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[Hiberno-Britannic Politics] - Tories Dropping like Johnson's Flies

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Posts

  • MorganVMorganV Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    As a species we're not noted for recognising our own best interests. A Tory MP the other day got up to say his constituents didn't care about global warming and wanted cheap petrol. His constituency is predicted to be flooded regularly come 2030.

    You see, THEN it will be a problem. Now, it's not. In ten years time, they'll scream for assistance, but until then, cheaper fuel rates.

    Seems to be a defining feature of non-wealthy conservatism, the inability to think beyond the immediate.

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    When you have to deal with problems that are even longer than the usual time frames politicians think in, term lengths, the usual mechanics just don't work. Even more so when it's problems that will take decades to fully play out, and where you won't see "anything change" (which is what you want in the case of climate change..), but have to pay a lot of money to do it.

    When the problems come crushing down one day, everyone will look at our generation and say "why didn't they do anything? They knew.", and the only answer we will be able to give is "reactive government doesn't work when you have to take long term effects into account"

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  • AlphaRomeroAlphaRomero Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    As a species we're not noted for recognising our own best interests. A Tory MP the other day got up to say his constituents didn't care about global warming and wanted cheap petrol. His constituency is predicted to be flooded regularly come 2030.

    They'll need all that petrol for boats.

  • MorganVMorganV Registered User regular
    When you have to deal with problems that are even longer than the usual time frames politicians think in, term lengths, the usual mechanics just don't work. Even more so when it's problems that will take decades to fully play out, and where you won't see "anything change" (which is what you want in the case of climate change..), but have to pay a lot of money to do it.

    When the problems come crushing down one day, everyone will look at our generation and say "why didn't they do anything? They knew.", and the only answer we will be able to give is "reactive government doesn't work when you have to take long term effects into account"

    Yup. That's one of the reasons infrastructure tends to be problematic, at least locally (ie state level).

    Everyone agrees that the road and rail networks need to be upgraded, and in a significant manner.

    But to do so requires a massive investment, which requires raising revenue, or cutting services (as states can't really deficit spend), and so the party trying to do that will get hosed, and lose power.

    So the incentive structure is completely changed to patching a few things to say you're doing something when you're in power, and complaining about the lack of real investment when you're not.

    But the ability to pursue the kind of long term significant change that'd actually be cheaper, is completely hamstrung. Where I live, there's a highway that was "completed" about 40 years ago. And for most of my life, this highway has been "under construction", not for maintenance purposes, but to widen the road (initially two lane each way), and is now in the process of adding a fifth lane in my section.

    The thing is, it was clear when it was constructed, it needed to be bigger. And when they added each lane, one extra lane wasn't going to be sufficient. But instead of starting with a four lane, and expanding it to six, it's been 3km lane expansions for nearly four decades, which has just ballooned the price, but each individual expenditure is less likely to see a voter revolt.

    It's the Vimes Boots Theory applied to government spending.

  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    One of the more poisonous effects of the culture war is that people hear "unsustainable" as "you're a bad person for doing this thing" as opposed to "there will come a point where you doing that thing can no longer be sustained and we need to plan for what happens then".

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    japan wrote: »
    One of the more poisonous effects of the culture war is that people hear "unsustainable" as "you're a bad person for doing this thing" as opposed to "there will come a point where you doing that thing can no longer be sustained and we need to plan for what happens then".

    I mean, this is entirely on purpose. The "culture war" exists to create infighting and distract people while the rich get even richer, so they can fuck off to their Mars colonies when shit hits the fan in 50 years, or whatever they dream about.

    Hyperbole, but not by much

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    When you have to deal with problems that are even longer than the usual time frames politicians think in, term lengths, the usual mechanics just don't work. Even more so when it's problems that will take decades to fully play out, and where you won't see "anything change" (which is what you want in the case of climate change..), but have to pay a lot of money to do it.

    When the problems come crushing down one day, everyone will look at our generation and say "why didn't they do anything? They knew.", and the only answer we will be able to give is "reactive government doesn't work when you have to take long term effects into account"

    I think this blames politicians too much. As much as this is correct, it's even more true that voters don't think in those kind of longer term frameworks. The problem with the political system on stuff like climate change is what it needs is for the political class to at least implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) overrule the voters and work for their long term interests at the expense of their short-term interests.

  • DirtmuncherDirtmuncher Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    Casual wrote: »
    Climate change denial is a pretty weird position for the Netherlands of all places. Half the country is below sea level as it is, even minor climate change related sea level rises are going to massively affect them.

    You'd think if anyone would be screaming about doing everything to stick to 1.5c it would be them.

    Apparently it's 26%.
    Spoiler for big
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tR6fUGTbD0

    There are allready plans in place for how to "solve" this problem.
    As always they are going for a technocratic solution.
    The 4 adaptation pathways are the following:
    adaptatiepaden.jpg?resize=894%2C755&ssl=1
    From left to right: Closed Seawall, Open Seawall, Expand into the sea, do nothing and live on terps.

    The thing is, you actually need to make a longterm decision en start investing in a solution.

    In my opinion we are allready on course for the highest scenario.
    At 2c warming the not so easily predictable landice melt comes into play, if we do nothing we will be hitting that point in 30 years. This will cause the sealevel to rise even faster.


    Dirtmuncher on
    steam_sig.png
  • Mc zanyMc zany Registered User regular
    honovere wrote: »
    Shell is moving its business from the Netherlands to the UK. Less taxes, easier buybacks, and I think recently they've been successfully sued by climate activists in the Netherlands, if I remember that correctly.

    Get ready for Brexit success parties.

    The EU has changed the rules on the infamous "dutch sandwich" tax avoidance technique to make it no longer viable. I suspect this is the main reason rather than their climate legal issues.

  • SharpyVIISharpyVII Registered User regular
    https://news.sky.com/story/amazon-to-reject-customer-payments-using-uk-issued-visa-credit-cards-12470641
    Amazon says UK customers will not be able to pay for goods using a Visa credit card from January, blaming a "high cost of payments".

    It is understood Amazon is particularly angry at a rise in so-called interchange fees - additional cross-border costs - which it believes have risen five-fold since Brexit.

    Is this what the sunlit uplands looks like?

  • jaziekjaziek Bad at everything And mad about it.Registered User regular
    this is almost certainly a play to sell their own (mastercard) credit card.

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  • AlphaRomeroAlphaRomero Registered User regular
    The front on a multi billion dollar company saying it can't handle the transaction fees on a credit card. Can't pay it's employees fairly either, must be a bad business model.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Good news, because of Brexit Visa is now allowed to raise their fees, which they're not allowed to do within the EU!

  • BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    I don't actually think it's unreasonable for a company to say "if you're increasing the fees from 0.3% per transaction to 1.5% then we'll no longer be accepting your method of payment". In fact I'd actually argue that if this move by Amazon gets Visa to reduce or stop the change then it's probably a good thing, since this will potentially harm small businesses substantially.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited November 2021
    The front on a multi billion dollar company saying it can't handle the transaction fees on a credit card. Can't pay it's employees fairly either, must be a bad business model.

    I mean, they certainly could handle those fees.

    They just won't

    Fencingsax on
  • MorganVMorganV Registered User regular
    Burnage wrote: »
    I don't actually think it's unreasonable for a company to say "if you're increasing the fees from 0.3% per transaction to 1.5% then we'll no longer be accepting your method of payment". In fact I'd actually argue that if this move by Amazon gets Visa to reduce or stop the change then it's probably a good thing, since this will potentially harm small businesses substantially.

    Especially given that it's not the payment method that gets yelled at.

    See it all the time on the internets. Someone bitching at a company how ridiculous shipping prices and import costs (like customs) are, as if it's the company themself that's charging VAT.

    Sometimes it's better to just go "Yeah, this isn't worth the hassle and complaints".

    Though it's Amazon, so it's hard to feel any kind of sympathy for their position.

  • DibbitDibbit Registered User regular
    MorganV wrote: »
    Burnage wrote: »
    I don't actually think it's unreasonable for a company to say "if you're increasing the fees from 0.3% per transaction to 1.5% then we'll no longer be accepting your method of payment". In fact I'd actually argue that if this move by Amazon gets Visa to reduce or stop the change then it's probably a good thing, since this will potentially harm small businesses substantially.

    Especially given that it's not the payment method that gets yelled at.

    See it all the time on the internets. Someone bitching at a company how ridiculous shipping prices and import costs (like customs) are, as if it's the company themself that's charging VAT.

    Sometimes it's better to just go "Yeah, this isn't worth the hassle and complaints".

    Though it's Amazon, so it's hard to feel any kind of sympathy for their position.

    I don't really feel sorry for Amazon at all, Visa increased the cost for cross-border traffic BECAUSE it's way more expensive to do, this wasn't Visa turning the screws on Amazon, but just a consequences of Brexit. And it's not like Amazon would've eaten those costs, they'd happily forward those to the customers.

    They just want Visa to eat the increased cost or they'll toss them out in January.

    You see these large companies squeezing out suppliers all the time, only difference is that in this case it's not some local trucking company that's the victim, but Visa, a large company itself.
    We'll see if customers care, because if Amazon's market share drops because they won't accept Visa, you'll see them quickly turn around and "after review, we'll allow our customers to use their preferred billing system."

  • pezgenpezgen Registered User regular
    Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but does this also count for Visa debit cards? I have a debit card for my bank that's a Visa, so I'm assuming this would be affected because it uses the same payment process, even though it's not a "credit card" in the same way?

  • SnicketysnickSnicketysnick The Greatest Hype Man in WesterosRegistered User regular
    pezgen wrote: »
    Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but does this also count for Visa debit cards? I have a debit card for my bank that's a Visa, so I'm assuming this would be affected because it uses the same payment process, even though it's not a "credit card" in the same way?

    According to the email i got from amazon, debits are fine still

    7qmGNt5.png
    D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    felton is an author but the tweet is commenting on a newspaper story



    pleasing

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  • ElldrenElldren Is a woman dammit ceterum censeoRegistered User regular
    edited November 2021
    japan wrote: »
    One of the more poisonous effects of the culture war is that people hear "unsustainable" as "you're a bad person for doing this thing" as opposed to "there will come a point where you doing that thing can no longer be sustained and we need to plan for what happens then".

    I mean, this is entirely on purpose. The "culture war" exists to create infighting and distract people while the rich get even richer, so they can fuck off to their Mars colonies when shit hits the fan in 50 years, or whatever they dream about.

    Hyperbole, but not by much

    You are giving far too much credit here for long term planning.

    None of the people perpetuating the “culture war” have plans for 2025 let alone 2070

    Elldren on
    fuck gendered marketing
  • MorganVMorganV Registered User regular
    Missed opportunity for a Babe or Wilbur (Charlotte's Web) joke, by going with sheep over pigs.

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Chope feels like a name that should be a euphemism for something derogatory. Maybe I'm just thinking "chode".

    Still, great work on the thread title, @Bogart !

  • KarlKarl Registered User regular
    HS2 rail extension to Leeds scrapped amid promise to transform rail

    Source: BBC.

    Level up the north? Lol level up your mum.

    Boris Johnson 18/11/2021

  • Zilla360Zilla360 21st Century. |She/Her| Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered User regular
    Karl wrote: »
    HS2 rail extension to Leeds scrapped amid promise to transform rail

    Source: BBC.

    Level up the north? Lol level up your mum.

    Boris Johnson 18/11/2021
    "Shame!" "The North Remembers!" etc.

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  • Zilla360Zilla360 21st Century. |She/Her| Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered User regular


    Miriam there is a whole flock of birds perched upon your nose. Miriam, we are not children, Miriam, stop fucking lying to us, and telling us that clouds are made of cotton wool, just because you say so.

    She's a few steps from uttering some phrase about 'alternative facts', isn't she? :rotate:

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  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    The thing is

    I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument that there are better ways to deliver rail infrastructure improvement that HS2, and it's probably true that smaller, targeted upgrade projects will deliver benefits more quickly.

    However that doesn't get us away from the bare fact that it was promised, and is now being cut, or crucially, that the same logic can be applied to all of HS2, not just the northern leg, but the South gets to keep its bit

    The other thing, as far as I understand, is that the schemes replacing the northern leg of HS2 don't deliver the same benefits on the same scale. They deliver some benefits, but from reading what has been written by people that know more than me, my understanding is that the capacity expansion HS2 was going to deliver is lost.

    So the North maybe getsa rail system (for those places that have it) that is functional as opposed to shit, but that's still a hell of a downgrade relative to what was promised

  • MorganVMorganV Registered User regular
    One thing I love about that clip, is that when the guest starts going off on a bullshit tangent, or stating an outright lie, the audio gets cut out so that the presenter can restate the question, or counterpoint the argument, and if they go off again, cut the audio and keep going.

    That Webster looks foolish mouthing words silently while the presenter gets to do her job, is just awesome.

    REALLY wish the US media would do such a thing, and not just let the guest chew up time or shout down the host. Obviously, it can be abused, but fuck it, I'm so tired of politicians just waffling off bullshit talking points or deflecting, instead of answering the fucking question.

  • CasualCasual Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Flap Flap Flap Registered User regular
    japan wrote: »
    The thing is

    I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument that there are better ways to deliver rail infrastructure improvement that HS2, and it's probably true that smaller, targeted upgrade projects will deliver benefits more quickly.

    However that doesn't get us away from the bare fact that it was promised, and is now being cut, or crucially, that the same logic can be applied to all of HS2, not just the northern leg, but the South gets to keep its bit

    The other thing, as far as I understand, is that the schemes replacing the northern leg of HS2 don't deliver the same benefits on the same scale. They deliver some benefits, but from reading what has been written by people that know more than me, my understanding is that the capacity expansion HS2 was going to deliver is lost.

    So the North maybe getsa rail system (for those places that have it) that is functional as opposed to shit, but that's still a hell of a downgrade relative to what was promised

    It's the same self fulfilling prophesy that makes all infrastructure in the north less beneficial than taking that money and spending it in the south. The south gets all the infrastructure because that's where the greater concentration of people is, the people leave the rest of the country and concentrate there because that's where the infrastructure is.

    Until someone is willing to break that cycle and take the short term hit all talk of "leveling up" and "northern power houses" will just be empty slogans and broken promises.

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    My preference would be for them to have 'technical difficulties' which result in the liar sounding like they got a mouthful of helium, but that's just my sense of humour.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • jaziekjaziek Bad at everything And mad about it.Registered User regular
    Just the sinn Fein bit from the day today

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  • ElldrenElldren Is a woman dammit ceterum censeoRegistered User regular
    japan wrote: »
    The thing is

    I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument that there are better ways to deliver rail infrastructure improvement that HS2, and it's probably true that smaller, targeted upgrade projects will deliver benefits more quickly.

    However that doesn't get us away from the bare fact that it was promised, and is now being cut, or crucially, that the same logic can be applied to all of HS2, not just the northern leg, but the South gets to keep its bit

    The other thing, as far as I understand, is that the schemes replacing the northern leg of HS2 don't deliver the same benefits on the same scale. They deliver some benefits, but from reading what has been written by people that know more than me, my understanding is that the capacity expansion HS2 was going to deliver is lost.

    So the North maybe getsa rail system (for those places that have it) that is functional as opposed to shit, but that's still a hell of a downgrade relative to what was promised

    It doesn’t help that these propositions always terminate in the southest bit of the North

    Call me when you plan a high speed line to Newcastle or Carlisle

    fuck gendered marketing
  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    At least a few people suggested in the planning stages that construction should start from the northern send of HS2, because starting from the south created too strong an incentive to ditch it once it got out of commuting range of London

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Elldren wrote: »
    japan wrote: »
    The thing is

    I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument that there are better ways to deliver rail infrastructure improvement that HS2, and it's probably true that smaller, targeted upgrade projects will deliver benefits more quickly.

    However that doesn't get us away from the bare fact that it was promised, and is now being cut, or crucially, that the same logic can be applied to all of HS2, not just the northern leg, but the South gets to keep its bit

    The other thing, as far as I understand, is that the schemes replacing the northern leg of HS2 don't deliver the same benefits on the same scale. They deliver some benefits, but from reading what has been written by people that know more than me, my understanding is that the capacity expansion HS2 was going to deliver is lost.

    So the North maybe getsa rail system (for those places that have it) that is functional as opposed to shit, but that's still a hell of a downgrade relative to what was promised

    It doesn’t help that these propositions always terminate in the southest bit of the North

    Call me when you plan a high speed line to Newcastle or Carlisle

    Pretty sure they're in the bit marked "Here Be Dragons" on the Westminster polticians' map.

  • CasualCasual Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Flap Flap Flap Registered User regular
    japan wrote: »
    At least a few people suggested in the planning stages that construction should start from the northern send of HS2, because starting from the south created too strong an incentive to ditch it once it got out of commuting range of London

    Not to mention, it is a lot easier to get a hold of the necessary land when you're not in the most densely populated part of country or the NIMBY Tory shires.

  • Bad-BeatBad-Beat Registered User regular


    The Prime Minister, everyone. This clip is getting absolutely ripped to shreds by the Westminster bubble right now.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    All part of the plan to distract from the proposed changes to social care and the NHS

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • altidaltid Registered User regular
    It might even just be to distract from the rest of that car crash speech. Like when he badly lost track in the middle of it:

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited November 2021
    Can't it just be that he's lazy and unprepared and often rambles on about bullshit because he thinks he's a charming raconteur? Not every mistake or stupid thing a minister says is part of a Machiavellian plan of misdirection.

    Bogart on
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Can't it just be that he's lazy and often rambles on about bullshit because he thinks he's a charming raconteur? Not every mistake or stupid thing a minister says is part of a Machiavellian plan of misdirection.
    True, but his bumbling waffling does seem to notably increase the more scrutiny he's under for other things.
    Kinda like my debilitating knee trouble that increased with physical proximity to rugby lessons at school.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
This discussion has been closed.