Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Tichtheid]

If freedom means anything it must mean the right to pollute our own waters (and those adjoining), renege on every treaty we've ever signed and to say it's the fault of all those who opposed the idiotic path in the first place.


I was in Mersea for a few days over last weekend and into this week. The only thing that is there is the sailing and the oyster vendors. Normally I'd be all over the oysters at 70p a pop, but not after this pumping literal shite into the sea.

If my livelihood relied on selling oysters without the chance of poisoning someone, I'd consider taking legal advice as to what recourse I had.

[SaintK]

If freedom means anything it must mean the right to pollute our own waters (and those adjoining), renege on every treaty we've ever signed and to say it's the fault of all those who opposed the idiotic path in the first place.


I was in Mersea for a few days over last weekend and into this week. The only thing that is there is the sailing and the oyster vendors. Normally I'd be all over the oysters at 70p a pop, but not after this pumping literal shite into the sea.

If my livelihood relied on selling oysters without the chance of poisoning someone, I'd consider taking legal advice as to what recourse I had.

You would probably have been fine. Looks like all the dumping was along the mouth of the Thames estuary

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Good post. Storage can also be in the form of hydrogen. Baseloading nuclear and when excess electricity is present use it to charge batteries both electric and heat (short term storage) and generate hydrogen (longer term storage).

Solve two problems at once, & create a few, very large, pumped storage power stations !

You create some reservoirs that are badly needed, & you get significant power storage capacity on your grid.

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

[petej]

Solve two problems at once, & create a few, very large, pumped storage power stations !

You create some reservoirs that are badly needed, & you get significant power storage capacity on your grid.

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

There never is going to be one solution. In one of the rare instances that the Bumblecunt got something right was when he backed pretty much every vaccine going for covid. Something similar for energy is required as you will win far more than you will lose and I can't see there being an excess of energy (overall) and we have the capability to export it in some form or another.

[GogLais]

Solve two problems at once, & create a few, very large, pumped storage power stations !

You create some reservoirs that are badly needed, & you get significant power storage capacity on your grid.

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig

Do you have link to more info on this? A quick Google didn’t bring up anything and I’m interested in where it might go. They’d better not drown Cwm Pennant.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig

Do you have link to more info on this? A quick Google didn’t bring up anything and I’m interested in where it might go. They’d better not drown Cwm Pennant.

It's really close.

https://www.snowdoniapumpedhydro.com/

[GogLais]

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig

Do you have link to more info on this? A quick Google didn’t bring up anything and I’m interested in where it might go. They’d better not drown Cwm Pennant.

It's really close.

https://www.snowdoniapumpedhydro.com/

Thanks for that, good stuff. A cousin of mine did time for an over-zealous (some would say) attempt to prevent the flooding of Tryweryn in the 60s. Wouldn't like him to get into trouble again.

[I like neeps]

Seems Truss is plowing ahead but cutting taxes rather than capping energy prices or windfall taxes on producers.

In many ways, I think you do have to have energy prices that encourage middle and top earners to reduce demand quite a bit as this crisis isn't ending for a few years. However, it's just unrealistic to assume people are going to rush to spend because VAT is 5% lower and their energy bills are 200% higher. I can't believe any economist is saying that it will boost the economy. It just won't.

[SaintK]

Seems Truss is plowing ahead but cutting taxes rather than capping energy prices or windfall taxes on producers.

In many ways, I think you do have to have energy prices that encourage middle and top earners to reduce demand quite a bit as this crisis isn't ending for a few years. However, it's just unrealistic to assume people are going to rush to spend because VAT is 5% lower and their energy bills are 200% higher. I can't believe any economist is saying that it will boost the economy. It just won't.

She will u turn rather than have excess deaths on her hands this winter. Not a good optic when an election is only 2 years away.

[I like neeps]

Seems Truss is plowing ahead but cutting taxes rather than capping energy prices or windfall taxes on producers.

In many ways, I think you do have to have energy prices that encourage middle and top earners to reduce demand quite a bit as this crisis isn't ending for a few years. However, it's just unrealistic to assume people are going to rush to spend because VAT is 5% lower and their energy bills are 200% higher. I can't believe any economist is saying that it will boost the economy. It just won't.

She will u turn rather than have excess deaths on her hands this winter. Not a good optic when an election is only 2 years away.

Already is a huge spike in excess deaths as NHS emergency care has collapsed and long term care waiting lists are at record levels. A cold winter with expensive heating doesn't bare thinking about it.

[C T]

Emily Maitlis lecture in Edinburgh is quite interesting.

One point around balanced journalism she makes, given Brexit as an example. Back in 2016 they might have been able to for example find 60 economists against Brexit in 5 minutes, then spend 5 hours finding 1 in favor. Then ultimately pick one from the against and the one in favor and stick them on TV.

Also a load of stuff about cronyism and pandering to the government that the BBC have more recently become so desperate to do.

[tabascoboy]

[fishfoodie]

What a shock !

Liz Truss has pulled out of an interview with UK political journalist Nick Robinson which was due to air tomorrow.

The Tory leadership frontrunner's team said she could "no longer spare the time" to take part in the one-to-one interview, which was scheduled for 7pm on 30 August on BBC One, BBC News tweeted this evening.

"We regret that it has not been possible to do an in depth interview with both candidates despite having reached agreement to do so," the press team said in a second tweet.

Ms Truss's rival in the party election, Rishi Sunak, sat down with Mr Robinson earlier this month.

Mr Robinson tweeted: "Was pleased to secure an in-depth interview with @trussliz on BBC1. I am disappointed & frustrated it's been cancelled".

Ms Truss had already declined to be interviewed by broadcaster Andrew Neil on Channel 4, while Mr Sunak has faced him.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0829 ... eadership/

She's afraid of even the current neutered iteration of the Beeb.

I can't understand the gushing praise of Lizzy since the start of this campaign; she's never appeared to me, to be anything other than thick as pig shit. I know I'm biased, but I've never seen any evidence of this supposed intellect that lies behind the cosplay Thatcher exterior ?

She has all of the Bumblecunts worst attributes; laziness, vanity, corruption; & none of his elect-ability, or charisma

[I like neeps]

What a shock !

Liz Truss has pulled out of an interview with UK political journalist Nick Robinson which was due to air tomorrow.

The Tory leadership frontrunner's team said she could "no longer spare the time" to take part in the one-to-one interview, which was scheduled for 7pm on 30 August on BBC One, BBC News tweeted this evening.

"We regret that it has not been possible to do an in depth interview with both candidates despite having reached agreement to do so," the press team said in a second tweet.

Ms Truss's rival in the party election, Rishi Sunak, sat down with Mr Robinson earlier this month.

Mr Robinson tweeted: "Was pleased to secure an in-depth interview with @trussliz on BBC1. I am disappointed & frustrated it's been cancelled".

Ms Truss had already declined to be interviewed by broadcaster Andrew Neil on Channel 4, while Mr Sunak has faced him.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0829 ... eadership/

She's afraid of even the current neutered iteration of the Beeb.

I can't understand the gushing praise of Lizzy since the start of this campaign; she's never appeared to me, to be anything other than thick as pig shit. I know I'm biased, but I've never seen any evidence of this supposed intellect that lies behind the cosplay Thatcher exterior ?

She has all of the Bumblecunts worst attributes; laziness, vanity, corruption; & none of his elect-ability, or charisma

I don't think she's scared of the BBC. Just why bother? Johnson never bothered and avoided all interviews and look how he did. With Classic Dom basically running Kuenssburg's twitter account and the right wing press all on side they ran the media without any interviews.

Truss will aim for the same.

[Lobby]

What a shock !

Liz Truss has pulled out of an interview with UK political journalist Nick Robinson which was due to air tomorrow.

The Tory leadership frontrunner's team said she could "no longer spare the time" to take part in the one-to-one interview, which was scheduled for 7pm on 30 August on BBC One, BBC News tweeted this evening.

"We regret that it has not been possible to do an in depth interview with both candidates despite having reached agreement to do so," the press team said in a second tweet.

Ms Truss's rival in the party election, Rishi Sunak, sat down with Mr Robinson earlier this month.

Mr Robinson tweeted: "Was pleased to secure an in-depth interview with @trussliz on BBC1. I am disappointed & frustrated it's been cancelled".

Ms Truss had already declined to be interviewed by broadcaster Andrew Neil on Channel 4, while Mr Sunak has faced him.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0829 ... eadership/

She's afraid of even the current neutered iteration of the Beeb.

I can't understand the gushing praise of Lizzy since the start of this campaign; she's never appeared to me, to be anything other than thick as pig shit. I know I'm biased, but I've never seen any evidence of this supposed intellect that lies behind the cosplay Thatcher exterior ?

She has all of the Bumblecunts worst attributes; laziness, vanity, corruption; & none of his elect-ability, or charisma

I don't think she's scared of the BBC. Just why bother? Johnson never bothered and avoided all interviews and look how he did. With Classic Dom basically running Kuenssburg's twitter account and the right wing press all on side they ran the media without any interviews.

Truss will aim for the same.

There's also nothing to be gained for her from being interviewed on the BBC at this time. She only has to appeal to a vanishingly small number of Tory members in this election, almost all of whom will loathe the BBC and probably consider Nick Robinson to be a dangerous communist (despite him having been president of the Oxford University Conservative Association when he was a student). Hardly any of them would have listened to the interview, and those that did would have spent the whole time shouting at the radio, and tearing up their licence fee direct debit forms.

In fact, as most of them will have submitted their votes for her weeks ago, it does beg the question why the Tories have been dragging this election out for so long. Given the tiny electorate, they should have been able to complete the whole process in about 3 weeks.

[Tichtheid]

There's talk of 70% of pubs closing down due to energy bills. That's a 70% loss of revenue for the energy companies from that one sector alone, along with the loss of tax to Inland Revenue. This will knock on through the hospitality industry as discretionary spending is swallowed by the energy companies, which will in turn affect all areas of discretionary spending and the jobs that come with it. That leads to more reliance on Universal Credit and other benefits

To my mind it's economic incompetence of the highest order to not ameliorate the increases in bills, recessions are no joke, this is the rainy day that you pull out all the stops for.

Unfortunately we have the least suitable cohort choosing our next PM, mainly white older men from the South East who are relatively well off.

Not showing up for a BBC interview which isn't exactly going to be Hardtalk isn't just "Why bother? I've nothing to gain" it shows the venal ambition over substance that is at the heart of the rot

The country needs a leader and Truss ain't it, not by a long long way.

[Paddington Bear]

Following on from Ticht's point - more generally the government within the last 18 months spent billions saving businesses going under, what an absolute waste of money if they all go under because of energy bills this winter.

I know a guy who runs a small shop who's energy bill has just gone from £30 a month to £350, likely will put him out of business and he's already applying for other jobs.

[Paddington Bear]

Solve two problems at once, & create a few, very large, pumped storage power stations !

You create some reservoirs that are badly needed, & you get significant power storage capacity on your grid.

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

Yeah I'm not suggesting it's a hole in one. Obviously if tidal can be made to work at scale at a decent price we're about the best placed of anyone to exploit that.

My idea was more that over the next few years we are going to have to really sort out our water situation, so whilst we're at it we may as well generate energy off of it as well, even if it is only for the local communities impacted.

[dpedin]

There's talk of 70% of pubs closing down due to energy bills. That's a 70% loss of revenue for the energy companies from that one sector alone, along with the loss of tax to Inland Revenue. This will knock on through the hospitality industry as discretionary spending is swallowed by the energy companies, which will in turn affect all areas of discretionary spending and the jobs that come with it. That leads to more reliance on Universal Credit and other benefits

To my mind it's economic incompetence of the highest order to not ameliorate the increases in bills, recessions are no joke, this is the rainy day that you pull out all the stops for.

Unfortunately we have the least suitable cohort choosing our next PM, mainly white older men from the South East who are relatively well off.

Not showing up for a BBC interview which isn't exactly going to be Hardtalk isn't just "Why bother? I've nothing to gain" it shows the venal ambition over substance that is at the heart of the rot

The country needs a leader and Truss ain't it, not by a long long way.

I share Tichtheid's pessimism. We are on the edge of a precipice and whilst we are all standing on the edge and shitting ourselves looking down into the spiralling abyss Truss and her ERG mates are looking up to their rich paymasters, licking their arses and waiting for orders. It is now all but certain that we will slide into a dangerous and damaging recession and by mid winter there will be a huge uprising of public unrest and trouble on the streets. It is going to get nasty.

Post Brexit we are now the dirty, shit covered, drunk and broken old man of Europe, bitter about broken marriages and good jobs we once had but lost whilst pissing ourselves in the gutter and cursing and swearing at anyone trying to offer us help. We are complete basket cases. This is going to take some serious sorting by some serious and grown up politicians and leaders ... this current Tory Gov bunch of cunts are not the answer and their zealotism will just speed up our decline. It is going to get nasty.

[I like neeps]

There's talk of 70% of pubs closing down due to energy bills. That's a 70% loss of revenue for the energy companies from that one sector alone, along with the loss of tax to Inland Revenue. This will knock on through the hospitality industry as discretionary spending is swallowed by the energy companies, which will in turn affect all areas of discretionary spending and the jobs that come with it. That leads to more reliance on Universal Credit and other benefits

To my mind it's economic incompetence of the highest order to not ameliorate the increases in bills, recessions are no joke, this is the rainy day that you pull out all the stops for.

Unfortunately we have the least suitable cohort choosing our next PM, mainly white older men from the South East who are relatively well off.

Not showing up for a BBC interview which isn't exactly going to be Hardtalk isn't just "Why bother? I've nothing to gain" it shows the venal ambition over substance that is at the heart of the rot

The country needs a leader and Truss ain't it, not by a long long way.

If 70% of pubs and a huge percentage of hospitality went it wouldn't be a recession it would be a depression.

PB is correct that doesn't make sense to let all the loans go bad. Banks will be putting the pressure on behind the scenes.

One thing is that Truss will put massive bailout packages on the table but also this is a long term problem and Macron is correct that the age of abundance is over.

[SaintK]

Following on from Ticht's point - more generally the government within the last 18 months

spent billions saving businesses going under, what an absolute waste of money

if they all go under because of energy bills this winter.

I know a guy who runs a small shop who's energy bill has just gone from £30 a month to £350, likely will put him out of business and he's already applying for other jobs.

£9 billion of which has fraudulently disappeared due to the lack of due diligence and follow up by the treasury

[petej]

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

Yeah I'm not suggesting it's a hole in one. Obviously if tidal can be made to work at scale at a decent price we're about the best placed of anyone to exploit that.

My idea was more that over the next few years we are going to have to really sort out our water situation, so whilst we're at it we may as well generate energy off of it as well, even if it is only for the local communities impacted.

The real problem with tidal is no private business will do it even though a lot the issues (environmental) surrounding say a system on the Severn Estuary have been resolved. The payback time will be longer than nuclear plants

[Paddington Bear]

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

Yeah I'm not suggesting it's a hole in one. Obviously if tidal can be made to work at scale at a decent price we're about the best placed of anyone to exploit that.

My idea was more that over the next few years we are going to have to really sort out our water situation, so whilst we're at it we may as well generate energy off of it as well, even if it is only for the local communities impacted.

The real problem with tidal is no private business will do it even though a lot the issues (environmental) surrounding say a system on the Severn Estuary have been resolved. The payback time will be longer than nuclear plants

Yes it would require a government led industrial strategy to succeed.

[tabascoboy]

There's talk of 70% of pubs closing down due to energy bills. That's a 70% loss of revenue for the energy companies from that one sector alone, along with the loss of tax to Inland Revenue. This will knock on through the hospitality industry as discretionary spending is swallowed by the energy companies, which will in turn affect all areas of discretionary spending and the jobs that come with it. That leads to more reliance on Universal Credit and other benefits

To my mind it's economic incompetence of the highest order to not ameliorate the increases in bills, recessions are no joke, this is the rainy day that you pull out all the stops for.

Unfortunately we have the least suitable cohort choosing our next PM, mainly white older men from the South East who are relatively well off.

Not showing up for a BBC interview which isn't exactly going to be Hardtalk isn't just "Why bother? I've nothing to gain" it shows the venal ambition over substance that is at the heart of the rot

The country needs a leader and Truss ain't it, not by a long long way.

She's going to stand up to Putin and be more assertive with Biden - but chickens out of a TV interview...can't wait for her to find excuses to avoid PMQs

[C69]

Well the care home sector looks fecked as well.
What an utter shit storm.

[yermum]

Can't get my daughters medication.

Feels like I am living in a failing country ATM.

[I like neeps]

Can't get my daughters medication.

Feels like I am living in a failing country ATM.

And the worst is yet to come.

What I wonder if how are politicians insulated from this as to not be screaming at the Tories to do something about it.

[Insane_Homer]

It's OK folks, it's not the Tories fault...

[petej]

It's OK folks, it's not the Tories fault...

The end result of the terrible circle jerk between the right wing press and our government. They are just lashing out due to their own inadequacies and are going to block anyone else from helping with solutions out of spite. We lack serious politicians and real journalists.

[Hal Jordan]

It's OK folks, it's not the Tories fault...

The end result of the terrible circle jerk between the right wing press and our government. They are just lashing out due to their own inadequacies and are going to block anyone else from helping with solutions out of spite. We lack serious politicians and real journalists.

I guarantee that the ERG backers will seize upon thus as a chance to drill, baby, drill as Truss has promised after a meeting Kwarteng has had with the oil and industry lads.

Fucknuckles, the lot of them. And soon they will be deciding our fate.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Yes it did cross my mind that interlinked reservoirs with hydrodams between them could kill two birds with one stone

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

Yeah I'm not suggesting it's a hole in one. Obviously if tidal can be made to work at scale at a decent price we're about the best placed of anyone to exploit that.

My idea was more that over the next few years we are going to have to really sort out our water situation, so whilst we're at it we may as well generate energy off of it as well, even if it is only for the local communities impacted.

I'm going to add tidal power to the list of non starters. Given that the UK has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world, has been looking at tidal for around 100 years and no project has ever got going suggests it never will. It's not a technology problem, it's an economics problem. Cost is high, energy density is low and it has an intermittency problem.

[petej]

Pumped hydro isn't a scaleable solution for the UK. You need to plan for around 5 days of no wind which is about 1TWh of energy. Dinorwig, the UK's largest pumped hydro station has a capacity of 9 GWh so you would need over 100 more of those, or 10 at 10x the capacity each. There's another pumped hydro station being planned near Dinorwig with a 700MWh capacity at an estimated cost of £120m (in 2017)

Hooking up everybody's EV car batteries to the grid is likely to be a better option. TFL already do this with their electric buses.

Yeah I'm not suggesting it's a hole in one. Obviously if tidal can be made to work at scale at a decent price we're about the best placed of anyone to exploit that.

My idea was more that over the next few years we are going to have to really sort out our water situation, so whilst we're at it we may as well generate energy off of it as well, even if it is only for the local communities impacted.

I'm going to add tidal power to the list of non starters. Given that the UK has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world, has been looking at tidal for around 100 years and no project has ever got going suggests it never will. It's not a technology problem, it's an economics problem. Cost is high, energy density is low and it has an intermittency problem.

It has an intermittency problem but predictable compared to wind and solar. Cost isn't that high but timescale to recoup is very long. La Rance payed for itself in 20 years according to wiki.

[_Os_]

Don't know the timescales involved, but is this so unreasonable after a year being housed in a hotel? That's enough time to get settled to an extent over here.

You'd have thought the home office would have a resettlement team in place? Seems a bit odd to (a) have them in hotels for a year anyway especially when there's so many jobs around and then (b) tell them to do it themselves. What about credit checks for example? I can't imagine renting in the UK is that similar to renting in Afghanistan.

And when I say you'd have thought I mean the government obviously don't.

Any landlord/letting agent will require: A deposit, proof of identity, proof of immigration status, credit history, and likely proof of employment status.

It's illegal for landlords to provide accommodation to an illegal immigrant, part of the hostile environment forces unqualified people to become petty officials enforcing laws they don't understand. This is compounded by the constant changes in the UK's immigration system which have turned legal immigrants into illegal immigrants overnight, in addition to any migration system having provision for an immigrant's status to change (time limited visas for example). Potentially any landlord housing an immigrant could end up housing an illegal immigrant and be heavily fined. There's increasing competition for rented accommodation (landlords have been squeezed and many have quit, and there's not enough houses in the right areas), most landlords/letting agents will look at an Afghan refugee with potentially an immigration status they don't understand and unemployed with no credit history, then immediately bin them in favour of others that are less complicated.

The only landlords interested will be a subset of those that exclusively let to those on housing benefit. Those landlords aren't putting up nice photos on Zoopla and Rightmove.

Turns out some Ukrainian refugees are already experiencing this. The crazy plan to house refugees in people's homes is starting to unravel (not sure those signing up realised it could be indefinite, and what they were being paid would barely cover the additional energy use), this has left some Ukrainians trying to find homes through the rental sector.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... or-ukraine

Olha Plyushch, 36, a refugee from Kyiv who works for the Ukrainian Institute in London and for the Opora charity, where she helps advise Ukrainians arriving in the UK, said the renting process is a vicious cycle for refugees because they cannot pay big deposits and do not have a UK job history or a willing guarantor.

She knows of people who are already homeless and sleeping on friends’ sofas because their accommodation has fallen through. In some rare cases, she said, members of the British Ukrainian diaspora who can afford the outlay are helping out by renting entire houses and letting rooms to refugees.

“I know there are Ukrainians who have money to pay rent on a monthly basis, but they are being asked to pay between six and 12 months’ rent in advance. That is a lot of money, so not many Ukrainians can afford it.

“They do have jobs, so they do have money to pay on a monthly basis but, in advance, a 12-month payment is too much.

“It’s a very uncertain situation because September and October is actually when these six-month sponsorships come to an end. But honestly, I can speak for myself and for many Ukrainians, when we made the decision to come here, we were planning to go back to Ukraine within the six months because we all believed the war would be over.

When Olha Apriamova and her nine-year-old daughter Alina’s Homes for Ukraine sponsorship fell apart by text message after less than a month in July, they didn’t know what to do.

Apriamova, 34, whose husband died in the war in June, wrote to friends and was offered temporary shelter in their two-bedroom flat, where the five of them are now living.

But finding something permanent is proving impossible. At every flat viewing, landlords tell her that they will not rent to refugees.

[Paddington Bear]

Yeah I'm not suggesting it's a hole in one. Obviously if tidal can be made to work at scale at a decent price we're about the best placed of anyone to exploit that.

My idea was more that over the next few years we are going to have to really sort out our water situation, so whilst we're at it we may as well generate energy off of it as well, even if it is only for the local communities impacted.

I'm going to add tidal power to the list of non starters. Given that the UK has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world, has been looking at tidal for around 100 years and no project has ever got going suggests it never will. It's not a technology problem, it's an economics problem. Cost is high, energy density is low and it has an intermittency problem.

It has an intermittency problem but predictable compared to wind and solar. Cost isn't that high but timescale to recoup is very long. La Rance payed for itself in 20 years according to wiki.

See also how the price of wind power has fallen rapidly as it's become mainstream. And the main tidal projects proposed are around the UK, the Bay of Fundy and Alderney - i.e. the places with the highest tidal ranges in the world, so clearly people involved have some confidence it works in these scenarios.

[SaintK]

When she's sacked from the Home Office next week, Patel's legacy will be writ large in capital letters

Former residents of a hostel in Rwanda who were forced to leave under a controversial deal to house asylum seekers flown from the UK say they have been left homeless and destitute while the property remains unused.
The men, all of whom are survivors of the Rwandan genocide, had lived in Hope Hostel in Kigali for up to eight years. But they were told to vacate two days after Priti Patel, the British home secretary, signed a £120m agreement to send refugees arriving in the UK by small boats to the east African country.
Some former residents of the hotel were still students who say they lost their families in the genocide and have nowhere to go. The UK government has so far failed to send a single asylum seeker to Rwanda

[fishfoodie]

There's talk of 70% of pubs closing down due to energy bills. That's a 70% loss of revenue for the energy companies from that one sector alone, along with the loss of tax to Inland Revenue. This will knock on through the hospitality industry as discretionary spending is swallowed by the energy companies, which will in turn affect all areas of discretionary spending and the jobs that come with it. That leads to more reliance on Universal Credit and other benefits

To my mind it's economic incompetence of the highest order to not ameliorate the increases in bills, recessions are no joke, this is the rainy day that you pull out all the stops for.

Unfortunately we have the least suitable cohort choosing our next PM, mainly white older men from the South East who are relatively well off.

Not showing up for a BBC interview which isn't exactly going to be Hardtalk isn't just "Why bother? I've nothing to gain" it shows the venal ambition over substance that is at the heart of the rot

The country needs a leader and Truss ain't it, not by a long long way.

I share Tichtheid's pessimism. We are on the edge of a precipice and whilst we are all standing on the edge and shitting ourselves looking down into the spiralling abyss Truss and her ERG mates are looking up to their rich paymasters, licking their arses and waiting for orders. It is now all but certain that we will slide into a dangerous and damaging recession and by mid winter there will be a huge uprising of public unrest and trouble on the streets. It is going to get nasty.

Post Brexit we are now the dirty, shit covered, drunk and broken old man of Europe, bitter about broken marriages and good jobs we once had but lost whilst pissing ourselves in the gutter and cursing and swearing at anyone trying to offer us help. We are complete basket cases. This is going to take some serious sorting by some serious and grown up politicians and leaders ... this current Tory Gov bunch of cunts are not the answer and their zealotism will just speed up our decline. It is going to get nasty.

Haven't you heard Lizzy's master plan ?

She's going to pull you out of a recession, & stagflation, by deliberately triggering a Trade war with the EU. Brilliant !

[I like neeps]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a204 ... b91401d126

This is quite incredible. Shamima Begum was trafficked to Syria by a Canadian intelligence double agent and everyone then covered it up!

[fishfoodie]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a204 ... b91401d126

This is quite incredible. Shamima Begum was trafficked to Syria by a Canadian intelligence double agent and everyone then covered it up!

Iran-Contra did it for me; after the revelations in it, nothing ever seemed incredible anymore, it was just wondering about how much cognitive dissonance people were capable of, without their heads exploding, & how far people could disappear up their own rectums to justify the most unjustifiable.

There are a lot of sociopaths out there, & they often end up in positions of significant power.

[Blackmac]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a204 ... b91401d126

This is quite incredible. Shamima Begum was trafficked to Syria by a Canadian intelligence double agent and everyone then covered it up!

Double agent is a bit of a stretch. He is a CHIS, nothing more. It's as if law enforcement and intelligence agencies getting info from disreputable people is a surprise.

[tabascoboy]

Express reporting that Boris is "proud of what we did". Oh really?

Don’t fall for the revisionism – Boris Johnson was a catastrophe for Britain
In three years he almost destroyed the country. Could the Conservatives really be mad or desperate enough to give this man another chance to finish the job?

A week to go, and the most destructive, divisive and dishonest prime minister in modern British history will finally be gone. Or will he?

Already the revisionism is well under way. Boris Johnson triggered it the day he announced his resignation on the steps of No 10, referring to his “incredible mandate” from the British people and the treachery of the Westminster “herd” who had deposed him.

Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Johnson sycophants followed his lead, claiming he had been the victim of an undemocratic coup. The right-wing tabloids took up the theme. A recent YouGov poll showed Conservative Party members still prefer Johnson to either of his would-be successors. Nearly 9,000 have signed a petition demanding a vote on whether he should have been forced to resign. The Sunday Times reports that many voters are now suffering “seller’s remorse”. Rory Stewart, the former Conservative minister, warns in a Guardian interview that Johnson will be like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, “hovering around, hoping for a populist return”.

Johnson is a supremely artful crafter of mendacious narratives. As the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent in the early 1990s, he did as much as anyone to create the potent myth about lonely Britain fighting a desperate rearguard action against a scheming European Union bent on destroying our traditional way of life (the truth is that we were a big powerful member state with many allies). In 2019 he succeeded brilliantly in portraying himself as a champion of the Brexit-voting masses defending the “will of the people” against the wicked “metropolitan elite”.

Now he will sit on the backbenches – posing as the country’s unjustly deposed leader, biding his time as Liz Truss’s premiership is destroyed by the dire consequences of his own misgovernment, once again evading the blame and using his undoubted charisma to hog the limelight. As Stewart says, this is “dangerous” stuff and “we need to remind people why he left… What he did was deeply, deeply shameful.”

Let me seek to oblige, lest the nation does indeed succumb to collective amnesia. Just a few weeks ago Johnson became the first British prime minister forced to resign in disgrace, after more than 40 members of his own government and scores of Tory backbenchers demanded he step down. His approval rating in the country as a whole was a staggering minus 48. His party had lost three seats in by-elections. He was universally reviled and ridiculed, and with good reason: his three years in power have been catastrophic for Britain.

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/20 ... or-britain - spoilered the rest to avoid massive wall of text

Spoiler

Show

Yes, Johnson won a “stonking” majority in 2019, but he was running against a cartoon caricature of the loony left in Jeremy Corbyn.

Yes, he “got Brexit done”, but only by betraying Northern Ireland, sundering the United Kingdom and gravely damaging our relations with Europe and the US. His promised trade deal with the US has never transpired, incidentally. Nor has his “bonfire of red tape”.

Yes, he has robustly and rightly supported Ukraine following Putin’s invasion. And yes, he gambled with taxpayers’ money to develop a Covid vaccine – and won. But he reacted lamentably slowly to the pandemic, allowed it to spread to care homes, squandered tens of billions of pounds on useless or fraudulent PPE contracts and still presided over 202,000 Covid-related deaths.

He promised that post-Brexit Britain would “take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth” and emerge with its “cloak flowing” – but on his watch it has succumbed to the highest inflation in 40 years, the sharpest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s, the heaviest tax burden since the 1940s and record debt.

He promised “levelling up” which is a laudable aim, but under his leadership the gap between rich and poor, north and south, blue- and white-collar workers, has actually widened dramatically. According to YouGov, more than two thirds of voters now regard the Conservatives as “not close” or “not close at all” to the working class.

It is hard to think of a single public service that has not deteriorated sharply during Johnson’s rule. He promised 40 new hospitals and an additional £350 million a week for the NHS, but the health service is now perilously close to collapse – as is the judicial system. He promised to solve the social care crisis “once and for all”, but it is more acute than ever. He promised to “make your streets safer”, but the police now solve barely 4 per cent of thefts and 7 per cent of burglaries. He promised to make Britain the “cleanest, greenest” country in the world, but our rivers and seas grow rank with untreated sewage. He promised to “take back control” of our borders, but asylum seekers arrive in ever greater numbers.

It has become almost impossibly hard to get ambulances, GP appointments, passports or driving licences. Travelling has become a nightmare. Our railway workers, postal workers, barristers and dockers are on strike, with doctors, teachers and civil servants threatening to follow suit. For millions of Britons basics like gas and electricity are rapidly becoming unaffordable.

Much of the above can be attributed to Covid and the Ukraine war, of course, but Britain’s moral decline over the past three years is almost entirely Johnson’s responsibility.

The man who promised to “restore trust in democracy” is the first prime minister in living memory who has actively stoked social division for political gain; the first to receive a sanction for breaking the law while in office; the first to lose not one, but two, ethical advisers; the first to put his personal ambition before the good of the country, and to make his government’s raison d’être a policy (Brexit) which he surely knows to be deeply damaging to the national interest. Through Brexit he also unleashed the worst instincts of many people in Britain – their latent xenophobia, jingoism and arrogance.

The charge sheet continues. Johnson has knowingly breached international and domestic law. He has trashed the ministerial code. He has routinely lied to parliament and the country. He has regularly rewarded cronies with jobs, peerages and lucrative contracts. He has sought to restrict the right to vote and protest, and to neuter any institution that he could not control. He betrayed millions of vulnerable Afghans through “Global” Britain’s shameful withdrawal. Equally shamefully, he has approved the deportation of desperate asylum seekers to one of Africa’s nastiest regimes.

He is guilty of sins of omission as well as commission. He has governed through hollow promises, empty rhetoric and naked gimmickry while neglecting the hard graft of government. He has failed to prepare Britain for future crises – be they pandemics, energy shortages or rampant inflation. For the last six weeks he has gone almost entirely awol.

In his final Prime Minister’s Question Johnson declared: “Mission largely accomplished.” If he was referring to the destruction of Britain, he was quite right. Would the Conservatives really be mad, or desperate, enough to give this man another chance to finish the job?