Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Tichtheid]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

This is a good article on why the electorate in Scotland abandoned Labour - there was no way the Tories were going to benefit from the exodus. I think the article doesn't make enough of the Clown Car that was Scottish Labour in the fifteen years or so after devolution

If voters in England really want to save the Union, they are going have to stop voting as they do

https://archive.ph/2QZZ7

[Paddington Bear]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

This is a good article on why the electorate in Scotland abandoned Labour - there was no way the Tories were going to benefit from the exodus. I think the article doesn't make enough of the Clown Car that was Scottish Labour in the fifteen years or so after devolution

If voters in England really want to save the Union, they are going have to stop voting as they do

https://archive.ph/2QZZ7

It's a good article, thanks for posting. I've always enjoyed Tom Devine's work. It does back up a lot of what I've posted, which always helps!

[Biffer]

What's the Union actually for, other than reminiscing about Empire and World War II?

[Biffer]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

Scottish politics could be very much more toxic, particularly if it had split in Glasgow along sectarian lines, which some people would have been happy to see. Devolving lots of power to Glasgow could have resulted in echoing some of the problems in Belfast, it's not as if it's a city without a significant sectarian divide.

[JM2K6]

Not sure about this "more devolution makes a country meaningless" thing. It's not like there's no examples in history of heavily devolved government being the de facto state of the country.

I'm very much out of my depth in the weeds of this discussion but this:

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

is something a few of us have been banging on about for a while. PR means having to deal with the viewpoints you find unpalatable but have taken root among the electorate and should be given appropriate representation. It's not a negative that the BNP or whoever would win a few seats. It's a negative that because the system prevents this, they instead have an outsized impact on one of the main parties fishing for those votes.

[Raggs]

Not sure about this "more devolution makes a country meaningless" thing. It's not like there's no examples in history of heavily devolved government being the de facto state of the country.

I'm very much out of my depth in the weeds of this discussion but this:

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

is something a few of us have been banging on about for a while. PR means having to deal with the viewpoints you find unpalatable but have taken root among the electorate and should be given appropriate representation. It's not a negative that the BNP or whoever would win a few seats. It's a negative that because the system prevents this, they instead have an outsized impact on one of the main parties fishing for those votes.

The problem comes when a government needs to be formed and the largest party has to pander to those small parties in order to form a government. They have to actually give them concessions, rather than lip service, otherwise those smaller parties can pull out and collapse the government requiring more elections.

[SaintK]

Hancock gooooone! Says he won't be standing for reselection. Jumped befeore the press published that fact that his local association wanted him out

Matt Hancock announced he would not stand for parliament after local Tories wrote to the chief whip saying he was “not fit” to represent their constituency, the i’s Kate Maltby reports. The letter was due to be published tomorrow.

[Tichtheid]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

[dpedin]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Whole thing stinks and they all know it. I expect the rats in the sack to start eating each other pretty soon as the spectre of criminal prosecution raises it head. Sunak is knee deep in all this shit hence his desperate desire to keep anyone with dirt on him happy and the numerous U-turns he has made so far. There will be lots more shit to come as more investigative journalists now break cover and follow the money back to the Tories who pushed their mates through the VIP lane. Genie is out of the bottle!

[GogLais]

Not sure about this "more devolution makes a country meaningless" thing. It's not like there's no examples in history of heavily devolved government being the de facto state of the country.

I'm very much out of my depth in the weeds of this discussion but this:

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

is something a few of us have been banging on about for a while. PR means having to deal with the viewpoints you find unpalatable but have taken root among the electorate and should be given appropriate representation. It's not a negative that the BNP or whoever would win a few seats. It's a negative that because the system prevents this, they instead have an outsized impact on one of the main parties fishing for those votes.

The problem comes when a government needs to be formed and the largest party has to pander to those small parties in order to form a government. They have to actually give them concessions, rather than lip service, otherwise those smaller parties can pull out and collapse the government requiring more elections.

There are various forms of PR and with the notable exceptions of Israel and Italy they seem to provide reasonably stable governments. Here the government has to make concessions to the right wing of its own party.

[C69]

Sunak was "shocked" when he heard about Mone.

Well the stupid cnut was the only one shocked.
They are now a fucking parody

[GogLais]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Is standing down from the HoL an official thing or is she just saying she won’t be turning up for a while? I can’t believe that her actions can’t be scrutinised by someone even though she’s cleared off.

[Simian]

It'll make more sense starting with your question at the end of your post about the future of the UK. Peter Hitchens and the late Roger Scruton hold the position closest to mine I guess, basically if Scotland wants independence then that should happen and England should not get in the way of it (on the contrary England should be as accommodating as possible, as Hitchens states repeating Ireland wouldn't be good). Where I depart from Hitchens and Scruton is that the UK state should be reconfigured if doing so can hold the UK state together longer. It seems to me a lot of the Scottish nationalist argument is purely a representation argument. The deeper argument Scot nationalists make of basically "we can be an Ireland/Denmark/Norway", also seems true to me, but I don't think a majority goes for that if there's an easier option that gets them most of the way.

The problem with this is that the Scottish people were asked exactly this question not so long ago and decided they didn't fancy it, and there's precious little evidence they've changed their mind.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/yes-pulls-a ... ns-support

[Simian]

oops. double post

[fishfoodie]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Whole thing stinks and they all know it. I expect the rats in the sack to start eating each other pretty soon as the spectre of criminal prosecution raises it head. Sunak is knee deep in all this shit hence his desperate desire to keep anyone with dirt on him happy and the numerous U-turns he has made so far. There will be lots more shit to come as more investigative journalists now break cover and follow the money back to the Tories who pushed their mates through the VIP lane. Genie is out of the bottle!

The UK has a Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee; in Ireland, ours has on occasion, investigated incidents where there was suspected misuse of taxpayers money; & it has the power, to instigate a full police investigation.

I'm at a loss as to why the UK Public has just ignored the complete absence of any investigation, let alone prosecution !

It's plain as a pikestaff there was abuse of the procurement system thru the pandemic; it's not surprising, as even in a system run by good faith actors, you'll get fraud in circumstances like that; but the scale of the abuse in the UK (that we can see), is mind boggling.I think if you had a proper investigation, you could end up with dozens of Politicians going to prison.

[Tichtheid]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Is standing down from the HoL an official thing or is she just saying she won’t be turning up for a while? I can’t believe that her actions can’t be scrutinised by someone even though she’s cleared off.

From yesterday's Gruaniad


Mone’s leave of absence means she will not attend sittings or debates, vote on proceedings or be able to claim any allowance.

She will also no longer be bound by parliamentary rules to declare her interests, including any directorships, shareholdings and non-financial interests.

However, a leave of absence request can be blocked by the Lords’ standards commissioners. The watchdog is already investigating Mone over multiple “potential breaches” of the Lords’ code of conduct.

The code states that if a peer takes a formal break “in order to avoid an impending investigation (or while an investigation is under way), the request may be refused”. If a peer is already on leave of absence when placed under investigation, then that can also be ended immediately.

The Guardian has contacted the Lords standards commissioners to clarify whether they had been consulted.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... e-of-lords

[GogLais]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Is standing down from the HoL an official thing or is she just saying she won’t be turning up for a while? I can’t believe that her actions can’t be scrutinised by someone even though she’s cleared off.

From yesterday's Gruaniad


Mone’s leave of absence means she will not attend sittings or debates, vote on proceedings or be able to claim any allowance.

She will also no longer be bound by parliamentary rules to declare her interests, including any directorships, shareholdings and non-financial interests.

However, a leave of absence request can be blocked by the Lords’ standards commissioners. The watchdog is already investigating Mone over multiple “potential breaches” of the Lords’ code of conduct.

The code states that if a peer takes a formal break “in order to avoid an impending investigation (or while an investigation is under way), the request may be refused”. If a peer is already on leave of absence when placed under investigation, then that can also be ended immediately.

The Guardian has contacted the Lords standards commissioners to clarify whether they had been consulted.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... e-of-lords

Thanks for that.

[Camroc2]

Rather they got us away from fptp. Only belarus still use fptp in Europe.

I’d guess we’re the only country in Europe with an entirety appointed/hereditary part of the legislature.

We have at the moment:

- a Head of State appointed just because he was first to come down the right birth channel
- a PM who was picked by his Tory MP mates in HoC
- an Upper House filled by those appointed by current and previous PMs and Queen/King and Bishops appointed by the Church of England only

Although all 'by the rules' of your democracy whichever way you look at it there does seem to be a bit of a democratic deficit in the UK and I can fully understand those who need change in our democratic processes.

And that also ignores the entire sectarianism surrounding the Established CofE.

[geordie_6]

Julian Knight has had the whip removed with "immediate effect", following an as yet unspecified complaint to the Met.


www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63897387

[tabascoboy]

Our glorious right wing press...

[JM2K6]

A short profile on Nick Timothy and what he's currently getting up to.

You'll "enjoy" his activity in response to this tweet...

[Tichtheid]

Our glorious right wing press...

He's never been the sharpest tool in the shed, has Quentin.

A tool, certainly, but with a very dull edge.

[Torquemada 1420]

FFS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63905505

Rules that forced banks to legally separate retail banking from riskier investment operations will be reviewed.

So a return to banks taking huge risks and whilst it works, keeping the profits (as well as paying f**k all tax) but if it all goes sh*t shaped (again), the public purse is used to bail them out (again).

package of more than 30 reforms will "cut red tape" and "turbocharge growth".

No. It f**king won't because the whole root of the problem is UK banks never invest into business for long term growth, they loan for short term, maximum extraction and then pull the plug at the first sign of distress.

[dpedin]

FFS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63905505

Rules that forced banks to legally separate retail banking from riskier investment operations will be reviewed.

So a return to banks taking huge risks and whilst it works, keeping the profits (as well as paying f**k all tax) but if it all goes sh*t shaped (again), the public purse is used to bail them out (again).

package of more than 30 reforms will "cut red tape" and "turbocharge growth".

No. It f**king won't because the whole root of the problem is UK banks never invest into business for long term growth, they loan for short term, maximum extraction and then pull the plug at the first sign of distress.

Totally agree! There will be a short term cocaine rush - I use the term advisedly - after the relaxation of the rules which the Tories will claim as a benefit for us all then the crooked bankers with the loaded dice start gambling with our money again only to run off once it all goes Pete Tong. The Tories really are desperate to use the next two years to line their pockets of that of their banker/venture fund crooks before they are kicked out of office. Feckin bastards!

[TB63]

Add on top, 85% of the coal is to be exported. Its not coking coal, the UK doesn't have any coking coal seams...

[Paddington Bear]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

[Jock42]

Our glorious right wing press...

There seems to be a large serf mentality which appears to have got worse since HMG has announced they plan to use the military to break strikes. Rather than targeting their ire at the government(s) for forcing people into this situation and being the ones on the verge of cancelling Christmas leave for the troops they blame the worker. I can't get my head around it, perhaps it's my bias that we've threatened industrial action.

[yermum]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

[Slick]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

There is so much disinformation about that I really don't know what to think about this. I thought that one really good reason for it was that we import all our coal so this would be environmentally and economically better. But now I see we are exporting a load of it, but I've also seen people saying this in nonsense.

[Slick]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

What's your immediate solution?

[Paddington Bear]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

Unless one of our Unis makes a drastic technological breakthrough, nothing we do in Britain makes a meaningful difference to climate change. We're not big enough.

[Tichtheid]

Add on top, 85% of the coal is to be exported. Its not coking coal, the UK doesn't have any coking coal seams...

Someone is going to have to explain to me how digging coal out of the ground can possibly be carbon neutral.

You expend some kind of energy to get the stuff out of the ground, then it is sitting there - are we talking about using pit ponies and men with picks, women pulling the carts along a 3 foot high tunnel, like in the good old days, or what?

I hope they're not going try the "carbon offsetting" greenwash gambit.

[sockwithaticket]

Our glorious right wing press...

There seems to be a large serf mentality which appears to have got worse since HMG has announced they plan to use the military to break strikes. Rather than targeting their ire at the government(s) for forcing people into this situation and being the ones on the verge of cancelling Christmas leave for the troops they blame the worker. I can't get my head around it, perhaps it's my bias that we've threatened industrial action.

Crabs in a bucket. It's depressing. The time where we need class solidarity most and some people still fall for the Tories' divide and conquer rhetoric.

[Raggs]

Could we not instead of building a coal station, build nuclear or more renewables?

[Tichtheid]

Our glorious right wing press...

There seems to be a large serf mentality which appears to have got worse since HMG has announced they plan to use the military to break strikes. Rather than targeting their ire at the government(s) for forcing people into this situation and being the ones on the verge of cancelling Christmas leave for the troops they blame the worker. I can't get my head around it, perhaps it's my bias that we've threatened industrial action.

Crabs in a bucket. It's depressing. The time where we need class solidarity most and some people still fall for the Tories' divide and conquer rhetoric.

[yermum]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

What's your immediate solution?

Hold on while I dust off the cabinet for my future nobel prize.

The defeatist attitude of we can't make a difference so why try is pathetic.

Personally do what I can. I have solar panels batteries EV etc. I don't fly abroad. I try to use products with the least environmental impact and so on.

What's the point? My negligible carbon savings are like pissing in the wind of climate change. I do it because it's all I can do. As a country we should do all we can.

I feel sorry for future generations. They will look back at us as the worst people that ever walked the earth. We have all the information but we are to lazy to do anything because we might have to change our supremely privileged lifestyles.

[inactionman]

Could we not instead of building a coal station, build nuclear or more renewables?

We are building nuclear, just veeeery slowly. And possibly badly. And in hock to the French, at least for the larger reactors.

My ex-next-door-neighbour in Bath was Engineering Director for the new reactors at Hinckley Point C, on the limited times we talked shop is sounded like dates were forever moving to the right.

Rolls-Royce are looking to branch into small-scale nuclear power (noting the market for jet engines, which is quite feast-or-famine anyway, is looking a bit barren). This makes some sense, seeing as they've developed the PWR reactors for the RN nuclear boats. These small scale generators aren't due until 2029 on current plans.

https://www.rolls-royce-smr.com/

[dpedin]

Could we not instead of building a coal station, build nuclear or more renewables?

We are building nuclear, just veeeery slowly. And possibly badly. And in hock to the French, at least for the larger reactors.

My ex-next-door-neighbour in Bath was Engineering Director for the new reactors at Hinckley Point C, on the limited times we talked shop is sounded like dates were forever moving to the right.

Rolls-Royce are looking to branch into small-scale nuclear power (noting the market for jet engines, which is quite feast-or-famine anyway, is looking a bit barren). This makes some sense, seeing as they've developed the PWR reactors for the RN nuclear boats. These small scale generators aren't due until 2029 on current plans.

https://www.rolls-royce-smr.com/

My mate who used to work at RR tells me this is timeline is never going to happen and his view is that it will be at least another 5+ years after that before they begin to make any discernible impact to the national power requirements. However the Gov funding for this helps cross subsidise RR investment in their defence work for the. MoD.

The only thing we can do in the immediate term is to increase generation capacity using wind/tidal/renewable power and reduce demand with a concerted national effort to reduce consumption ie insulation, ensure new build is energy efficient, reduce wastage as per many EU countries are doing, push for more off peak utilisation, etc. Investment in renewables ie onshore wind farms, is quick and relatively inexpensive and England and Wales have huge capacity to do more if the politics, right wing oil and gas opposition and Nimbyism weren't issues. This could make a sizeable contribution to national requirements relatively quickly and way more cheaply than nuclear etc.

For me it is more essential in the short-medium term to see greater investment and R&D on energy storage technology such as batteries, hydro schemes, etc at a domestic, local and national level. In Scotland we have a surplus of energy, we export c30% to England, but until tidal becomes more commercially viable it can be difficult to ensure baseload requirements in Scotland.

However as long as we have a Tory gov in the back pockets of the oil and gas industries, dependant on their funding and who want to protect oil and gas profits rather than worrying about the country then we are fecked!

[petej]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

There is so much disinformation about that I really don't know what to think about this. I thought that one really good reason for it was that we import all our coal so this would be environmentally and economically better. But now I see we are exporting a load of it, but I've also seen people saying this in nonsense.

I struggle to get worked up about it as well. If we need fossil fuels it might as well be from our own resources and where the regulations are tighter on things like methane and we arent giving money to dictatorships. What annoys me is the god awful mess these pricks have got us in due to the absence of medium term planning. I had initially assumed this coal was primarily for steel production. I've not bothered to keep up to date with it though.

[GogLais]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

There is so much disinformation about that I really don't know what to think about this. I thought that one really good reason for it was that we import all our coal so this would be environmentally and economically better. But now I see we are exporting a load of it, but I've also seen people saying this in nonsense.

I struggle to get worked up about it as well. If we need fossil fuels it might as well be from our own resources and where the regulations are tighter on things like methane and we arent giving money to dictatorships. What annoys me is the god awful mess these pricks have got us in due to the absence of medium term planning. I had initially assumed this coal was primarily for steel production. I've not bothered to keep up to date with it though.

It always gets described as being for steel production, at least on BBC regional news. The world is going to carry on making steel, new turbines don’t grow on trees and we might as well have a slice of the action. Doesn’t affect the rights and wrongs of it but I wonder if any tax-payer money is going into it.