It may be much warmer now but, as per for example the R4 piece this morning when we were told that it is the warmest it's been for 100 years, my question is how efficient global temperature readings were 100 years ago.
As attested by the Met Office, even the GISTEMP temperature readings in the modern era, especially their interpolation of observational data over the polar regions, are being glossed over with a large correlation length, and hence cannot be seen as definitive.
There are small differences between the three main surface temperature reconstructions due to differences in data sources and processing, but they are very minor. They all show roughly a degree C of warming over the last century.
Mr. L, are those datasets pre- or post-alteration (not being sarcastic, they revise temperature figures, and the vast majority of the time increase the figures)?
Also, scepticism about global warming is not the equivalent of not believing in gravity. The Earth's climate is immensely complex and within the narrow span of human history we've seen it vary massively without any industrial input at all.
The idea consensus means a theory is beyond challenge is far more unscientific because it suggests dogma rather than scepticism is the way we should look at existing theories.
I'm happy to leave science to the scientists rather than retired politicians on either side of the debate. If the scientific consensus is wrong then science will fix it. That is what happened with the MMR vaccine scare, and it is what happened with gravity.
The scientific consensus was that Thalidomide was fine. Eventually this was corrected, but only after irreversible harm had occurred.
Just what irreversible harm is done by developing new sources of energy and more efficient batteries ?
Well, deaths, obviously.
Green initiatives are not benignly limited to new sources of energy and more efficient batteries. It was green concerns that led to the dieselisation of Europe which we now know has caused thousands of deaths that petrol would not have caused. Green taxes make heating your home more expensive and have led to fuel poverty, a form of poverty re-invented by environmentalism.
One of the biggest causes of deaths in the third world is indoor air pollution, about which the green movement is all but silent because the solution is LPG.
Diesel is not exactly a new source of energy.
Is *the* solution LPG - and if so, how is "the Green movement" stopping it being employed ? Or is it solar ?
"Green taxes make heating your home more expensive and have led to fuel poverty..." What percentage increase in heating bills do you attribute to UK 'green taxes' - and what reduction to subsidies for insulation ? And please demonstrate that in itself has led to fuel poverty.
If you cannot read posts properly there is no point reading them at all.
It may be much warmer now but, as per for example the R4 piece this morning when we were told that it is the warmest it's been for 100 years, my question is how efficient global temperature readings were 100 years ago.
As attested by the Met Office, even the GISTEMP temperature readings in the modern era, especially their interpolation of observational data over the polar regions, are being glossed over with a large correlation length, and hence cannot be seen as definitive.
There are small differences between the three main surface temperature reconstructions due to differences in data sources and processing, but they are very minor. They all show roughly a degree C of warming over the last century.
"They want to keep finding excuses for inaction, and to continue polluting the world."
When I were t'lad, I used to believe that science is always objective. Unfortunately, there is sometimes politics in science. What is funded and what is not. And what is published and what is not.
I've no problems with activists invoking the 'precautionary principle'. However it ought to be up front, and not ignored in favour of "the science is settled, none may argue."
BTW, I agree about Newton. His theories were built on rather than scrapped, but it does show the dangers of always going with the flow. When it comes to wave/particle duality, there's a famous father and son duo called Thomson. One received a Nobel prize for showing the electron was a particle, the other received it for showing it was a wave.
I'd be much happier to accept AGW once it can be shown to be predictive. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned.
Well, it's doing a pretty good job so far. Back in 1981, James Hansen, who was head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 32 years, predicted that, by now, the global temperature would have increased by about 0.5 C, and that this increase would be concentrated at the poles. He was pretty much spot on.
Unfortunately he also predicted that New York would be underwater by 2020.
Nope, I can't see any prediction of New York being underwater by 2020:
Sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
Your reference doesn't support your claim, and it is simply wrong to state that sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
Insurance depends on non-linear utility functions.
The value to the insured of avoiding a large loss is greater than the actual risk times the insurer's premium, when the insurer has a much greater bank of wealth.
Yes it is, because he's assuming he will win them. If I were him, I'd be firming up my support in the semi-marginals so I could go hammer and tongs at the marginals when it matters.
As for permanent campaign mode, again he is assuming there will be an election. Complacency again. Even you're acknowledging that.
I dislike Corbyn. But I am allowing for that. His performance since the election has been surprisingly inept given his sure-footed response in the campaign, and it's far too easy to see the parallels with 1992.
If he was assuming he would win those seats - then he obviously wouldn't campaign in those seats!
(Just like TM in Bedford according to OGH)
You campaign where you think you might win, you might lose. (Broadly speaking).
You don't campaign where you think you're definitely going to win (complacency) or lose (realism/defeatism).
Mr. S, if natural warm periods can occur during the reign of Henry VIII or Claudius, and natural cold periods occurred during the 18th century, why is it not possible the current climate change is also natural?
Morning Mr Dancer. The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Given we are 7 billion or so now and certainly far more than in the times of Henry VIII, let alone Claudius, small changes to the climate can profoundly affect millions of people directly and tens of millions more indirectly.
We have seen for ourselves the consequences of economic migration - if we see whole populations having to move because their regional climate has changed, that may count for little on a global basis climatically but have severe political, economic and social ramifications.
IF sea level rises, do we spend billions defending coastal cities like Shanghai, London and New York and what about those coastal cities in other areas where the country concerned may not be able to afford costly flood defences ?
Those who thought the Sun went round the Earth were adamant they were right and persecuted those who took a different view.
Rice in South East Asia is what scares governments. A lot.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
There's also a great opportunity to develop new technologies that *may* diversify and localise our energy production, and also reduce reliance on oil and gas (especially oil and gas from the ME).
Reducing reliance on ME o&g would be good not just for us, but probably also the local populations.
I'm sceptical about some aspects of climate change, and especially the predictions of consequences. But that doesn't mean that we can't get positives out of the situation if we're careful.
Perfectly sensible, Jessop, and an approach that appears to have a lot of support.
Yes it is, because he's assuming he will win them. If I were him, I'd be firming up my support in the semi-marginals so I could go hammer and tongs at the marginals when it matters.
As for permanent campaign mode, again he is assuming there will be an election. Complacency again. Even you're acknowledging that.
I dislike Corbyn. But I am allowing for that. His performance since the election has been surprisingly inept given his sure-footed response in the campaign, and it's far too easy to see the parallels with 1992.
If he was assuming he would win those seats - then he obviously wouldn't campaign in those seats!
(Just like TM in Bedford according to OGH)
You campaign where you think you might win, you might lose. (Broadly speaking).
You don't campaign where you think you're definitely going to win (complacency) or lose (realism/defeatism).
Yes, but you said the marginals. I'm talking about the slightly safer ones, places like Wakefield or Auckland. That's where Labour could be vulnerable next time (and should have been this time).
Anyway, I have a tax return to do. Have a good morning!
"They want to keep finding excuses for inaction, and to continue polluting the world."
When I were t'lad, I used to believe that science is always objective. Unfortunately, there is sometimes politics in science. What is funded and what is not. And what is published and what is not.
I've no problems with activists invoking the 'precautionary principle'. However it ought to be up front, and not ignored in favour of "the science is settled, none may argue."
BTW, I agree about Newton. His theories were built on rather than scrapped, but it does show the dangers of always going with the flow. When it comes to wave/particle duality, there's a famous father and son duo called Thomson. One received a Nobel prize for showing the electron was a particle, the other received it for showing it was a wave.
I'd be much happier to accept AGW once it can be shown to be predictive. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned.
Well, it's doing a pretty good job so far. Back in 1981, James Hansen, who was head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 32 years, predicted that, by now, the global temperature would have increased by about 0.5 C, and that this increase would be concentrated at the poles. He was pretty much spot on.
Unfortunately he also predicted that New York would be underwater by 2020.
Nope, I can't see any prediction of New York being underwater by 2020:
Sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
Your reference doesn't support your claim, and it is simply wrong to state that sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
It's a religion. To you there are believers and there are heretics.
I did read it, but I could find no mention of 2020. Also, a half-remembered conversation with a reporter doesn't carry quite the same predictive weight as a scientific paper.
You might also note that 1870 is not at least a couple of hundred years ago.
Mr. S, if natural warm periods can occur during the reign of Henry VIII or Claudius, and natural cold periods occurred during the 18th century, why is it not possible the current climate change is also natural?
Morning Mr Dancer. The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Given we are 7 billion or so now and certainly far more than in the times of Henry VIII, let alone Claudius, small changes to the climate can profoundly affect millions of people directly and tens of millions more indirectly.
We have seen for ourselves the consequences of economic migration - if we see whole populations having to move because their regional climate has changed, that may count for little on a global basis climatically but have severe political, economic and social ramifications.
IF sea level rises, do we spend billions defending coastal cities like Shanghai, London and New York and what about those coastal cities in other areas where the country concerned may not be able to afford costly flood defences ?
Those who thought the Sun went round the Earth were adamant they were right and persecuted those who took a different view.
Rice in South East Asia is what scares governments. A lot.
The polling industry measured Conservative support very accurately. It also got the Labour surge correct, up till the start of June. What it got wrong was it showed Labour support plateauing in the final week.
True were using.
The problem is that relying on the core numbers would have significantly overstated Labour in the previous 5 elections. This was the first election for ages where that was not so.
As I said, they did it for good reasons.
Nate Silver was critical though. He thinks you should always trust your data and if it gives you the wrong result, not much you can do. The crime, he reckons, is to import an assumption (however reasonable) to distort your data.
Btw, Nate did state on election-eve that a Hung Parliament was perfectly possible given the total range of polling evidence. It wasn't the most likely result, but it was certainly plausible.
Which is what the overall majority markets were showing on election eve - that a hung parliament was possible but not likely.
Many of the individual constituency markets were way out though and very profitable they were.
Tell me about it. A lady friend asked me to stick 50 quid on a hung parliament for her. It was 10/1. I told her not to waste her money.
Naturally I did the honorable thing after the event.
This is what is odd to my mind about the general election.
You're a political aware person, interested in the political betting markets and based in London ie where the swing to Labour was highest.
Yet the result came as a surprise to you and it did to London Labour itself judging by their focus on the likes of Ealing Acton, Brentford and Tooting. For that matter the London Conservatives were campaigning in the wrong seats as well.
Whatever the polls might have been picking up before any adjustments didn't seem to match with what the politicians were experiencing on the ground.
It seems that thousands of Labour voters per constituency, maybe over ten thousand in some places, were not being picked up by the party campaigns.
I'm curious as to who these extra Labour voters are and whether they'll continue to vote.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
You calculate your risks. This is where I don't understand "climate change deniers". It seems to me they are choosing to be sceptical about the wrong things. Instead of challenging the basic science of man made climate change, which is a well understood scientific consensus, similar to, say, the competitive evolution of species, there is a much more profitable argument to be had about prognosis and policy. What are the really bad things that might happen and, importantly, what could we do that has a realistic prospect of avoiding or mitigating those bad things?
"Prominent right wing YouTube users say the site is censoring them.
Trump-supporting accounts like Paul Joseph Watson and Diamond and Silk say the site is stopping them making money from their videos and hiding them from viewers. And some have said that the censorship is so bad they will be leaving YouTube entirely.
The complaints come in the middle of a controversy surrounding the Google memo, which circulated around the YouTube owner and claimed that its diversity agenda was wrong. Many prominent right-wing personalities have taken up the cause of James Damore, who wrote the memo and was subsequently fired."
I'm a swing voter saying it how I see it and even my tribal Labour friends are worried Corbyn has behaved like an arrogant fool since the election.
Your point being?
Corbyn seems to genuinely believe he won and his natural brilliance will make him PM shortly. He has looked like a less shouty, less intelligent version of Trump. True, he came close in the popular vote but Labour are below where they were in 1992 and barely ahead of 2010 in terms of seats. Yet nobody is telling Labour the hard truth that they lost and lost badly and need to do much better next time. They are lazily assuming a few more seats and a slightly less popular government will deliver them a win.
I would be surprised if the Tories picked up more votes. But I can easily foresee under these circumstances Labour's vote falling by more than theirs.
At the moment - Corbyn is out campaigning in marginal seats. Since the election he has said Labour will be in permanent campaign mode. I wouldn't characterise that as lazy or complacent.
If anything it might be a bit of a waste of time- since it looks as though the next election will be a while away...
Yes it is, because he's assuming he will win them. If I were him, I'd be firming up my support in the semi-marginals so I could go hammer and tongs at the marginals when it matters.
As for permanent campaign mode, again he is assuming there will be an election. Complacency again. Even you're acknowledging that.
I dislike Corbyn. But I am allowing for that. His performance since the election has been surprisingly inept given his sure-footed response in the campaign, and it's far too easy to see the parallels with 1992.
Momentum have been campaigining in IDS and Boris's seat as well, as well as other marginal seats.
And parliament is on holiday. He doesn't need to do anything for a couple of months yet!
Nate Silver was critical though. He thinks you should always trust your data and if it gives you the wrong result, not much you can do. The crime, he reckons, is to import an assumption (however reasonable) to distort your data.
Btw, Nate did state on election-eve that a Hung Parliament was perfectly possible given the total range of polling evidence. It wasn't the most likely result, but it was certainly plausible.
Many of the individual constituency markets were way out though and very profitable they were.
Tell me about it. A lady friend asked me to stick 50 quid on a hung parliament for her. It was 10/1. I told her not to waste her money.
Naturally I did the honorable thing after the event.
This is what is odd to my mind about the general election.
You're a political aware person, interested in the political betting markets and based in London ie where the swing to Labour was highest.
Yet the result came as a surprise to you and it did to London Labour itself judging by their focus on the likes of Ealing Acton, Brentford and Tooting. For that matter the London Conservatives were campaigning in the wrong seats as well.
I'm curious as to who these extra Labour voters are and whether they'll continue to vote.
On the Wednesday night before the election I gave a talk at work on the election and said that I thought the range of possible outcomes was unusually wide, given the volatility of the electorate, ranging from a hung Parliament to a Conservative landslide, and that neither would particularly surprise me. Unfortunately, I then said that if forced I would predict a landslide, thus ensuring that I avoided Nostradamus status.
Lol! That was pretty much my take except for the landslide bit. I'd pencilled in 75 seat majority.
Happily the only serious bet I had was a buy of Labour Seats at 160 - but that was only because I thought they were oversold and low risk at that level. I burst out laughing when the exit poll was announced.
We were going on holiday quite early on 9th June, and on the evening of the 8th we’d packed everything and I was closing down the electronics etc for the fortnight when I heard the 10pm News come on. 'Are you coming to watch’ asked my wife. ‘No, it’ll only depress me too much!’ I replied. Couple of minutes later an excited voice called to me ‘They say it’s a hung Parliament’ And was in front of the TV like a shot!
Ha, I was the same. I didn't want to watch until the exit poll came in!
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
Insurance depends on non-linear utility functions.
The value of avoiding a large loss is greater than the premium times the actual risk.
Understood. Insurance is not worthless because you paid but didn't claim. What you paid for was to be insured.
But one should consider whether being insured is worth it at the cost. If I buy a phone worth £400 and insure it new-for-old for £20 a month with a £200 excess, then the maximum payout I could ever receive is £200, but the annual premiums are £240 a year. There cannot, however, be a 120% likelihood of a claim in any year, nor can it make sense overall to spend £480 over 2 years for the comfort of a £200 payout. You would be better off self-insuring, i.e. you put the same cash aside and then spend it only if needed.
"They want to keep finding excuses for inaction, and to continue polluting the world."
When I were t'lad, I used to believe that science is always objective. Unfortunately, there is sometimes politics in science. What is funded and what is not. And what is published and what is not.
I've no problems with activists invoking the 'precautionary principle'. However it ought to be up front, and not ignored in favour of "the science is settled, none may argue."
BTW, I agree about Newton. His theories were built on rather than scrapped, but it does show the dangers of always going with the flow. When it comes to wave/particle duality, there's a famous father and son duo called Thomson. One received a Nobel prize for showing the electron was a particle, the other received it for showing it was a wave.
I'd be much happier to accept AGW once it can be shown to be predictive. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned.
Well, it's doing a pretty good job so far. Back in 1981, James Hansen, who was head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 32 years, predicted that, by now, the global temperature would have increased by about 0.5 C, and that this increase would be concentrated at the poles. He was pretty much spot on.
Unfortunately he also predicted that New York would be underwater by 2020.
Nope, I can't see any prediction of New York being underwater by 2020:
Sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
Your reference doesn't support your claim, and it is simply wrong to state that sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
It's a religion. To you there are believers and there are heretics.
I did read it, but I could find no mention of 2020. Also, a half-remembered conversation with a reporter doesn't carry quite the same predictive weight as a scientific paper.
You might also note that 1870 is not at least a couple of hundred years ago.
Go look at the rest of the charts on that page. You are insufficiently familiar with your doctrine.
The constituency battlegrounds are interesting, but so are the issue battlegrounds on which the next election will be fought.
As this was the 10th anniversary of the start of the financial crisis, I was thinking back to the politics at the time. The economic situation got very big on Labour very quickly and they were behind the curve for a long time which was part of the reason why Cameron was scoring such big leads in 2009. The fact that things settled down a little bit later in 2009 probably helped labour and cost Cameron an outright majority.
There is a small, but not insignificant chance, that there could be global financial turmoil of similar or perhaps greater proportions in the next year or two. I wonder which party would be best placed to ride these out. I am guessing that the Tories would have more to gain, however being the incumbents they would might get blamed for things that they have very little control over similar to the Brown/Darling administration.
As stated, just a small chance of this playing out for now, however not as small a chance as it was a short while ago.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
You calculate your risks. This is where I don't understand "climate change deniers". It seems to me they are choosing to be sceptical about the wrong things. Instead of challenging the basic science of man made climate change, which is a well understood scientific consensus, similar to, say, the competitive evolution of species, there is a much more profitable argument to be had about prognosis and policy. What are the really bad things that might happen and, importantly, what could we do that has a realistic prospect of avoiding or mitigating those bad things?
The trouble is, if you query the policy you get dismissed by the zealots as denying the science.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
There's also a great opportunity to develop new technologies that *may* diversify and localise our energy production, and also reduce reliance on oil and gas (especially oil and gas from the ME).
Reducing reliance on ME o&g would be good not just for us, but probably also the local populations.
I'm sceptical about some aspects of climate change, and especially the predictions of consequences. But that doesn't mean that we can't get positives out of the situation if we're careful.
That's pretty much my view as well.
I'm more sceptical than you about the fake 'science' but I'd also say that I'm more positive that advances in technology - whatever the driving and motivating forces behind them - are definitely taking us in a positive and cleaner direction.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
You calculate your risks. This is where I don't understand "climate change deniers". It seems to me they are choosing to be sceptical about the wrong things. Instead of challenging the basic science of man made climate change, which is a well understood scientific consensus, similar to, say, the competitive evolution of species, there is a much more profitable argument to be had about prognosis and policy. What are the really bad things that might happen and, importantly, what could we do that has a realistic prospect of avoiding or mitigating those bad things?
One really bad thing that might happen is that you waste trillions of dollars and perhaps millions of lives trying to prevent from happening something that either won't happen or won't even be bad.
For example, you might ban DDT because you imagine it might cause cancer with the result that millions die of malaria.
The constituency battlegrounds are interesting, but so are the issue battlegrounds on which the next election will be fought.
As this was the 10th anniversary of the start of the financial crisis, I was thinking back to the politics at the time. The economic situation got very big on Labour very quickly and they were behind the curve for a long time which was part of the reason why Cameron was scoring such big leads in 2009. The fact that things settled down a little bit later in 2009 probably helped labour and cost Cameron an outright majority.
There is a small, but not insignificant chance, that there could be global financial turmoil of similar or perhaps greater proportions in the next year or two. I wonder which party would be best placed to ride these out. I am guessing that the Tories would have more to gain, however being the incumbents they would might get blamed for things that they have very little control over similar to the Brown/Darling administration.
As stated, just a small chance of this playing out for now, however not as small a chance as it was a short while ago.
Cameron's poll leads went into decline right after he ruled out a Lisbon referendum. Learning his lesson, he promised one in 2015 and duly got a majority.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
Insurance depends on non-linear utility functions.
The value of avoiding a large loss is greater than the premium times the actual risk.
Understood. Insurance is not worthless because you paid but didn't claim. What you paid for was to be insured.
. There cannot, however, be a 120% likelihood of a claim in any year, nor can it make sense overall to spend £480 over 2 years for the comfort of a £200 payout. You would be better off self-insuring, i.e. you put the same cash aside and then spend it only if needed.
You've not met my daughters have you? Their insurance for their phones usually ends up being cancelled when they have made the maximum number of claims.
But generally speaking insuring against something that you can readily absorb makes no sense whatsoever.
You calculate your risks. This is where I don't understand "climate change deniers". It seems to me they are choosing to be sceptical about the wrong things. Instead of challenging the basic science of man made climate change, which is a well understood scientific consensus, similar to, say, the competitive evolution of species, there is a much more profitable argument to be had about prognosis and policy. What are the really bad things that might happen and, importantly, what could we do that has a realistic prospect of avoiding or mitigating those bad things?
One really bad thing that might happen is that you waste trillions of dollars and perhaps millions of lives trying to prevent from happening something that either won't happen or won't even be bad.
For example, you might ban DDT because you imagine it might cause cancer with the result that millions die of malaria.
That's a possibility, but unless you engage on the science on current best understanding you won't be able to calculate whether that risk is worse than rejecting a specific and, as far as we know best, policy
It's alarming but interesting. NK were very used to the Obama, lets calm things down here, let's try and find compromises, lets try and buy off the problem approach. Someone who shouts right back in as incoherent way as NK behaves itself is a different tactic and seems to be unnerving them somewhat. Whether that proves to be a good thing or not we will have to see....
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
Insurance depends on non-linear utility functions.
The value of avoiding a large loss is greater than the premium times the actual risk.
Understood. Insurance is not worthless because you paid but didn't claim. What you paid for was to be insured.
But one should consider whether being insured is worth it at the cost. If I buy a phone worth £400 and insure it new-for-old for £20 a month with a £200 excess, then the maximum payout I could ever receive is £200, but the annual premiums are £240 a year. There cannot, however, be a 120% likelihood of a claim in any year, nor can it make sense overall to spend £480 over 2 years for the comfort of a £200 payout. You would be better off self-insuring, i.e. you put the same cash aside and then spend it only if needed.
Yep the entire phone market is an odd one, stuff like insuring your home is of course necessary - as is to have at least 3rd party on your car (As unless you can demonstrate several million in the bank potential liabilities are very large indeed). But with your phone they simply aren't that large.. I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly. Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
It's alarming but interesting. NK were very used to the Obama, lets calm things down here, let's try and find compromises, lets try and buy off the problem approach.
Why? Just about every country south of the UK in the EU has an ID card. I've got one here.
They'll already have done this at home. Why would they think twice about doing it a second time?
Edit: williamglenn has just deleted his retweet of a Chapmann comment about Amber Rudd going down "in infamy" for insisting "3.2M EU residents will be fingerprinted". So my response is left rather high and dry
Mr. L, are those datasets pre- or post-alteration (not being sarcastic, they revise temperature figures, and the vast majority of the time increase the figures)?
Also, scepticism about global warming is not the equivalent of not believing in gravity. The Earth's climate is immensely complex and within the narrow span of human history we've seen it vary massively without any industrial input at all.
The idea consensus means a theory is beyond challenge is far more unscientific because it suggests dogma rather than scepticism is the way we should look at existing theories.
I'm happy to leave science to the scientists rather than retired politicians on either side of the debate. If the scientific consensus is wrong then science will fix it. That is what happened with the MMR vaccine scare, and it is what happened with gravity.
The scientific consensus was that Thalidomide was fine. Eventually this was corrected, but only after irreversible harm had occurred.
Just what irreversible harm is done by developing new sources of energy and more efficient batteries ?
Well, deaths, obviously.
Green initiatives are not benignly limited to new sources of energy and more efficient batteries. It was green concerns that led to the dieselisation of Europe which we now know has caused thousands of deaths that petrol would not have caused. Green taxes make heating your home more expensive and have led to fuel poverty, a form of poverty re-invented by environmentalism.
One of the biggest causes of deaths in the third world is indoor air pollution, about which the green movement is all but silent because the solution is LPG.
Diesel is not exactly a new source of energy.
Is *the* solution LPG - and if so, how is "the Green movement" stopping it being employed ? Or is it solar ?
"Green taxes make heating your home more expensive and have led to fuel poverty..." What percentage increase in heating bills do you attribute to UK 'green taxes' - and what reduction to subsidies for insulation ? And please demonstrate that in itself has led to fuel poverty.
If you cannot read posts properly there is no point reading them at all.
And if you can't answer reasonable question with anything but bluster, then there is little point in discussion. I have no idea what point the lengthy, dated and tendentious link you posted is supposed to make here.
Yep the entire phone market is an odd one, stuff like insuring your home is of course necessary - as is to have at least 3rd party on your car (As unless you can demonstrate several million in the bank potential liabilities are very large indeed). But with your phone they simply aren't that large.. I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly. Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
I have a simple way of avoiding phone insurance, which is to buy phones at a cost that I am prepared to pay should they be lost or fail. It means I miss out on some high end features but I mind them less than having to worry about insurance. Houses are different and need to be insured but I will usually go for a high excess just so I don't have to deal with insurers on smallish amounts.
Why? Just about every country south of the UK in the EU has an ID card. I've got one here.
They'll already have done this at home. Why would they think twice about doing it a second time?
Edit: williamglenn has just deleted his retweet of a Chapmann comment about Amber Rudd going down "in infamy" for insisting "3.2M EU residents will be fingerprinted". So my response is left rather high and dry
No, James Chapman deleted his original tweet to correct a spelling mistake so it disappeared but I've edited my post with the updated tweet.
Yep the entire phone market is an odd one, stuff like insuring your home is of course necessary - as is to have at least 3rd party on your car (As unless you can demonstrate several million in the bank potential liabilities are very large indeed). But with your phone they simply aren't that large.. I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly. Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
I used to self insure my own phone, however £10 a month to o2, with a £75 excess on any claim for a phone worth £800 is worth it.
As an example, last December, lost phone at 7pm on Wednesday, had a replacement phone with me before 9am on Thursday, that's less than 3 months of having the phone, and paying less £20 in premiums, I had a replacement, seems like a bargain.
Yep the entire phone market is an odd one, stuff like insuring your home is of course necessary - as is to have at least 3rd party on your car (As unless you can demonstrate several million in the bank potential liabilities are very large indeed). But with your phone they simply aren't that large.. I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly. Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
I used to self insure my own phone, however £10 a month to o2, with a £75 excess on any claim for a phone worth £800 is worth it.
As an example, last December, lost phone at 7pm on Wednesday, had a replacement phone with me before 9am on Thursday, that's less than 3 months of having the phone, and paying less £20 in premiums, I had a replacement, seems like a bargain.
Phone insurance through the networks is generally pretty decent. Orange Care, when Orange still existed, was excellent. I haven't (touch wood) had to claim since it became EE.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
From a geological perspective, the temperature changes we are talking about can, of course, be dismissed as minor, but that is of scant consolation if we make significant portions of the currently inhabited parts of the globe uninhabitable in the near term. From a geological perspective, the current effort towards mitigating climate change is the shortest of short term policies. From a perspective of humanity, a couple of centuries of breathing space, if we can achieve it, is just what we need.
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
"Exactly like"
Do you have a total figure for green subsidies, or an estimate for the payoff ?
It already seems exceedingly likely that both solar power and onshore wind will be able to compete directly on cost, unsubsidised, with fossil fuels within a very few years. In some regions (e.g. Australia) they do already. Offshore wind will follow in maybe another five years. None of that would have happened without subsidies, and the likely benefit will be enjoyed irrespective of global warming mitigation.
So far, not so like mobile phone insurance...
If one adds in even a 5% chance that global warming consensus predictions are correct, then it doesn't look particularly expensive at all.
Well, it's doing a pretty good job so far. Back in 1981, James Hansen, who was head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 32 years, predicted that, by now, the global temperature would have increased by about 0.5 C, and that this increase would be concentrated at the poles. He was pretty much spot on.
Unfortunately he also predicted that New York would be underwater by 2020.
Nope, I can't see any prediction of New York being underwater by 2020:
Sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
Your reference doesn't support your claim, and it is simply wrong to state that sea levels have been rising secularly for a couple of hundred years at least.
It's a religion. To you there are believers and there are heretics.
I did read it, but I could find no mention of 2020. Also, a half-remembered conversation with a reporter doesn't carry quite the same predictive weight as a scientific paper.
You might also note that 1870 is not at least a couple of hundred years ago.
Go look at the rest of the charts on that page. You are insufficiently familiar with your doctrine.
You linked to an image of a graph that started in 1870. That is not "a couple of hundred years at least". What's the point of giving references that don't support what you claim?
Been away for a few days, found it interesting to read the header on UKIP leadership candidates. It seems there's an interesting mix of men, women, gays, lesbians and blacks.
Oh how the luvvies must yearn for the good old days of middle class, middle aged white public schoolboys.
I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly. Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
Why? Just about every country south of the UK in the EU has an ID card. I've got one here.
They'll already have done this at home. Why would they think twice about doing it a second time?
Edit: williamglenn has just deleted his retweet of a Chapmann comment about Amber Rudd going down "in infamy" for insisting "3.2M EU residents will be fingerprinted". So my response is left rather high and dry
Meh. His tweet hasn't become any less bollocks after his spelling fix.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I quite like JRM's suggestion of 'Oligarchs'......after all they're the better off, who know better than the rest of us and are above all that grubby 'democracy' malarky'......
I'm surprised no one's brought up the great horse manure crisis of 1894. The Times predicted that in 20 years time, London's streets would be ten feet high in horse manure. We didn't spend millions on digging ditches to cope with it. Or feeding horses high protein diets to cause constipation.
OK, I'm not suggesting that it's similar to AGW, but the problem I see is the chicken little approach by some of the more fervent Greens.
I have solar panels on my roof, and very profitable they are too (thank you, Mr Millband, sir). Phasing out reliance on other countries' energy is always good, but why ban fracking? Because it sounds 'dirty'?
If you want to rely on science. do so, but the 'precautionary principle' doesn't mean spending as much as is possible and banning everything just in case.
Mr. Eagles, I have a great aversion to telephones. They make me wish I possessed a hammer.
Mr. M, it's the same smiley I used when replying to your Hungary tips.
Very good comeback, Mr D.
By a complete coincidence I have just received an email from Amazon inviting me to submit a review of your latest book. I will attempt something over the weekend depending on the weather. I'm hoping for some ideal tuna fishing conditions.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
The days after Brexit were almost worth it, as all these faux-experts were forced to admit they didn't have a clue. Same with 2008 - all the smug bastards having to admit they didn't know the first thing about the subjects they claim to be experts in.
The worrying thing about this "natural" change is the speed of change and the fact that some areas of the world (and some of the most ecologically significant) are saying the most rapid change and that "tipping points" may be approaching whereby more profound and irreversible change is unleashed.
Can you have an irreversible tipping point that is lower than previous peaks?
Yes.
(...)
Many of us on here are gamblers, and as such would be apt to take a punter's perspective.
Given the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, it would be only sensible to hedge our bets.
That's exactly how phone shops sell phone insurance where the premiums cost more than a new phone, and the payout is less than a new phone.
Insurance depends on non-linear utility functions.
The value of avoiding a large loss is greater than the premium times the actual risk.
Understood. Insurance is not worthless because you paid but didn't claim. What you paid for was to be insured.
. There cannot, however, be a 120% likelihood of a claim in any year, nor can it make sense overall to spend £480 over 2 years for the comfort of a £200 payout. You would be better off self-insuring, i.e. you put the same cash aside and then spend it only if needed.
You've not met my daughters have you? Their insurance for their phones usually ends up being cancelled when they have made the maximum number of claims.
But generally speaking insuring against something that you can readily absorb makes no sense whatsoever.
Agreed, but the latter is perhaps a slightly different point. What I'm on about is that there are instances where the cost of insuring some risk so obviously exceeds the likely loss from that risk that you'd be better off taking the loss, especially as it might not even happen.
Mobile phones are a good example, a lot of Currys-type white product extended warranties are another. Fully comprehensive car insurance is another and used to be quite transparent. I was once quoted £700 to insure a £1000 Ford TPFT or £2,000 fully comp. So far as I could tell the only difference versus TPFT was that if I wrote off my own £1000 car, I could claim, less the excess. So for £1300 extra - upfront! - I could buy the opportunity to have a £750 loss covered.
I still shake my head in disbelief when I see a far Left led Labour party pinching seats like Kensington, Canterbury, Keighley, Colne Valley, Warwick & Leamington, etc. Extraordinary does not begin to describe why the voters of these middle class seats were seduced by Corbyn.
Only a fool now would try to predict the outcome of any future general election if even sensible British Joe public can be this volatile.
You calculate your risks. This is where I don't understand "climate change deniers". It seems to me they are choosing to be sceptical about the wrong things. Instead of challenging the basic science of man made climate change, which is a well understood scientific consensus, similar to, say, the competitive evolution of species, there is a much more profitable argument to be had about prognosis and policy. What are the really bad things that might happen and, importantly, what could we do that has a realistic prospect of avoiding or mitigating those bad things?
One really bad thing that might happen is that you waste trillions of dollars and perhaps millions of lives trying to prevent from happening something that either won't happen or won't even be bad.
For example, you might ban DDT because you imagine it might cause cancer with the result that millions die of malaria.
That's a possibility, but unless you engage on the science on current best understanding you won't be able to calculate whether that risk is worse than rejecting a specific and, as far as we know best, policy
If you are risking trillions of money or millions of lives, the understanding had better be very good indeed, not just one that's been voted on. Environmentalists have a poor record on this on everything from DDT to sulphur in diesel to wood pulp.
I still shake my head in disbelief when I see a far Left led Labour party pinching seats like Kensington, Canterbury, Keighley, Colne Valley, Warwick & Leamington, etc. Extraordinary does not begin to describe why the voters of these middle class seats were seduced by Corbyn.
Only a fool now would try to predict the outcome of any future general election if even sensible British Joe public can be this volatile.
That's part of the problem as to the Tory approach to Corbyn
He isn't a crazy socialist. The more people say that about him, the more the voters see differently for themselves.
It may be much warmer now but, as per for example the R4 piece this morning when we were told that it is the warmest it's been for 100 years, my question is how efficient global temperature readings were 100 years ago.
As attested by the Met Office, even the GISTEMP temperature readings in the modern era, especially their interpolation of observational data over the polar regions, are being glossed over with a large correlation length, and hence cannot be seen as definitive.
I find sea level data, which is evidence of thermal expansion of water, to be very compelling. We know sea levels a century ago with reasonable accuracy. We know them now with incredible accuracy. And they are indisputably meaningfully higher.
Now, this is not evidence of AGW. But it seems to me to be pretty clear evidence that the earth has warmed.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Do you prefer the patronising reverence that the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg have for the working class? Like a latter-day Anthony Wedgwood Benn: a conservationist trying to protect an endangered species.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
Yep the entire phone market is an odd one, stuff like insuring your home is of course necessary - as is to have at least 3rd party on your car (As unless you can demonstrate several million in the bank potential liabilities are very large indeed). But with your phone they simply aren't that large.. I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly. Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
I used to self insure my own phone, however £10 a month to o2, with a £75 excess on any claim for a phone worth £800 is worth it.
As an example, last December, lost phone at 7pm on Wednesday, had a replacement phone with me before 9am on Thursday, that's less than 3 months of having the phone, and paying less £20 in premiums, I had a replacement, seems like a bargain.
The thing is I've had mobile phones for 20 years and never lost one. I've broken one and my daughter aged two dropped on into a glass of water once to see what happened. I replaced with old-for-old (i.e. second-hand items) off eBay, so it feels like I've saved £2,400 over 20 years.
As a general rule I wonder if it is ever wise to buy insurance at the same time as you buy any particular item. You're paying £10 a month. I don't know what phone you've got but there are comparison sites that show you can insure a Samsung for between £5 and £9.50 a month. Your insurance has worked well for you - but should it have been half what you paid for it?
When I bought my last car I was offered gap insurance by the dealer, which seemed well worth having, but I was able to obtain it from a general insurer for 20% of the dealer's price.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Do you prefer the patronising reverence that the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg have for the working class? Like a latter-day Anthony Wedgwood Benn: a conservationist trying to protect an endangered species.
No, I preferred Corbyn's '7/10, it ain't perfect but we're just about best off in' approach myself. Very nearly wavered when the Remain campaign sent those 'ring your Granny and tell her how much being able to travel around Europe means to you!' emails, as if we should make the decision for the comfort of gap-year Tarquins.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
As a general rule I wonder if it is ever wise to buy insurance at the same time as you buy any particular item.
As someone who was involved with two major retailers and helped develop their financial/stock management systems, I can safely say that the one thing the want above all else is to sell you the insurance. The margins are far, far higher on the insurance contract than on the sale of goods. All the systems we wrote and implemented made sure that the point of sale person always followed up on insurance.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
Although it does seem to be attracting less interest from the fakenews posturers than for example chlorinated chicken.
But the big question is how much should we bill the Dutch government, £100bn, £200bn, more ?
The difference is that contaminated eggs are illegal and being stamped out, chlorinated chickens are legal in America and may be the price of being Trumps poodle.
No, the main difference is that the contaminated eggs are potentially harmful, whereas the US washed chicken is actually safer than the EU unwashed chicken: a rather significant point, n'est-ce pas?
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
That's true, maybe because the Leave campaign was generally so cohesive (except for the Lexiters, but I guess only a very few people heard anything from them) and Remain a bizarre coalition drawn from all the 'establishment' with little in common.
I still shake my head in disbelief when I see a far Left led Labour party pinching seats like Kensington, Canterbury, Keighley, Colne Valley, Warwick & Leamington, etc. Extraordinary does not begin to describe why the voters of these middle class seats were seduced by Corbyn.
Only a fool now would try to predict the outcome of any future general election if even sensible British Joe public can be this volatile.
I think the answer is that the real middle class* have been squeezed fairly effectively, and have no love for the folk in charge of the Tories. Mrs Strong and Stable didn't have the pulse of these people as well as she thought.
This is a US chart, but I think we are on the same trajectory of stagnant or declining earnings for most Britons:
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
Yes indeed. The LEAVE campaign could appeal to patriotism, historic greatness and how we were going to revitalise our precious NHS. Is it any wonder that the oldsters stampeded into the polling booth to tick "Leave".
There is an old saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel....
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
I still shake my head in disbelief when I see a far Left led Labour party pinching seats like Kensington, Canterbury, Keighley, Colne Valley, Warwick & Leamington, etc. Extraordinary does not begin to describe why the voters of these middle class seats were seduced by Corbyn.
Only a fool now would try to predict the outcome of any future general election if even sensible British Joe public can be this volatile.
It is not that surprising when Leamington and Canterbury are full of left-wing students and academics and Kensington has plenty of social housing as Grenfell showed
The Tories meanwhile won white working class Stoke South and Mansfield and Walsall North for the first time. Now a far better predictor of voting intention is whether you are a public sector or private sector worker or a student or pensioner, not whether you are middle or working class
James Chapman is clearly having a lot of fun on holiday. There is potentially a gap in the market for a new political party. But it's not an anti-Brexit gap. The gap for a new political party is for one that makes its top priority the welfare of the British people, as opposed to Brexit delusions or a socialist fantasy.
And if you can't answer reasonable question with anything but bluster, then there is little point in discussion. I have no idea what point the lengthy, dated and tendentious link you posted is supposed to make here.
I was needlessly rude there, Nigel - please accept my apologies. I didn't mean to be and I do try not to be.
Let me explain. You asserted that "developing new sources of energy and more efficient batteries" was surely without downsides. I responded that unfortunately green initiatives are not benignly limited to new sources of energy, and cited the wider adoption of diesel - an existing source of energy - as an example of a environmentalist-endorsed initiative that has in fact been damaging.
You then said that "Diesel is not exactly a new source of energy", as though to refute what I had said, which it doesn't. My point is exactly that. The trouble with green initiatives is that environmentalists seize on things or courses of action that are to hand, but that are quite often actually worse than whatever problem they are trying to solve.
Diesel's an obvious example, because in trying to avert global warming in the future, greens have wrecked urban air quality right now. Desulphurisation of road fuel to prevent acid rain was another; the sulphur extracted at refineries is pelletised and used mainly to make H2SO4, which is itself used to make fertiliser, which is added back to crops that need it because it no longer falls out of the sky as rain. The acidity of rain has not decreased, but the cost of fuel has increased. DDT was objected to by environmentalists because they thought it caused cancer, but banning it ensured millions of deaths from malarial insect bites instead.
The precautionary principle should be applied rigorously to the precautions themselves. I see scant evidence that this ever happens, but if you suggest it, you are called a denier. That's the reaction of a zealot to a heretic.
Since the EU referendum UK exports have increased by 11.4%, as British goods and services are in demand across the world, ONS figures show.
In US Dollars or Euros, our exports have declined since the referendum.
I read yesterday somewhere that devaluation doesn't seem to help exports as much as they used to because products are mostly produced in an international system. You would expect as the USD/Euro conversion of the sterling prices fell, that UK products would be more competitive. Actually UK manufacturers have to raise sterling prices to cover their higher input costs. Devaluation of your currency isn't the quick fix it used to be.
My company is part of the international chain and about 80% of our costs are sterling based. The main issue is that setting up a manufacturing chain for a product is often a 5 year project and each supplier is a small part of the overall product. The lower sterling may mean that UK suppliers can be more competitive on new products but it will take upto 5 years before they reach volume. If there is a need to switch purely on labour costs then Asia, S America and N Africa are always going to win on cheap labour.
The short term impact is that our profits are rising as many of our customers pay in dollars or euros. This we can use to invest in our facility so that we can take on more complex projects and improve quality. It will however be a year or so before the investments are complete. In the short term if we do invest this may hurt the trade deficit as the capex we spend is often on imports.
The larger problem the UK faces is that major international companies may not invest in UK facilities to meet European demand due to concerns over trade barriers. If the investment figures stay low then the pound will keep dropping. The services where the UK is strong in are more exposed to non tarrif barriers and controls over people movement than manufacturing. The drop in the pound may therefore not help except to reduce import services demand. i.e. foreign holidays.
Since the EU referendum UK exports have increased by 11.4%, as British goods and services are in demand across the world, ONS figures show.
In US Dollars or Euros, our exports have declined since the referendum.
So in terms of actual numbers of stuff... are we about the same as before? Or a little lower?
Well, it's complicated.
For things that we sell that are commodities, or which are priced in US Dollars or Euros, then we're selling around about the same amount, maybe a little more.
For stuff that's priced in Sterling, we're selling a reasonable amount more, perhaps 5%.
It is notable that, despite Sterling being the worst performing major currency in the last decade (from $2. to $1.30), our export performance (+12% in constant currency) is much worse than - for example - Spain (up more than 60%).
Since the EU referendum UK exports have increased by 11.4%, as British goods and services are in demand across the world, ONS figures show.
In US Dollars or Euros, our exports have declined since the referendum.
So in terms of actual numbers of stuff... are we about the same as before? Or a little lower?
Well, it's complicated.
For things that we sell that are commodities, or which are priced in US Dollars or Euros, then we're selling around about the same amount, maybe a little more.
For stuff that's priced in Sterling, we're selling a reasonable amount more, perhaps 5%.
It is notable that, despite Sterling being the worst performing major currency in the last decade (from $2. to $1.30), our export performance (+12% in constant currency) is much worse than - for example - Spain (up more than 60%).
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
Yes indeed. The LEAVE campaign could appeal to patriotism, historic greatness and how we were going to revitalise our precious NHS. Is it any wonder that the oldsters stampeded into the polling booth to tick "Leave".
There is an old saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel....
James Chapman is clearly having a lot of fun on holiday. There is potentially a gap in the market for a new political party. But it's not an anti-Brexit gap. The gap for a new political party is for one that makes its top priority the welfare of the British people, as opposed to Brexit delusions or a socialist fantasy.
Yeah, it's just that simple. Let's get everybody with a political science degree and they can tell us what rational policies are and we'll just do them. Why hasn't anybody thought of that before? The Journalists' Party!
Reminded of Lenin: ‘You imbeciles, braggarts, idiots, you think that history is made in drawing-rooms where upstart democrats fraternize with titled liberals … Imbeciles, braggarts, idiots! History is made in the trenches where the soldier, possessed by the nightmare of war-madness, plunges his bayonet into the officer’s stomach and then, clinging like grim death to the buffers of a train carriage, escapes to his native village there to set on fire his landlord’s manor.’
James Chapman is clearly having a lot of fun on holiday. There is potentially a gap in the market for a new political party. But it's not an anti-Brexit gap. The gap for a new political party is for one that makes its top priority the welfare of the British people, as opposed to Brexit delusions or a socialist fantasy.
Yeah, it's just that simple. Let's get everybody with a political science degree and they can tell us what rational policies are and we'll just do them. Why hasn't anybody thought of that before? The Journalists' Party!
Reminded of Lenin: ‘You imbeciles, braggarts, idiots, you think that history is made in drawing-rooms where upstart democrats fraternize with titled liberals … Imbeciles, braggarts, idiots! History is made in the trenches where the soldier, possessed by the nightmare of war-madness, plunges his bayonet into the officer’s stomach and then, clinging like grim death to the buffers of a train carriage, escapes to his native village there to set on fire his landlord’s manor.’
James Chapman is clearly having a lot of fun on holiday. There is potentially a gap in the market for a new political party. But it's not an anti-Brexit gap. The gap for a new political party is for one that makes its top priority the welfare of the British people, as opposed to Brexit delusions or a socialist fantasy.
Yeah, it's just that simple. Let's get everybody with a political science degree and they can tell us what rational policies are and we'll just do them. Why hasn't anybody thought of that before? The Journalists' Party!
Reminded of Lenin: ‘You imbeciles, braggarts, idiots, you think that history is made in drawing-rooms where upstart democrats fraternize with titled liberals … Imbeciles, braggarts, idiots! History is made in the trenches where the soldier, possessed by the nightmare of war-madness, plunges his bayonet into the officer’s stomach and then, clinging like grim death to the buffers of a train carriage, escapes to his native village there to set on fire his landlord’s manor.’
James Chapman is clearly having a lot of fun on holiday. There is potentially a gap in the market for a new political party. But it's not an anti-Brexit gap. The gap for a new political party is for one that makes its top priority the welfare of the British people, as opposed to Brexit delusions or a socialist fantasy.
Yeah, it's just that simple. Let's get everybody with a political science degree and they can tell us what rational policies are and we'll just do them. Why hasn't anybody thought of that before? The Journalists' Party!
Reminded of Lenin: ‘You imbeciles, braggarts, idiots, you think that history is made in drawing-rooms where upstart democrats fraternize with titled liberals … Imbeciles, braggarts, idiots! History is made in the trenches where the soldier, possessed by the nightmare of war-madness, plunges his bayonet into the officer’s stomach and then, clinging like grim death to the buffers of a train carriage, escapes to his native village there to set on fire his landlord’s manor.’
"You have to put your Nation before your Country"...
"The Conservative Party will never be in power again"....
As for the Conservatives not winning a majority again, in the foreseeable future he's right.
You mean like how the party that formed the government in 2010 would be 'out of power for a generation'?
Well, probably one of them is.....
I heard the Chapman interview too. He came accross as shouty and ever so slightly mad, I thought. The new party is to be welcomed though, as it's comedic potential promises to be tremendous. Let us hope that the 'Democrats' do not place themselves entirely beyond the reach of satire.
I'm beginning to think that a major reason Leave won is because so many leading Remainers have the 'what a smug bastard, he could use a kick up the arse' factor. Deeper than politics, deeper than ideology, on the level of reflex action and instinct: for anybody with a drop of the old working-class blood left in them the standard Remainer who see on TV is just insufferable.
Definitely a factor, the sneering from these people was so counter-productive.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
Yes indeed. The LEAVE campaign could appeal to patriotism, historic greatness and how we were going to revitalise our precious NHS. Is it any wonder that the oldsters stampeded into the polling booth to tick "Leave".
There is an old saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel....
Comments
You can't help yourself.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/environmentalism-as-religion
My brother has one and it's been a spectacular success. In fact, it's so good that it has protected all of Southend for as long as he's had it.
The value to the insured of avoiding a large loss is greater than the actual risk times the insurer's premium, when the insurer has a much greater bank of wealth.
(Just like TM in Bedford according to OGH)
You campaign where you think you might win, you might lose. (Broadly speaking).
You don't campaign where you think you're definitely going to win (complacency) or lose (realism/defeatism).
Mr Chapman has one thing right - both of the main parties have been captured by their fringes.
Anyway, I have a tax return to do. Have a good morning!
You might also note that 1870 is not at least a couple of hundred years ago.
Ok, I'm going.
Well, probably one of them is.....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/magazine/for-the-new-far-right-youtube-has-become-the-new-talk-radio.html?_r=0
Bye!
And parliament is on holiday. He doesn't need to do anything for a couple of months yet!
But one should consider whether being insured is worth it at the cost. If I buy a phone worth £400 and insure it new-for-old for £20 a month with a £200 excess, then the maximum payout I could ever receive is £200, but the annual premiums are £240 a year. There cannot, however, be a 120% likelihood of a claim in any year, nor can it make sense overall to spend £480 over 2 years for the comfort of a £200 payout. You would be better off self-insuring, i.e. you put the same cash aside and then spend it only if needed.
As this was the 10th anniversary of the start of the financial crisis, I was thinking back to the politics at the time. The economic situation got very big on Labour very quickly and they were behind the curve for a long time which was part of the reason why Cameron was scoring such big leads in 2009. The fact that things settled down a little bit later in 2009 probably helped labour and cost Cameron an outright majority.
There is a small, but not insignificant chance, that there could be global financial turmoil of similar or perhaps greater proportions in the next year or two. I wonder which party would be best placed to ride these out. I am guessing that the Tories would have more to gain, however being the incumbents they would might get blamed for things that they have very little control over similar to the Brown/Darling administration.
As stated, just a small chance of this playing out for now, however not as small a chance as it was a short while ago.
I'm more sceptical than you about the fake 'science' but I'd also say that I'm more positive that advances in technology - whatever the driving and motivating forces behind them - are definitely taking us in a positive and cleaner direction.
"But Mr. Trump has indicated that he does not want to rely on deterrence for a country he sees as bellicose and unpredictable."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/world/asia/north-korea-military-options-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
For example, you might ban DDT because you imagine it might cause cancer with the result that millions die of malaria.
But generally speaking insuring against something that you can readily absorb makes no sense whatsoever.
But with your phone they simply aren't that large..
I can only conclude the market for most phone insurance is for people who can't really manage their money properly in the first place or who don't understand risk properly.
Admittedly that is probably quite a large market anyhow !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/us-developing-missile-shield-to-guard-against-nuclear-attack-fro/
They'll already have done this at home. Why would they think twice about doing it a second time?
Edit: williamglenn has just deleted his retweet of a Chapmann comment about Amber Rudd going down "in infamy" for insisting "3.2M EU residents will be fingerprinted". So my response is left rather high and dry
I have no idea what point the lengthy, dated and tendentious link you posted is supposed to make here.
As an example, last December, lost phone at 7pm on Wednesday, had a replacement phone with me before 9am on Thursday, that's less than 3 months of having the phone, and paying less £20 in premiums, I had a replacement, seems like a bargain.
Even Dave didn't lose those seats when he was 'pissing off his base' as the Maybots kept on telling us.
Do you have a total figure for green subsidies, or an estimate for the payoff ?
It already seems exceedingly likely that both solar power and onshore wind will be able to compete directly on cost, unsubsidised, with fossil fuels within a very few years. In some regions (e.g. Australia) they do already. Offshore wind will follow in maybe another five years.
None of that would have happened without subsidies, and the likely benefit will be enjoyed irrespective of global warming mitigation.
So far, not so like mobile phone insurance...
If one adds in even a 5% chance that global warming consensus predictions are correct, then it doesn't look particularly expensive at all.
If there is: one of them here -->
Oh how the luvvies must yearn for the good old days of middle class, middle aged white public schoolboys.
Mr. M, it's the same smiley I used when replying to your Hungary tips.
OK, I'm not suggesting that it's similar to AGW, but the problem I see is the chicken little approach by some of the more fervent Greens.
I have solar panels on my roof, and very profitable they are too (thank you, Mr Millband, sir). Phasing out reliance on other countries' energy is always good, but why ban fracking? Because it sounds 'dirty'?
If you want to rely on science. do so, but the 'precautionary principle' doesn't mean spending as much as is possible and banning everything just in case.
By a complete coincidence I have just received an email from Amazon inviting me to submit a review of your latest book. I will attempt something over the weekend depending on the weather. I'm hoping for some ideal tuna fishing conditions.
For those who haven't yet enjoyed it:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073WGRF3W
The days after Brexit were almost worth it, as all these faux-experts were forced to admit they didn't have a clue. Same with 2008 - all the smug bastards having to admit they didn't know the first thing about the subjects they claim to be experts in.
Mobile phones are a good example, a lot of Currys-type white product extended warranties are another. Fully comprehensive car insurance is another and used to be quite transparent. I was once quoted £700 to insure a £1000 Ford TPFT or £2,000 fully comp. So far as I could tell the only difference versus TPFT was that if I wrote off my own £1000 car, I could claim, less the excess. So for £1300 extra - upfront! - I could buy the opportunity to have a £750 loss covered.
https://labourlist.org/2017/08/head-or-heart-new-polling-analysis-shows-brexit-may-be-changing-how-people-vote/
Only a fool now would try to predict the outcome of any future general election if even sensible British Joe public can be this volatile.
He isn't a crazy socialist. The more people say that about him, the more the voters see differently for themselves.
Now, this is not evidence of AGW. But it seems to me to be pretty clear evidence that the earth has warmed.
https://twitter.com/jameschappers/status/895960444774567937
https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/895949634568409089
https://twitter.com/DemocratChapman
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/brexit-slump-hits-luxury-london-homes-with-mansion-asking-price-halved-to-4m-a3609366.html
As a general rule I wonder if it is ever wise to buy insurance at the same time as you buy any particular item. You're paying £10 a month. I don't know what phone you've got but there are comparison sites that show you can insure a Samsung for between £5 and £9.50 a month. Your insurance has worked well for you - but should it have been half what you paid for it?
When I bought my last car I was offered gap insurance by the dealer, which seemed well worth having, but I was able to obtain it from a general insurer for 20% of the dealer's price.
I'm not sure it was a major reason, though, there were several bigger. I think the biggest factor of all is that the Remain campaign never gave a reason to vote Remain, it was all about why not to vote Leave.
This is a US chart, but I think we are on the same trajectory of stagnant or declining earnings for most Britons:
https://twitter.com/Atul_Gawande/status/894952672490598400
*as opposed to the newspaper columnists "middle class" struggling to find a good nanny, or to finda an affordable holiday home in Salcombe.
Does the news paper mention that factor? Estate agents do!
(unable to access Evening Std online).
There is an old saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel....
The Tories meanwhile won white working class Stoke South and Mansfield and Walsall North for the first time. Now a far better predictor of voting intention is whether you are a public sector or private sector worker or a student or pensioner, not whether you are middle or working class
https://twitter.com/NewUKDemocrat
Meanwhile Chappers is outlining his new party's policies.
All schools to be free schools, VAT on private education, pension reforms, HoL reform, PR for commons etc etc
Let me explain. You asserted that "developing new sources of energy and more efficient batteries" was surely without downsides. I responded that unfortunately green initiatives are not benignly limited to new sources of energy, and cited the wider adoption of diesel - an existing source of energy - as an example of a environmentalist-endorsed initiative that has in fact been damaging.
You then said that "Diesel is not exactly a new source of energy", as though to refute what I had said, which it doesn't. My point is exactly that. The trouble with green initiatives is that environmentalists seize on things or courses of action that are to hand, but that are quite often actually worse than whatever problem they are trying to solve.
Diesel's an obvious example, because in trying to avert global warming in the future, greens have wrecked urban air quality right now. Desulphurisation of road fuel to prevent acid rain was another; the sulphur extracted at refineries is pelletised and used mainly to make H2SO4, which is itself used to make fertiliser, which is added back to crops that need it because it no longer falls out of the sky as rain. The acidity of rain has not decreased, but the cost of fuel has increased. DDT was objected to by environmentalists because they thought it caused cancer, but banning it ensured millions of deaths from malarial insect bites instead.
The precautionary principle should be applied rigorously to the precautions themselves. I see scant evidence that this ever happens, but if you suggest it, you are called a denier. That's the reaction of a zealot to a heretic.
My company is part of the international chain and about 80% of our costs are sterling based. The main issue is that setting up a manufacturing chain for a product is often a 5 year project and each supplier is a small part of the overall product. The lower sterling may mean that UK suppliers can be more competitive on new products but it will take upto 5 years before they reach volume. If there is a need to switch purely on labour costs then Asia, S America and N Africa are always going to win on cheap labour.
The short term impact is that our profits are rising as many of our customers pay in dollars or euros. This we can use to invest in our facility so that we can take on more complex projects and improve quality. It will however be a year or so before the investments are complete. In the short term if we do invest this may hurt the trade deficit as the capex we spend is often on imports.
The larger problem the UK faces is that major international companies may not invest in UK facilities to meet European demand due to concerns over trade barriers. If the investment figures stay low then the pound will keep dropping. The services where the UK is strong in are more exposed to non tarrif barriers and controls over people movement than manufacturing. The drop in the pound may therefore not help except to reduce import services demand. i.e. foreign holidays.
For things that we sell that are commodities, or which are priced in US Dollars or Euros, then we're selling around about the same amount, maybe a little more.
For stuff that's priced in Sterling, we're selling a reasonable amount more, perhaps 5%.
It is notable that, despite Sterling being the worst performing major currency in the last decade (from $2. to $1.30), our export performance (+12% in constant currency) is much worse than - for example - Spain (up more than 60%).
Reminded of Lenin: ‘You imbeciles, braggarts, idiots, you think that history is made in drawing-rooms where upstart democrats fraternize with titled liberals … Imbeciles, braggarts, idiots! History is made in the trenches where the soldier, possessed by the nightmare of war-madness, plunges his bayonet into the officer’s stomach and then, clinging like grim death to the buffers of a train carriage, escapes to his native village there to set on fire his landlord’s manor.’
(Good opportunity to repost this: https://i.imgur.com/icZ129g.png)
http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/press/25554.aspx
http://www.prweek.com/article/1417671/journalists-politicians-languish-latest-public-trust-index
How is it not a Ponzi scheme?