Feb 2020
10:41am, 22 Feb 2020
23,061 posts
|
Johnny Blaze
The morning after the election Stanley Johnson was getting excited calls from friends congratulating him on "the Johnson genes winning again". I don't doubt that people like Johnson and Rees-Mogg buy heavily into the Sabisky view that material wealth, position, leadership and power are heavily down to genetics and breeding. I imagine that spending their formative years at Eton and Oxbridge did little to disabuse them of any feelings they had that they were "born to rule". It's another aspect of the Empire mindset - "the Empire was won on the playing fields of Eton" and all that nonsense. The class system still exists in this country - it just adapted to become less egregious than before. I do wonder whether the Conservative government can possibly hold together over the next 24 months as it tries to detach us from 40 years of integration without a) royally screwing over the regions and important business sectors and b) somehow plugging all the holes that may start to appear in its financial planning. The pressure could become intolerable. My feeling is that the ranks will be thinned on a regular basis as the chickens come home to roost. There will be some schadenfreude to be had but ultimately it will be cold comfort. None of this had to happen. I see Matthew Parris is detecting "drift" in the government at the moment - not sure that is the impression they should be giving when they have 10 months* to save their wretched project. *In reality, more like 7/8 months, as rock all will happen between August and October. |
Feb 2020
10:42am, 22 Feb 2020
2,464 posts
|
Fellrunning
To be fair I think there's a dawning realisation that chucking cash at the problem and building ever bigger flood defences isn't the answer. The music has stopped. Boris had pulled the paper off the parcel, and now has a steaming turd his hands.... |
|
Feb 2020
10:49am, 22 Feb 2020
23,062 posts
|
Johnny Blaze
When I worked for the bank it could take us 2 years to deliver a project which changed one data interface to a business system. 2 years! How much longer will it take to competently withdraw from and replace the many aspects of national life that were controlled, regulated, funded or otherwise influenced by the EU and its institutions? Other than piecemeal announcements I still don't get the sense that they have a plan or, if they have a plan, they are willing to share it with anyone. But hey, as someone said, "Of course we lied about Brexit: if we'd told the truth about what it meant you never would have voted for it." And as another European leader also once said, "A government like ours could never hope to stay in power without the will of the people to support it." |
Feb 2020
10:52am, 22 Feb 2020
2,024 posts
|
Canute
Bigger flood defenses is almost certainly not the answer. In the short term there needs to be a humane emergency response. In the medium term we need to change land usage, but I suspect this will require thought as well as action. In the long term we need to minimise climate change
|
|
Feb 2020
11:09am, 22 Feb 2020
2,465 posts
|
Fellrunning
We need to start allowing floodplains to do what it says on the tin. Reforestation of uplands. Reintroduce Beavers and predator species that will effectively control deer. Stop grazing uplands so extensively (yes I am aware of what that means). Last year we built leaky dams on the fells to help control water flow from the catchment. People were destroying them because they were "Unsightly" Go figure |
Feb 2020
11:16am, 22 Feb 2020
9,574 posts
|
rf_fozzy
There are a subset of Brexiters (how do I know they are Brexiters - well, their twitter handles usually have some comment in favour of Brexit) who believe that parts of the country are being flooded because of the EU. They believe (extremely strongly) that it has absolutely nothing to do with climate change or the unprecedented amounts of rain in short periods of time (because, you know, we've had rain before) - instead they believe that "in the name of environmentalism" that the EU has apparently stopped us dredging rivers and waterways and thus Brexit will solve this because we can dredge rivers again (and destroy all ecosystems) and thus all will be solved. Which as we know is (a) bollocks and (b) more simplism. There are, of course, another subset of conservatives (and I use this in the general social conservative sense) that believe that because some people are gay, this means the world is being flooded by their god. "How much longer will it take to competently withdraw from and replace the many aspects of national life that were controlled, regulated, funded or otherwise influenced by the EU and its institutions? Other than piecemeal announcements I still don't get the sense that they have a plan or, if they have a plan, they are willing to share it with anyone. " They do not have a plan, because as we've already seen any plan developed falls apart on first contact with reality. This means all the details (!) are forgotten in the name of ideological purity of Brexit. There is no compromise. This will mean at some point there either will be a point where it all comes crashing down, or someone has to finally admit that the promised sunny uplands aren't actually real. |
|
Feb 2020
11:25am, 22 Feb 2020
9,575 posts
|
rf_fozzy
Fellrunning - rewilding and other aspects of water management have been studied extensively over the past 10 years or so (at least where I'm aware of it), yet we seem to be stuck in the cycle of small scale studies (i.e. the Beaver one in the SW somewhere which has been successful has been extended, despite the fact we know it works) - because to go wider would involve difficult conversations with landowners. And that, under a conservative govt, I humbly suggest is unlikely to happen at the moment. It's the same issue as why onshore wind (the cheapest form of renewable energy) has effectively been banned. Re: damage of dams etc - that's where public information from the govt would make a big difference. But that won't happen either. |
|
Feb 2020
11:36am, 22 Feb 2020
23,063 posts
|
Johnny Blaze
I think Johnson's absence from the leaders' climate debate strongly suggests that ecological matters aren't his strong suit. I'm trying to be nice. I think non-Tories feel pretty fed up about things at the moment. We've been duct-taped to our seats on the Brexit bus, which is hurtling round hairpins with a driver who is simultaneously eating his lunch and playing Candy Crush on his phone. Powerless in other words. |
|
Feb 2020
12:14pm, 22 Feb 2020
9,576 posts
|
rf_fozzy
Well, I saw this this morning too - bbc.co.uk 25% of activity on twitter denying or kicking up dirt about Climate Change is basically bots (presumably driven by dark money?). "The finding showed 25% of tweets on climate change were likely posted by bots. Most of those tweets centred on denials of global warming or rejections of climate science." "Tweets about "fake science" were found to have been written by bots 38% of the time and 28% of tweets about oil company Exxon were posted by bots." "Posts in support of action to protect the environment were far less likely to come from bots. Researchers found only 5% of tweets advocating such action came from this type of software." |
Feb 2020
12:29pm, 22 Feb 2020
12,659 posts
|
Ultracat
What or who is a bot
|
Useful Links
FE accepts no responsibility for external links. Or anything, really.Related Threads
-
Fantasy General Election
Jul 2024
-
EU Referendum - In or Out? Vote here
Aug 2018
-
March to Parliament Against Brexit - Sat 2nd July
Jun 2016
-
EU Referendum
Feb 2016
-
Ads on Fetch - anyone else getting Leave and Remain?!
Feb 2017
-
The Environment Thread :-)
Jan 2025
-
Economics
Jan 2025
-
Dear Scottish Fetchies
Jan 2023
-
Any economists out there - question
Oct 2022
-
Power and exploitation - please check my sanity
Oct 2018