individual owned it they couldn't decide what if any tax they chose to pay on the profits! Actually, they often can. Thats why accountants make lots of money which would otherwise have gone to the state. But that still doesnt justify personal attacks, because current incumbents are simply protecting the institution they work for against attempts to downsize it and erode its traditional perks. Its not about the individuals, but whether we want a monarchy and what sort. The problem is the more you downsize the grandeur, the less credible it looks (this was always the case), but the monarchy is part of how political parties justify and mask having absolute power based upon one set of elections using a very undemocratic electoral system. Yes, but my point was that voters do not disapprove of this. Or if they do, they separate his record from his stated aims as president. Which does bring us back to whether we really should or should not be judging candidates for office on their private life as distinct from their policy. |
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Post by nickpoole on Nov 3, 2024 10:47:48 GMT
So - a variation on All Men Are Rapists from Danny
Most Men Are Criminals
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Post by graham on Nov 3, 2024 11:03:35 GMT
I don't know how good it is by reputation but Atlasintel has Trump ahead in all seven swing states by margins ranging from 1% to 7%. Nationally Trump leads by 2%.
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Post by jib on Nov 3, 2024 11:39:16 GMT
I don't know how good it is by reputation but Atlasintel has Trump ahead in all seven swing states by margins ranging from 1% to 7%. Nationally Trump leads by 2%. Going to be lots of toys being thrown out of prams either way. |
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Post by jib on Nov 3, 2024 11:44:21 GMT
Wow! And to think sone on here defend the CAP through their rose tinted glasses. "The European Union gave generous farming subsidies to the companies of more than a dozen billionaires between 2018 and 2021, the Guardian can reveal, including companies owned by the former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš and the British businessman Sir James Dyson." "Billionaires were “ultimate beneficiaries” linked to €3.3bn (£2.76bn) of EU farming handouts over the four-year period even as thousands of small farms were closed down, according to the analysis of official but opaque data from EU member states." www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/03/revealed-billionaires-ultimate-beneficiaries-linked-to-eu-farming-subsidies |
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Post by RAF on Nov 3, 2024 11:48:05 GMT
Wow! And to think sone on here defend the CAP through their rose tinted glasses. "The European Union gave generous farming subsidies to the companies of more than a dozen billionaires between 2018 and 2021, the Guardian can reveal, including companies owned by the former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš and the British businessman Sir James Dyson." "Billionaires were “ultimate beneficiaries” linked to €3.3bn (£2.76bn) of EU farming handouts over the four-year period even as thousands of small farms were closed down, according to the analysis of official but opaque data from EU member states." www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/03/revealed-billionaires-ultimate-beneficiaries-linked-to-eu-farming-subsidies A little misleading. The CAP money is given to all equally. It's just that there has been a massive consolidation in farm ownership. The issue is not with the CAP money but with there being very little local legislation to protect smaller farms being targets for bigger ones. |
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Post by thylacine on Nov 3, 2024 11:49:25 GMT
I don't know how good it is by reputation but Atlasintel has Trump ahead in all seven swing states by margins ranging from 1% to 7%. Nationally Trump leads by 2%. 538 give it a high rating as it was the most accurate polling firm in 2020. However there are many concerns about it's results for black voters . It seems to be finding counter intuitive high republican figures for the black vote not reflected with other pollsters. It also is a Brazilian outfit about which little is known and there are concerns about methodology transparency. Not long till we know for sure I guess |
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Post by alec on Nov 3, 2024 11:56:09 GMT
This is actually rather funny, something that doesn't always apply to political comedy -
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Post by alec on Nov 3, 2024 11:59:15 GMT
Danny - "My point is its entirely possible he is a pretty typical human being rather than 'a horror of a human being' you posted." Personally I don't think being a proven rapist is particularly normal, nor is trying to stage a coup when you don't like an election result. Most people don't use bankruptcy as a tool for personal enrichment. And he's orange. FFS, that's not normal. Not at all normal.
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on Nov 3, 2024 12:09:37 GMT
Hi eor, hope you are well. This does fit in with what I've decided to label the 'sanity scenario' - in which Harris actually has a fairly comfortable lead which is being obscured by the pollster's herding with their methodology adjustments in the swing states due to risk avoidance (as suggested in the media recently), or perhaps wishful thinking!
Something odd does seem to be happening with the polling - but it may also just reflect the result of both sides targeting those states with all their resources!
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Post by shevii on Nov 3, 2024 12:19:29 GMT
I don't know how good it is by reputation but Atlasintel has Trump ahead in all seven swing states by margins ranging from 1% to 7%. Nationally Trump leads by 2%. I wondered if it was connected to the Atlas Shrugged franchise :-) Seems credible at least: mediabiasfactcheck.com/atlasintel-polling-bias-and-credibility/"FiveThirtyEight, an expert on measuring and rating pollster performance, has evaluated 24 polls by AtlasIntel, earning 2.7 stars for accuracy, indicating they are High Factual by MBFC’s criteria. They also conclude that their polling slightly favors the right with a score of -0.8, which equates to Least Biased overall in polling bias. In general, AtlasIntel is considered accurate and demonstrates minimal bias in polling." ---------------------------------- To be fair I thought the first Atlas Shrugged film was a decent enough soft sci fi yarn even though it had right wing themes (unions obstructing progress, woolly liberals leaving the work to the entrepreneurs) but I got about 15 minutes into the next one which was solely funded by hard right folks and was pure propaganda with no storyline whatsoever. Can't comment on the 3rd one obviously :-) |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 3, 2024 12:26:15 GMT
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Post by somerjohn on Nov 3, 2024 12:34:49 GMT
JiB: "Wow! And to think sone on here defend the CAP through their rose tinted glasses."Rich people invest in big farms. And big farms have big receipts. Shock, horror! A less credulous reader than JiB would ask the question: so what share of four years' worth of farm subsiies is the €3.3bn quoted by the Guardian (which notably chooses not to puts its story into that sort of context). A quick bit of digging shows that EU27 direct CAP payments in 2021 were €37.879bn. It's a reasonable guess that over the preceding three years, 2018-2020, with the UK included, annual payments were similar or higher. So a total of €151.5bn over the period during which those 17 billionaires received €3.3bn. Or just under 2.2%. 2.2%! A bit of a non-story, then, unless your critical faculties are attenuated by obsessive hatred. However, one 'revelation' is perhaps worthy of note: one of those dastardly investors in farming was arch-brexiteer James Dyson
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Post by laszlo4new on Nov 3, 2024 12:43:39 GMT
I finished the detailed studying of the budget. It is very much like the 1970s budgets, and probably for very similar reasons. A lot of compromise on both, the expenditure nd the revenue sides, and between the two. But compromise represents a lose-lose situation (unlike consensus).
Just few examples. NHS: yes cutting waiting list, etc. which is needed. But the targets are vague (especially in terms of time). There is a clear way of doing the calculations, but it wasn't done. So, for example, the number of beds, the number of rooms, number of buildings, number of medical and support staff. Then the excess capacity (at certain periods) could have been established and a consensus could have been achieved on the acceptable level of excess capacity.
On the revenue side - who is paying for what. It is partially about affordability, but the key thing would have been connecting it to the economic policy (which doesn't seem to exist beyond a couple of projects). Then again consensus seeking could have been followed.
The budget reallocates resources not only between people, but also sectors, activities and so on. I don't see connections to the non-existent economic policy or even to those couple of projects.
Involving the BoE would have also helped.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 3, 2024 12:44:15 GMT
Latest swing state polls, these are top rated pollsters
Presidential Polling Leads:
NV: Harris +3
WI: Harris +2
NC: Harris +2
GA: Harris +1
PA: Tied
MI: Tied
AZ: Trump +4
NYT/Siena College / Nov 2, 2024 / n=7575
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,574
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Post by pjw1961 on Nov 3, 2024 12:45:01 GMT
I don't know how good it is by reputation but Atlasintel has Trump ahead in all seven swing states by margins ranging from 1% to 7%. Nationally Trump leads by 2%. The Atlas Intel poll was exceptionally generous to Trump. Doesn't automatically mean that they are the ones who are wrong of course, but definitely at the extreme end of polling. There have been a couple of polls since that have not shown the same. Edit: Actually I see this is a new batch from that pollster - but they also had Trump ahead everywhere last time (2 days ago). |
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Post by RAF on Nov 3, 2024 12:55:36 GMT
Latest swing state polls, these are top rated pollsters Presidential Polling Leads: NV: Harris +3 WI: Harris +2 NC: Harris +2 GA: Harris +1 PA: Tied MI: Tied AZ: Trump +4 NYT/Siena College / Nov 2, 2024 / n=7575 Interesting. The previous NYT/Sienna poll was more favourable to Trump, which does provide additional evidence of some movement back to Harris. |
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Post by mercian on Nov 3, 2024 13:10:00 GMT
In what does a real bung look like. King and Prince William’s estates ‘making millions from charities and public services’ Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster likely to make at least £50m from leasing land to services such as NHS and schools, according to investigation Charles Windsor in the normal Windsor clan spirit of openness and transparency has declined to say how much, if any tax, he's volunteered to pay on the profiteering. Apart from scale, how is it different to you renting out a second property? |
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Post by leftieliberal on Nov 3, 2024 13:16:15 GMT
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Post by RAF on Nov 3, 2024 13:23:02 GMT
There's also been some movement in the betting markets over the last few days.
Polymarket now have the likely chances of winning the race at:
Trump 55%
Harris 45%
Trump had a 30% advantage about a week ago.
Also here in the UK, Oddschecker have the odds for each candidate back to practically Evens:
Trump 5/6
Harris 6/5
For the first time in while they also have the most likely outcome for Trump's EC votes as 240-269 (below 270). This is 11/4, and rhe shortest of all EC vote options.
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Post by shevii on Nov 3, 2024 13:31:28 GMT
Also all the "woke" members resolutions got passed including 50% plant based menus (maybe not 50% of what's sold!) and climate change. |
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Post by shevii on Nov 3, 2024 14:04:49 GMT
More in common somewhere between BMG and Opinium and increasingly annoyingly now SFL does changes with General Election instead of seeing possible changes from budget. This is actually an improvement for Labour based on MIC last poll- Lab +1, Con -1, Reform -3, LD +1, Green +1
Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️
@leftiestats
·
48m
❗️NEW: Poll points to Hung Parliament 👇
🟥 LAB 28% (-7)
🟦 CON 26% (+2)
🟪 REF 18% (+3)
🟧 LD 14% (+2)
🟩 GRN 8% (+1)
Via
@moreincommon_
, 30 Oct-1 Nov (+/- vs GE2024)
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turk
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Post by turk on Nov 3, 2024 14:13:51 GMT
Shevvil
The National trust claim to have a membership of nearly 6 million as they are quick to point out in there publicity. In those elections you quote and the figures you give only a tiny percentage of the membership could be arsed to vote.
Of course if you don’t vote don’t complain ,but I don’t think anybody could say that such a small percentage of candidates winning with those numbers could claim they have a mandate for anything in particular.
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Post by shevii on Nov 3, 2024 14:14:21 GMT
Further down my feed Election Maps have SNP at 3% (and changes from last poll which would have been a better one to post):
Election Maps UK
@electionmapsuk
Westminster Voting Intention:
LAB: 28% (+1)
CON: 26% (-1)
RFM: 18% (-3)
LDM: 14% (+1)
GRN: 8% (+1)
SNP: 3% (+1)
Via
@moreincommon_
, 31 Oct - 1 Nov.
Changes w/ 9-10 Oct.
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Post by alec on Nov 3, 2024 14:22:39 GMT
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Nov 3, 2024 14:26:09 GMT
Shevvil The National trust claim to have a membership of nearly 6 million as they are quick to point out in there publicity. In those elections you quote and the figures you give only a tiny percentage of the membership could be arsed to vote. Of course if you don’t vote don’t complain ,but I don’t think anybody could say that such a small percentage of candidates winning with those numbers could claim they have a mandate for anything in particular. And the side that lost certainly can't!  |
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Post by leftieliberal on Nov 3, 2024 14:30:09 GMT
JiB: "Wow! And to think sone on here defend the CAP through their rose tinted glasses."Rich people invest in big farms. And big farms have big receipts. Shock, horror! A less credulous reader than JiB would ask the question: so what share of four years' worth of farm subsiies is the €3.3bn quoted by the Guardian (which notably chooses not to puts its story into that sort of context). A quick bit of digging shows that EU27 direct CAP payments in 2021 were €37.879bn. It's a reasonable guess that over the preceding three years, 2018-2020, with the UK included, annual payments were similar or higher. So a total of €151.5bn over the period during which those 17 billionaires received €3.3bn. Or just under 2.2%. 2.2%! A bit of a non-story, then, unless your critical faculties are attenuated by obsessive hatred. However, one 'revelation' is perhaps worthy of note: one of those dastardly investors in farming was arch-brexiteer James Dyson
Well, here's an article on The Guardian web site ‘Welfare for the rich’: how farm subsidies wrecked Europe’s landscapes This is one of those times where jib is actually right. The CAP has always been a disaster. First we had butter mountains and wine lakes, because farmers were just paid on the basis of how much they could produce, and when they finally fixed that problem they ended up destroying the environment. Those floods in Germany and Spain were partially attributable to farming practices as the article shows. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 3, 2024 14:31:05 GMT
Yes I wasn’t putting the full case for making hydrogen, which is why I said we shall see if they start fitting electrolysers. I have made abundantly clear in the past in our discussions that the full case for it depends on things like demand for hydrogen, fall in equipment costs etc. etc. It may also depend on other things you don’t consider, like making other more lucrative things with the leccy. But none of that alters the point I was making: that at present we are chucking away leccy surplus to grid requirements and paying to do that. Coming home after a day away I find multiple posts from you - but it's a shame you don't seem to have properly read what I posted? Regarding "other things {I} don't consider", then try reading the last paragraph of mine that you quoted above. Yes, no less than four things which I considered as "other more lucrative things to do". I'll spell them out, put them as bullet points, and even make them bold. Will that help? *Battery storage*Improved grid connections*Smart tariffs*Thermal storage via waterOK? Other things I considered? Now cost. In order. Battery storage may not be cheap, but neither is hydrogen electrolysis/compression and then transport. And localised battery storage can bring other benefits than simple curtailment avoidance, such as reducing the size of the grid connection that any given solar or wind project may need. Improved grid connection? Yes, a cost - but in many cases grid improvement may be necessary anyway. Smart tariffs. No extra hardware needed, and smart metering is being rolled out anyway. Just encourage usage when supply would exceed demand, and discourage when demand would be high. Thermal storage. Similar to smart tariffs, it is theoretically possible to implement such without any extra hardware cost. Just automatically turn on immersion heaters when tariffs are low. That could be existing residential hot water tanks or much larger and commercial projects - public swimming pools, maybe? None may be a magic bullet in itself, and some may make more sense on a localised (eg single wind farm) level, others on a more global scale, and there are others as well. The point is that there are many (better) things to do to avoid curtailment of surplus than have electrolysis plant sitting idle much of the time. I'll respond to just one other point you made: Regarding mindsets, what comes across to me is that you are trying to find ways to just make a hydrogen solution work - whereas the real engineering challenge is a far broader one. It's how to make the energy supply greener, as cheaply as possible. It may be that some years ago electrolysis may have seemed sensible as part of the intermittency solution - but times have moved on and now other (and better) approaches are coming about. Keep an open mind, but isn't the practical engineering mindset to then concentrate of these, rather than struggling to persevere with trying to make any hydrogen solution work? Especially when so many of the issues there are fundamental ones of physics? (eg Extremely low temperature of liquid hydrogen, inability to compress much beyond 700 bar etc etc?) There's a good practical case to point to, and worth reading a research paper trying to make exactly the case for using "surplus" generated electricity in a wind farm for electrolysis - cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa59457/DetailsFrom my reading, I can't fault any of the assumptions or detail within it, but even trying hard to make a positive case it still struggles with the hydrogen viability economics in most scenarios. And there is one huge problem. A gigantic one. Not a fault of the author, but of timing. It was totally out of date almost as soon as written, because it doesn't consider the alternative of local large battery storage - something which hardly existed when the paper was being written, and that only about 4-5 years ago. (!!) Something which totally turns the economics on it's head and destroys any case for electrolysis etc that may ever have existed at all. Apart from reducing curtailment, battery smoothing may also enable a smaller (and cheaper) grid connection. It's possible hydrogen production plant may get somewhat cheaper - but that's expected to be even more the case for batteries. I emphasise that I am **NOT** arguing against green hydrogen production per se. Quite the contrary. I hope for increasing amounts to supply industrial processes. It's the belief that it will ever be an oh so cheap process because it will be simply able to use otherwise curtailed electricity. That's just wishful thinking by those with vested commercial interests. - No, you didn’t point to alternative things one might make, you just talked about putting the leccy into the grid, which you just did all over again - you keep talking about using the grid, without taking into account the cost of the upgrades, or comparing with the potential revenue from selling the hydrogen instead. - (I.e. You’re considering the benefits of the grid, and the cost of hydrogen, without considering the benefits of hydrogen, and the costs of the grid) - Or the potential revenue from making something more lucrative than either hydrogen or putting it into the grid - It’s not much cop focusing on the difficulty of storing liquid hydrogen, while ignoring potential alternatives like hydrides or converting it to products easier to store, as I indicated - Batteries don’t, as you claim, “destroy the use case for hydrogen”, because you don’t have to use the hydrogen as an energy store, you could sell it and potentially make more money given projected demand - I’m not as you seem to think, fixated on hydrogen, in fact, I have suggested other uses for the electricity besides hydrogen. Whereas you are somewhat more fixated on just the grid. - But regardless of what you or I think, a reason for being interested in it is that the government are about to make a number of investments in green hydrogen. Partly by funding the Tory commitments, but they are going to do another round of funding for green hydrogen and carbon capture etc. |
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Post by colin on Nov 3, 2024 14:35:45 GMT
Shevvil The National trust claim to have a membership of nearly 6 million as they are quick to point out in there publicity. In those elections you quote and the figures you give only a tiny percentage of the membership could be arsed to vote. Of course if you don’t vote don’t complain ,but I don’t think anybody could say that such a small percentage of candidates winning with those numbers could claim they have a mandate for anything in particular. This is from a Times article :- "The National Trust has been fending off attacks from an insurgent group of members ever since The Times published leaked documents revealing the charity planned to “dial down” its role as a “major national cultural institution” in a ten-year strategy to allegedly move away from being the custodian of the English country home. Internal briefing documents outlined plans in 2020 to reduce opening times, put its collections into storage and hold fewer exhibitions at its properties because executives believed it offered an “outdated mansion experience … serving a loyal but dwindling audience”. Since then a traditionalist group calling itself Restore Trust has attempted to use the annual general meeting to get its candidates elected to the 36-strong council, which holds the board of trustees to account, and get resolutions passed to alter policy. The group had limited success in its first year, with three of its suggested council members elected in 2021. A resolution to provide defibrillators at every National Trust property was passed despite the board of trustees recommending members vote against it. The following year the National Trust introduced a major reform to the voting system called the “quick vote”, which allows trust members to tick one box to vote for all the council candidates and resolutions recommended by the trustees, savingthem time and effort reading each individual submission. Cornelia Van der Poll, a co-founder of Restore Trust and a lecturer in ancient Greek at the University of Oxford, said the quick vote “dominates to such an extent that the voting at the AGM isn’t really meaningful any more”. She added: “The voting has become a rubber-stamping exercise where the nominations committee gets to choose who will be in the council and huge block-voting swings behind those candidates and they get voted in almost automatically. I think we have a self-perpetuating oligarchy and the real loss is a loss of diversity of thought.” Restore Trust argues the quick vote was introduced “without consultation” and increases bias in elections. Last year 46 per cent of all voting members used the quick vote for council elections and 41 per cent used it for votes on resolutions. The insurgent group has been prevented from tabling a motion at this year’s AGM on Saturday, calling for members to be allowed to vote to abolish the trust’s “quick-vote” system, without the quick vote being used in the referendum." |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Nov 3, 2024 14:39:38 GMT
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