An ugly-headed coalition? Surely "you" remember
before the referendum of the 18th of September.
I'd not have shared a platform, had I been a Labour member,
with the Tories
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
The next General Election (now over! 2024)
(112 posts)-
Posted 5 months ago #
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OK. Here's a conundrum. What factors kept any Tory seats alive in Scotland? Obviously the 'tartan tories' (c) @gembo could not be voted for by right wingers as they are left of the Labour Party on many issues. (Perceived to be).
Around Aberdeen oil is key. Southern Scotland may be new Scots still voting Tory as they feel SNP is too Scottish?
Is a Tory free Scotland impossible? Just asking.Wales kicked them out even with the Welsh Labour Party hindered by FM scandal.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Just the borders, D and G and the two Aberdeenshire seats safe Tory, A bit like 1979?? Lib dems back in Orkney. SNP in their highland heartlands???? And Aberdeen Dundee anomaly?Labour back in the post industrial central belt. And east lothian. Nice to see Douglas Ross losing. During the previous labour hegemony it was bizarre to see the lanky galoot who got my job in the doublet taking the seat from Flintlock Man in Eastwood. And then nearly all tories eradicated. NFU prop up the tories? Just?
Posted 5 months ago # -
Posted 5 months ago #
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“Growth, net zero, opportunity, women and girls’ safety, health – none of these can be realised without transport as a key enabler.”
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https://bikebiz.com/new-transport-secretary-sets-out-strategic-priorities/amp/
Posted 5 months ago # -
"Growth, net zero"
THere's much bigger structural problems that aren't going to be resolved, so growth will continue to be 0 or -ve basically forever. (demographic decline, and not a member of any 'clubs'(brexit)).
Even if current productive generations start procreating like rabbits there's no solution for at least 25 years - unless AI.Posted 5 months ago # -
Why is (traditional) growth seen as any kind of solution at all?
The way we measure "growth" is all wrong because it includes all the "bad things" (like more pollution, poorer health outcomes/more NHS spending, greater inequality, gambling, smoking, advertising, junk food, etc)
Instead we should create a new measure covering things like happiness, quality housing / warm homes, clean air/water, access to fresh unprocessed food, access to greenspace, built-environment, social inclusion and more...
In any case, we cannot have both "zero*" and "growth" - we cannot build (or "grow") our way out of the climate crisis.
We can "grow" ourselves personally, and as a species globally, in the sense of respecting nature and living in a way compatible with its (and our own) survival for centuries to come.
*We need to be AT "zero", not "net-zero" which is a nonsense created to sustain business as usual.
Posted 5 months ago # -
@neddie are you happy to have no salary increases forever more?
How are we supposed (personally) to fund good housing and great quality food if wages stagnate? You must have noticed that your £ is worth much less now?
You could argue 0 growth and 0 inflation, but Govts need inflation ton lessen the value of their debt over time so that they can keep paying for stuff on the never never...
Posted 5 months ago # -
...and also because of demographic decline each generation is getting smaller. However the bigger generations aren't dead yet (cos live longer) and need more resources.
So less (numerically) productive people have to pay for the needs of a growing older population, even to keep to net 0, the smaller productive generation needs to do more to keep GDP (per person ) at 0.
Posted 5 months ago # -
are you happy to have no salary increases forever more
Yes, provided I have the measures I described above, namely:
happiness, quality housing / warm home, clean air/water, access to fresh unprocessed food, access to greenspace, quality built-environment, social inclusion.
And ideally the overall measure of those items would gradually increase over time (provided they also did for everyone else, including those in the global south), although it wouldn't matter too much if it didn't, provided each was adequate. I wouldn't give a monkeys about any notional figure that arrives in my bank account if those items are satisfied.
What would I do with an ever increasing salary anyway? Spend it flying here there and everywhere and burning the planet? Spend it on expensive heavy machinery that extracts huge resources from the Earth (not to mention exploiting workers in the global south and elsewhere), while sitting there in the street mostly doing nothing apart from wasting valuable land that could be used for growing / greenspace?
Carbon emissions are strongly correlated with income
Posted 5 months ago # -
Note that none of items I list need to be "expensive" in the traditional meaning of the word, with the possible exception of housing. Even then it's possible to create nice comfortable houses using traditional methods e.g. timber / straw bale, at low cost.
Indeed, clean air and water actually come for free when we stop spending money poisoning the world
Posted 5 months ago # -
“The way we measure "growth" is all wrong because it includes all the "bad things" (like more pollution, poorer health outcomes/more NHS spending, greater inequality, gambling, smoking, advertising, junk food, etc)“
Ultimately GDP is a useless measuring system/smokescreen which hides bad decisions and makes good decisions harder.
Bottom line is that ‘life on earth’ depends on the Sun.
There is some “transition” to electricity from current solar input via solar panels, wind turbines etc - which depend on mining which is not a ‘neutral’ activity.
A lot of the sun’s energy goes into plants. Some becomes human food and (potential) building materials.
And of course all other life on the planet.
Additionally the world currently relies on legacy solar energy for fuel and fertiliser etc etc.
Whether any sort of “transition” to ‘sustainability’ is possible, remains to be seen.
But as long as politicians proclaim ‘we need growth to pay for stuff/services’, the longer it will be before there is ANY chance of a better (or perhaps any) long term for most people and their descendants.
Posted 5 months ago # -
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Transport is largely a devolved issue, meaning (in general) UK politics doesn’t affect the Scottish Government’s ability to make transport decisions. However, certain powers, particularly those related to taxation such as fuel duty, remain under Westminster’s jurisdiction.
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https://transform.scot/2024/07/17/what-is-the-top-transport-challenge-for-the-new-uk-government/
Posted 5 months ago # -
Warning about cosy financial relationships from Private Eye journalist.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24479934.top-journalist-warns-labour-policies-set-make-profits-firms/Posted 4 months ago # -
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At 66, Prinsley is one of the older first-timers in a parliament where 335 out of 650 MPs are new. “You know, when you go to the Houses of Parliament, the most amazing thing is how young everybody looks,” he tells his nosebleed patient. “You walk in there and you think: who has put the children in charge of the country?”
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Posted 3 months ago # -
Posted 4 weeks ago #
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I'm inherently very skeptical of politicians, but I'm not sure this was a resigning matter. You'd need to examine the magistrates proceedings but if it's true that it was accepted she made no actual gain and received a discharge..
Posted 3 weeks ago # -
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Heidi Alexander MP was appointed as the Secretary of State for Transport on 29 November 2024.
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Posted 3 weeks ago # -
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served as Deputy Mayor of London for Transport from 2018 to 2021
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She notably worked to tackle delays to the opening of Crossrail and re-opening of Hammersmith Bridge, and took up cycling to promote that method of transport.
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Posted 3 weeks ago # -
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Cycling UK welcomes the appointment of Heidi Alexander as the new Transport Secretary and urges her to put cycling “front and centre” of the new Integrated Transport Strategy
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https://road.cc/content/news/29-november-2024-live-blog-311499#live-blog-item-63111
Posted 3 weeks ago # -
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A little thread on cycling in London. The experience of a 45 year old, overweight woman - ie me
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Posted 3 weeks ago #
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