darrenm

Carbon capture of 2 billion trees : Impossible! Where are the 700 people to plant the trees going to come from?

Vanity project railway that won't help climate change a lot : 34,000 jobs, 16,000 already employed, massive amounts of land force purchased through compulsory purchase orders

I get the feeling that some people aren't very serious about the climate emergency.

Quote

 

To date, HS2 has supported 16,000 jobs. We’ve announced 22,000 further jobs, with more big contracts and jobs to come.  And, 2,000 businesses have already worked on the project. 95% of contracts are going to UK-based businesses; 60% with small and medium sized businesses (SME) and over 1,000 direct SME contracts.

At peak construction, over 34,000 people will be needed to design and build the railway. Over 500 of the 2,000 expected apprentices are already on board.

 

https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/jobs-skills/

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I did it based on 2030, and 2 billion trees as per the date and quantity in your post. Yeah extend the timescale by 10 years and the numbers are less daunting. That tweet is not supporting what you posted. so back at ya!

seriously though we are short of seasonal agricultural workers, never mind full time, never mind that it needs to be done with soft ground, no frost, no raging heat etc. It’s sadly as pie in the sky as 50000 nurses
 

2b by 2040 was always the promise. It really wouldn't be difficult to find and train up 1000 people across the UK to plant them.

1 minute ago, Seat68 said:

British people, a number of British people, working that hard to plant consistently 100k trees a day. We struggle to get British people picking a punnet of strawberries. 

Good job that Labour were promising either BRINO or no brexit through a 2nd ref and we've have plenty of EU workers then.

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

Nah. Maitliss is right. They’re both utterly fanciful, unfortunately. Do the maths. Do the area calculations. Do the logistics, the disease inspection, the watering, the pest control…

Even if you can’t find 50000 nurses, but you somehow found 50000 tree planters they’d each have to plant 14 trees a day every day of the year for the next 8 years. 

Sorry mate, I'm going to break one of my rules and outright say you're wrong this one  

https://medium.com/uk-politics-today/can-labour-really-plant-2-billion-trees-by-2040-dc08c20425f

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But if we were to look solely at the area available to plant trees, we could assume a maximum of 222,125 km² — that’s 91.6% of the total UK land area of 242,495 km². Obviously this is an extreme upper limit, which would take the UK’s forest cover back to pre-Neolithic levels. But it’s possible. If we go on the 3m x 3m grid for 2 billion trees, that requires an area of just 18,000 km², which would bring the UK’s forest cover up to 20.4%, still way behind the rest of Europe. 2 billion is actually looking very achievable. Of course, we won’t be planting trees in a perfect grid, and it’s actually better to be a little more random.

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

That's what's caused the dilemma, I think - "modern populism". It's what the Tories do (and UKIPS and others). It's also detectable that on the internets (as opposed to real life) a lot of the left-wing stuff is all about identity politics - so one party, the right, is appealing to and inflaming base instincts around Europe, Immigration, Refugees, scroungers and stuff, and then the other party is caught up in endless factional bickering about identity and what is pure (while indulging in some pretty hateful stuff against individuals - for example , seeing as we were talking about the Unite election, the winner got loads of vile misogynistic abuse from left wingers demanding she stand down for Steve Turner).

The notion that Starmer or anyone, frankly, can unify Labour is for the fairies - social media stuff around every world event or story is (on the left at least, I don't tend to look at the right wing stuff on it) utterly argumentative and fragmented into silos calling anyone who uses nuance, or who thinks differently all kinds of terrible names.

Personally, I think you're right that the Labour leader should set out a message of hope based on how things could and should be different, but with a big caveat, in that it needs to be credible. Everyone can promise apple pie and motherhood, but you need to show exactly how you can make the pie and that you can actually cook. I suspect that Starmer is emphasising the "I can cook" part, but is missing the sales pitch on the pie itself.

I broadly agree. Just a couple of things. I haven't seen any abuse to Sharon Graham from the left. I saw plenty of people saying she should stand down for Steve Turner when Howard Beckett did. It was through a very real danger of splitting the left vote. Good for her she didn't, lots of egg on faces. I don't think (yes, Twitter is cesspit at all times, football Twitter is the absolute worst) there was anything beyond 'it looks like Turner has the best chance, please don't split the vote' which isn't misogynistic or abusive.

And the pie in the sky stuff is pie in the sky for some people, absolutely desperately needed for others. Climate change - most people might think carbon neutral by 2050 is credible, 2030 isn't. The reality is it's already too late and the crazy weather is only going to get crazier. Wealth gaps are growing at an alarming rate, housing crisis only getting worse all the time. What might be seen as radical is usually not enough. How does Joe Public know what's realistic or not? They have clueless political commentators telling them it isn't, exhibit a:

2 billion trees was perfectly reasonable and would have massively helped get us carbon neutral by 2030. 50,000 nurses was proven utter nonsense. People like Maitlis saying the 2 were comparable which means she thinks 2 billion trees was nonsense too is why people only look for 'credible' promises that the existing groupthink allows to be credible. 'Don't say what needs to be said, they won't vote for you' only leads to the world continuing to burn, the emperor continuing to think he's wearing clothes and the elephant continuing to stand there.

9 minutes ago, bickster said:

Sorry I haven't had time to read the whole post yet as I'm rather busy in work but this point is not true either. By the measure used in the tweet that started this conversation. The YouGov approval rating, Starmer's numbers have had a slight upturn since mid April, Which again makes the original tweet utter rubbish, its figures aren't correct and the latest data does not show his current approval rating to be at it's lowest, it isn't. Look it up on YouGov if you don't believe me.

Yep, you're right that he has been lower and recovered but the trend is still "falling lower and lower" https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating

1 hour ago, blandy said:

So a question for Labour is how to get people like him to not vote Tory, or do they just ignore that type of person as a lost cause?

That's where I think Labour's strategy is old fashioned, over simplistic and doesn't account for modern populism.

People who've been in politics before the 21st century would say that yes, of course you have to try and encourage voters to vote for you by giving them what they want. I'd counter that people like that aren't saying what they want. They're saying stuff they don't really believe because they think it's what everyone else believes. Ask them if we should take in more refugees and they'll say no. Drive them to the south coast and get them to turn a dinghy around and they'll have a sudden change of heart.

So you shouldn't pander to views that aren't for the betterment of the country or the world even. You should never encourage 'legitimate concerns'. You shouldn't say 'a bit of racism is OK if it gets us elected'.

So, yes, ignore that type of person as a lost cause. Because while you try to chase them, they always will be. When you have a strong, positive message of change and hope, they'll come to you.

9 hours ago, bickster said:

So you are saying any other leader? Are you really sure about that? How about DIanne Abbott? or maybe Jess Phillips? Or even Wes Streeting? or even John McDonald? 4 names off the top of my head from both sides of the party that I'd wager would actually be doing worse. In fact I just looked up the former leaders ratings on YouGov for the sake of comparison, he was in the -60 territory

 

We also have a problem with what ther tweet actually says.It says this is Starmers lowest favourabilty ever even though the actual stats presented state that its exactly the same as last time except that 3% more people find him favourable than last time and 3% more people find him unfavourable, thats net exactly the same as last time

It's a meme. Here's roughly how it came about:

Labour have been on a downward trend since the 1950s, bucked massively by Blair in 1997 and less so by Corbyn in 2017. Every election since 1997 had them losing vote share until losing the elections in 2010 and 2015. Corbyn got the party back to parity in 2017 (around 40/40 with the Tories) and then inevitably slid back away when not in an election campaign.

Lots of people who are hailed as being political experts then realigned their expectations of where Labour had recently been and where they should be. According to them, 2017's hung parliament happened because there's 2 big parties who should be neck and neck, ignoring the entire last decade of Labour being behind the Tories almost all of the time. People like James O'Brien, Ian Dunt, Dan Hodges, all of the journalists and political commentators whose entire career is knowing how politics works were still convinced that Corbyn was the problem and that Labour would be wiping the floor with the Tories if they changed the leader. Some of them forcefully proclaimed: 

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/passionate-listener-denies-labour-antisemitism/

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(James O'Brien): "You are the reason why, because you've got a party led by a man who has the moral integrity of a Kit Kat and yet somehow has managed to persuade significant swathes of decent people that he speaks for decency.

"No he doesn't, he's a disgrace. And if the Labour Party was led by anybody else it would be 20 points ahead in the polls."

 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/george-osborne-labour-would-be-20-points-ahead-of-the-tories-if-jeremy-corbyn-wasnt-leader

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(George Osborne): "In my view for all his ability to connect to younger and more disillusioned voters, Jeremy Corbyn remains the biggest obstacle to Labour winning an election. If the party was led by a more moderate social democrat of even middling ability then they would now be 20 points ahead in the polls and on the cusp of power."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-41952976

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Tony Blair: 'Labour should be 20 points ahead in polls'
Former prime minister Tony Blair has said that Labour should be much further ahead in the opinion polls than it is now, suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn isn't capitalising on the problems facing the government

(coincidentally, Labour were 6 points ahead when Tony made that 'rare' intervention above)

While all of these political heavyweights were saying this, lots of other people were saying 'hold on, it's not that simple. Labour's problems are decades in the making and the problem isn't the leader' but they were rebuffed. Even a lot of the left who were happy with Corbyn (myself included although I consider myself centrist) believed that with another leader with fewer targets on their back from their history of taking questionable sides, then Labour could pull ahead if they kept the right policies. Starmer could only have won the leadership election with the left believing this and voting for him with his 10 pledges/jokes.

Now that Starmer just keeps falling lower and lower in the popularity ratings (yes, nowhere near the previous leader yet but that's not the point) and the party is no better off in the polls, it turns out that the Twittersphere bubble shitposters had better insight than Tony Blair, George Osborne and James O'Brien and all of the others who said similar things about the previous leader being the problem. There's quite a bit of frustration at being ignored, then being proven right and then still being ignored. Hence the meme 'any other leader would be 20 points ahead'.

With any other leader Labour would be 20 points ahead

This ref is awful. Not every challenge has to result in a free kick one way or the other.

Barrow are towards the bottom of the 2nd div (4th tier). Not quite as good as Walsall. Our u23s should destroy them. A mix of kids and 2nd string squad members should win at a canter.

Just now, Davkaus said:

It's very easy to say, but how do you get money directly to the people without it being siphoned off by the people who run the country? We've not managed it in decades in other countries, how are we going to do it in Afghanistan?

Dunno, all I was doing was clarifying what was said. The claim was "calling for the UK to pay the Taliban damages" which isn't correct.

On 18/08/2021 at 14:59, blandy said:

Still, when you've got some Labour clowns (the usual brain dead suspects) calling for the UK to pay the Taliban damages

Just for the sake of accuracy, no-one called for the Taliban to be paid damages. Burgon (who I assume you're referring to) said we need to make sure reparations go directly to the Afghan people (i.e. making sure it doesn't go to the Taliban)

You can listen for yourself here 

When things get misrepresented in the media, it's important to set the record straight. Otherwise, no-one is ever able to make a nuanced point without it being easily distorted and then repeated by those who accept it without question.

2 hours ago, Chindie said:

Not that there's any justice in the world, but this should become one of those iconic images that sinks a career.

It's a chop. It says Happy Toast on the shelf.

11 hours ago, The_Rev said:

Did anybody get tickets in the local area priority ballot?  I applied for the Rugby 7s gold medal day and got some.  I don't think it would have been as popular an event as some of the athletics medals days though. 

Everyone I know who applied got some. I applied for 4 different events and ticked the auto upgrade if not available and got none.

I emailed them to ask why I didn't get any even though I ticked the 'whip me' option and they gave a stock response of sorry you've been unsuccessful.

39 minutes ago, blandy said:

the comparison is not one of @darrenm's better ones, IMO

It is your opinion obviously but I completely disagree. I don't see any moral ambiguity whatsoever.

39 minutes ago, bickster said:

The disconnect between what you quoted of mine to what you posted is so large I'm going to assume you were replying to someone else and made an error

Is it? You said Socialist Appeal are basically a front for a political organisation pretending to be a newspaper. So is The Times but at the opposite end with far more power and blood on their hands.

42 minutes ago, bickster said:

Socialist Appeal = Trotskyite Marxist Political Party. Formed when Militant split in two in the 1990 (the Ted Grant half of Militant). Militant split over entryism. Ted Grant maintained the need for entryism as espoused by Trotsky, whereas the other half didn't

Of the 4 banned orgs this one should actually be the least shocking. They aren't in the Labour Party to further the aims of the Labour Party, they are in the Labour Party to recruit for the Marxist Revolution they desire. The Labour Party is of no consequence to them. It is a separate Political Party with aims in conflict with the Labour Party, just like Militant were. This is the half of Militant that maintained the policies of Militant

They even come out with the same bollocks, Socialist Appeal is a Newspaper and its supporters organise around the Newspaper. (replace Militant and exactly the same was said in the 80s)

The Times = News Corp. Owned by the Murdochs including Rupert Murdoch, one of the most effective forces for bad and ruiner of social cohesion in the 20th and 21st century. News Corp hacked dead children's voicemail along with many other people in the public eye.

The current CEO is Rebekah Brooks, a core figure during the phone hacking scandal.

News Corp newspapers regularly demonise minorities and use any kind of hate device they can to create conflict and culture wars. They're a racism factory pretending to be a media conglomerate.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-interview-prime-minister-boris-johnson-8qgxhq9pb 

Quote

INTERVIEW
Keir Starmer: ‘I’m not like Boris Johnson. There’s almost nothing we have in common’
Has the Labour leader really got what it takes to be prime minister? He tells Decca Aitkenhead about his challenging first year and why he’s trailing behind in the polls

I'd hate to be Keir Starmer when Keir Starmer discovers the background of The Times.

Just started watching Game of Thrones again so I know what's going on this time.

Episode 1 is just pure exposition. Even then it's not enough.

On 22/08/2021 at 10:08, bickster said:

From the above link. The actual words said by Starmer not the spin put on it by a journalist

There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the two

 

 

Wow. If the Corbynite policies were the starting point and the scale of the challenge is now even greater then I'm really excited to see the proper radical stuff he'll be coming up with. Abolish capitalism? UBI? Everything government or public procured to be state owned? That's the only way it can go, from his own words.

On 22/08/2021 at 10:15, Davkaus said:

I guess the question is, what does he intend to compromise on, what does he percieve to be the issues that are stopping Labour winning.

Whatever Claire Ainsley says the homogeneous group called 'The Working Class' wants this week. Last week it was some bloke shouting "why won't you all just work together?!" in the Question Time audience so naturally that's what The Working Class wants.

Have Brentford got anybody dangerous or are they relegation fodder?

I'm going (yay). Taking the train for the first time ever. Where's good to drink from Aston station to the ground?

14 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Just watched that Contagion movie in full, never saw the end. Wow, closer than I thought to what we are/were going through, even started with a bat. 

I wonder if they will ever find the true cause, an investigation don't really seem priority, although I guess your getting nothing from the Chinese.

Matt Hancock even admitted that seeing the ending of that film and how the nation's fought over vaccine supplies panicked him into the huge order and partnership with AstraZeneca. I completely believe it happened like that.

25 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

As much as I disliked the way Labour went about the whole proscribing issue, that guy seems to be massively misrepresenting what actually happened. Said meeting was uploaded to YouTube by LIE about two days later, a meeting which had quite a few anti-semites in it, and in which he spoke for a few minutes and mentioned that the Labour Left should set up a rival Conference to the official Labour Conference, so not just attending it. Although the video barely has any views, it's not unreasonable to think that someone at Labour HQ went through all their videos when they were going through the proscribing process and got a screenshot from there.

To use his analogy, it would be like getting annoyed that someone thought you were a Leyton Orient fan just because you celebrated them scoring.

Few thoughts about that.

He's still being expelled by attending a meeting before the group was proscribed.

Quite a few antisemites? Who? Charged by the police and convicted of a hate crime?

Not sure what's wrong with suggesting an alternative Conference. You already have parallel events and surely there's nothing wrong with discussing how to reform or evolve the party?

I don't think it really matters how the screenshot was obtained, the facts are still correct. This person was auto expelled by being on a zoom call with a group that was proscribed after the call.

It's all getting a bit silly isn't it?

I think Dean is one of the best English managers around and I think when Southgate is replaced, the FA will have Dean near the top of their list.

My only minor criticisms are (and there's nothing to say I'm right, just a difference of opinion of approach):

He seems to favour keeping the same shape and personnel every game over countering the threat of the opposition. Other managers seem to counter our threats while Dean seems to hope or expect that them having to worry more about our threats will give us the edge. Like today, I think it's worth sacrificing a midfielder just to sit on Newcastle's only threat: ASM. Teams did it with us and Grealish and it worked. Today I think ASM will have too much freedom and cause problems where instead we could shut him down and play 10v10 instead.

The other one is that he's not defensive enough when needed. Which sounds mad I know but sometimes, like with Watford, we needed to sit back and draw them out, then hit them on the break. Teams know they can get behind us because we'll always attack and leave space behind the midfield. If we kept compact, we stop those holes appearing and then can break at speed. It doesn't work against every team because they all have different approaches but the gung-ho, fast and physical teams like Leeds and Watford will always cause us problems by breaking quickly if we don't keep compact and soak them up. If we did the same to them, they'd have no answer.

It's all a game of chess though and I think you can get too bogged down in details of a French Defence when the best approach can just be to get your queen out taking pieces.

2 hours ago, darrenm said:

If they're playing their 3rd choice keeper I'd play 'shoot on sight' El Goalzy.

The rest picks itself imo:

                    Brick

Cash.  Konsa.  Mings.   Targett

                  Nakamba

        Douglas.        McGinn

Buendia.      Ings.         El Goalzy

Now it looks to be pissing it down all day, definitely get El Ghazi to shoot on sight.