Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

Labour Party membership - recently joined for the post-Corbyn era - finally received a membership card - only just noticed I had to activate my membership online. Mentioning this in case anyone else didn’t notice.

... there could well be a move to hydrogen powered transport (lorries and trains) before HS2 is even finished, let alone before further HS projects even leave the planning stage.

Johnson also needs to show his northern voters tangible results well before the next GE and scrapping HS2 gives him the money to fund far smaller transport & other projects.

I live in the county next door to bucks - and there would be huge celebrations if hs2 was scraped . The environmental cost is huge - wanting time bulldoze ancient woodlands etc. I realise there is a huge aspect of NIMBY-ism, but it just seems really poorly thought through.

"Axe HS2 in the South" makes as much sense as "Axe Crossrail in the middle" and just have stop at Paddington and Liverpool St.

People's priority in the North is getting to work on time and reliably. This isn't a reality. The local services particularly on the pennine routes have a lot more day to day relevance to ordinary people. They don't see the point in HS2 because they don't have immediate need for it. They won't use the service themselves. It doesn't matter how much extra business HS2 brings to the north if people are still struggling to get to their jobs because of poor connections elsewhere. The primary problem is a lack of basic transport infrastructure not a souped up connection to London.

.or building new steam trains in the 1950s designed to run to the end of the century.

I think something akin to that actually happened.

There is also the "M25" phenomenon. The more capacity you provide, the faster it will be used up. The M25 created more traffic than it ever alleviated.

But what can you do ? It's the work of a few press releases and a compliant (if not complicit) media to bludgeon people into thinking that what they are getting is what the public wants, when in reality what people are getting is what the politicians want. And politicians want it mainly because it bankrolls their bent buddies in the business.

Maybe because IT was a relatively new industry it was easier to spot the scams, but I've become quite adept as picking up projects where the solution was prepared before the first requirement was defined. The ID card fiasco of yesteryear is a cracking example. All of the problems it was supposed to solve could have been easily and cheaply addressed with a bare bones scheme.

Brexit itself is another example. Someone, somewhere started with "let's leave the EU" and then just backfilled a load of slogans into the reasons why.

DS go and work in Vegas and become a US citizen. I think mine and DWs bloodline in Britain is dead.

Simple equity would say that rail investment needs to be in the North - there is no issue with current london/Birmingham capacity (the secret Chiltern line notwithstanding)

HS2 is aimed at future capacity based on predictions pre recognition of the climate emergency - going forwards we must travel less - that's why broadband investment is vital - as is research and delivery of better virtual conferencing - not that I have any hope of that happening given the 4 year horizon of our politicians and their cosiness with the legacy lobby.

It's no use trying to use a climate emergency to spur our leaders into action. That's like trying to warn Hitler that his policies in 1935-1938 "might lead to war". Now a dividend emergency and they'd be burning the midnight oil.

I imagine the MSM are creaming themselves at how much more "news" the climate crisis has helped them shift. After all, where there's suffering, there's headlines. As H&M are so perfectly demonstrating.

...building new steam trains in the 1950s designed to run to the end of the century.
I think something akin to that actually happened.

It did. No money for electrification, and deisel had to be imported and paid for in dollars, all of which had to go back to Uncle Sam who sold us the bullets. And there would always be coal.

It was the era of the Bristol Brabazon, the Short Princess jet-powered flying boat, and ultimately the dear old Comet with the square windows.

More recently, the ATP, spookily similar to the TSR2 in appearance, suffered a very similar fate, because a few journos got their coffee spilt after the govt. rushed it into service too early. Woulda bin great.

I have increasingly come round to the point of view that building extra road infrastructure (especially motorways) just increases road usage (the old "build it and they will come") as people then think that they can live further away and commute.

The exceptions are safety and very obvious road arteries.

So, for example, the route between Glasgow and Edinburgh - which, believe it or not was only fully turned to motorway in 2017, with the "missing link" of the M8 - made absolute sense economically and on safety grounds (given the accidents due to the lack of a hard shoulder).

Ditto with some bypasses, to stop heavy traffic going through the centre of towns and villages.

But more needs to be done at the design stage to discourage very short trips on them.

And it should be done alongside upgrades in public transport. And to stop making it cheaper to go by car (even just petrol costs - as most people see the cost of the car as a "sunk" cost so don't take depreciation into account) even if there is only one person in the car

But that would require an integrated transport strategy

No, the MSM are reporting the climate emergency as little as possible, for obvious reasons.
The Murdoch-owned Australian had it on page 4 on the worst day of the fires.
They are also pushing disinformation about the cause of the fires both in the press and through targeted facebook ads.
I honestly think it should be criminal.

I see the UK now has to "be prepared to go to war without the US"

Not quite sure I could have imagined a sentence as bland and distressing as that a year ago. And that's putting aside the fact that one of the reasons for Brexit was (supposedly) to withdraw from a European defence initiative. So the only conclusion I can draw is that the UK is going to have to upscale it's military to be able to take on the next two countries below it in the pecking order simultaneously. Assuming (which would be strategically naive to say the least) we aren't then envisaging taking on the US, Russia, China or India.

Oh, and did anyone catch the news that it's now OK to point out there seems to be no appetite for Brexit (just to keep on topic).

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-poll-remain-eu-boris-johnson-leave-bmg-poll-a9279996.html

The BMG survey for The Independent found that with less than three weeks to go before Brexit Day on 31 January, voters are split by the highly symbolic margin of 52-48 per cent in favour of Remain – the reverse of the result of the 2016 referendum.

Participants also expected Brexit to be bad for the economy, the NHS, the unity of the UK and Britain’s place in the world over the next two years. Almost three in 10 (29 per cent) expected to be personally worse off as a result of EU withdrawal, while just 15 per cent expected their finances to be improved.

Anyone who is contemplating investments in road infrastructure without some sort of strategy for autonomous vehicles is a fucking moron. (Looks at UK government. Point proved).

A hell of a lot of talking the talk though.

The problem is the future with autonomous vehicles must terrify some vested interests. But, no worry. Head in sand will see us through. It always has. And if that fails ... well, we still speak ENGLISH goddamnit.

3D Printing is version 1.0 of the Star Trek replicatior. (Gene Roddenberry was bang on the money with Cmmunicators and Tricorders.)

The future of production may be small local Copyshops where you download a design for a thing and they knock it off for you on the spot.

And there would always be coal.

Now the Swiss electrified their railways back in the 1930s because they knew they did not have reliable supplies of coal.

The future of production may be small local Copyshops where you download a design for a thing and they knock it off for you on the spot.

I flagged that up 8 years ago in a strategy report. The (car) insurance industry was licking it's lips at the thought of expensive plastic doohickeys becoming dirt cheap. Meanwhile the manufacturers were having an apoplexy for exactly the same reasons. If you want to know why fuck all has happened, you need to look to our (well, to be more specific US) not-fit-for-purpose copyright and patent laws.

It's been possible to 3-D print a bloody nice house at a fraction the cost of conventional building for a while now (and probably 100 times better quality). But again, vested interests would much rather you didn't.

.

So many case-studies of what happens to businesses who refuse to adapt.

Take the British motorcycle industry. Wouldn't put on an electric starter because it was namby-pampy softie stuff, and bikers were dead hard. Laughed at plastic Japanese bikes that never went wrong. Constant maintenance was all part of the appeal of a bike. (Have you greased your nipples?)

Catching up with stuff my PVR had put to one side for me, I caught this :

www.channel4.com/programmes/nazi-war-machines-secrets-uncovered

It's well worth a watch for anyone interested in industry, innovation, and war. (As well as the sight in E4 of the German with 1,700+ working guns in his house. Just a nod to the UK gun law discussion ...).

There emerges a recurring theme that the Germans made things too good. Which sounds like an advantage, but the reality was they had masses of kit unsuited to the practicalities of the campaigns they were fighting. With predictable results.

Quite a few of the planes they mention are shown from Cosford (and to answer a previous poster, yes, been many times. Along with Wroxeter )

So many case-studies of what happens to businesses who refuse to adapt.

I don't need a case study. I worked for one. Apparently the internet was a passing fad, and people over 50 would always buy in person or on the phone "like they always have done.". That was in 2005. Of course in 2020, a 50 year was 35 in 2005, and now has no other way than the internet. (Political parties should note too ....)

Its one reason why I know accessibility issues with tech will be fixed.

Haven't posted here in ages. I need to share this with you. I've just met Sir Oliver Letwin in town, I couldn't believe it was him because it's no where near his former constituency. I went up to him, shook his hand and told him I was a great admirer of his and thank you for all he's done
That made my day

I find Rebecca Long Bailey utterly unappealing because she has a very sour face - she always looks grumpy even if she is saying valid things
and she is a Corbynite - when that has been shown to be electorally toxic

re the the MSM not reporting stuff
they do
but you have to accept that tabloids have never and will never report serious stories

the FT, the NYT, the WSJ, the Graun and the Times (and C4 news and Sky and the BBC and ITN and Reuters and PA and CNN) are all covering the international stories

part of the problem is people who choose to get their news through apps that filter on a most read algorithm

I start with google news and then check out the full websites
my kids do not
so they will send me a FB link saying "nobody is covering this"
and I send them the multiple links proving them wrong

Beales coughing up blood

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51083396

Three magnificent art deco 1930s department stores in Bournemouth and they'll all be closed soon: Beales, Debenhams, House of Fraser.

Three magnificent art deco 1930s department stores in Bournemouth and they'll all be closed soon: Beales, Debenhams, House of Fraser.

If there was really a housing crisis, they'd be turned into some form of residential accommodation to help people who need to live in the city.

But they won't. So there isn't. DEQ.

Sadly such buildings are utterly unsuitable for conversion to housing ....
They would need rewiring, re plumbing, ceiling heights altered, all new windows and insulation ....
New York style 'lofts' might work in New York,
but that was in the 70's when property was much cheaper
nowadays converting heritage buildings only works at the > £1m a flat mark