Convicted criminal fraudster (base salary 421,308 euros per annum + endless perks and expenses) raises glass to toast the continuance of the ECB Ponzi scheme, whilst trying hard to look very purposeful and resolute.

Here's why it's not a terribly good idea to get into Lithium-ion battery manufacturing, and certainly not a good idea to build your community on it:

The price per kilowatt is currently driving down to below $100, and many plants now under construction won't be able to produce a quality product at the prices pertaining at the time they get into real volume.  That's at least three years, and more likely five or six.  If you've taken public money to build your plant, well.. it's not really your own loss, is it?

Best to avoid big gesture politics I think and concentrate on helping small local enterprise.  Just persuading local people with get up and go, not going, has a lot to say for itself.

Check the URL in your browser address bar, and you'll discover that we've replaced the .co.uk with a coolio .uk

This means that your browser cookies won't be able to recognise the URL until you log in again.  It's a once-only process, and when your browser stores a new cookie, you'll be right back to normal.

All the old links are preserved though, as the former bedlington.co.uk domain will be preserved for posterity.  With soooo much less typing to do, you'll be able to post more and more often! 

On 19/01/2023 at 13:03, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

Surely the government has to step in and back a company to take over from Britishvolt?

...

That sounds like the right thing to do, but I don't think it ever works out in the end, Eggy.  I think you'll find that practically all the public money spent in Europe eventually goes down the drain.  It might produce a short term boost, but that way is the way to a crushing disappointments up ahead.

In case you think I'm too pessimistic about things, I'd simply say that I'm very upbeat about EVs and have now had one myself for over three years.  I follow developments very closely and will try to find a bit of time to update everyone as to what's really going on internationally and how I see the future panning out.  The media coverage on this subject is terrible, and we generally only get to hear what their big advertisers (often German motor companies) want us to hear.  Interesting to hear what others have to say.

Quote

Britishvolt, the company currently building UK’s first large-scale electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility, or gigafactory, is attracting interest from major investors from the automobile industry. A market analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, told Express.co.uk: “They have the best site in the UK and a rapidly developing product, with the first batch of cells recently sent to customers for testing. "It’s no secret that there’s going to be a supply/demand imbalance for cells, especially sustainably produced cells.”

...

Sources told Express.co.uk that the company may now be a target for mergers and acquisitions by the likes of “Jaguar Land Rover, or even Tesla”.

This would mark a major takeover of the company, which is aiming to build around 300,000 electric battery packs a year through this gigafactory, with a total capacity of over 38 GWh.

Full story: Musk tipped for Brexit U-turn in huge UK investment with Tesla gigafactory takeover

With the greatest sadness it would seem that we've just entered the New Carolean Era.  That doesn't seem to have the ring of being New Elizabethans - but, as always, we must work with what we've got!

Wow, not even a token white male in cabinet!  This IS interesting.

Agree with you on the Heath-Wilson thing Eggy.  And it was at a time when I used to vote Conservative too!  Heath was actually a more dogmatic socialist than "pragmatic" pipe-smoking Harold.  I'm no longer quite so sure that Heath was the worst PM ever though.

Anyone with a mature sense of proportion wanting a good chuckle should revisit the news coverage of the Heath-Wilson years and the huge commotion there was about our £1.3 billion annual trade deficit.  Everyone was blaming everyone, and the end of the world was predicted unless it was quickly eliminated. (Hint: It's now running at a cool £27.9 billion a year!) 

Today's front page story headlined "How Liz Truss won the battle for No 10" has had a lot of people checking the calendar.  In my case it was more an... "oh, I must have misunderstood when the result was to be announced".  It's been fairly clear what the result would be for a number of weeks, but the sheer gall of the article has taken many aback.  Some commenters have even suggest that it's a publishing error.

One of my old mates has Liz as his MP and I thought that he'd be amused by the turn of events.  Not a bit of it, it seems!  I'm putting this down to the fact that most of his children and grandchildren have had a good helping of "Blairite university brainwash", and so the family generally are likely left leaning.  Then again you'd have thought that such people would warm to the prospect of an (ex) LibDem remainer becoming PM! 

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In her interview with The Cut, published this week, the Duchess told how she had taken comfort from a conversation with a South African cast member at the premiere, who pulled her aside. “I just had Archie. It was such a cruel chapter,” she said. “I was scared to go out.  “He looked at me, and he's just like light. He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’.

John Kani, who played Rafiki in the film, has admitted he is “baffled” by the report, saying he was the only South African cast member but has never met the Duchess.  Dr Kani's agent told the Telegraph: "Dr Kani attended the Premier of The Lion King in Los Angeles and did not attend the London Premier.

“He has unfortunately no recollection of meeting Meghan Markle."

He has suggested the account may have been something of a faux pas by her”, adding: “It just may be a mis-remembering on her side.”
The actor told MailOnline he did not believe that the people of South Africa celebrated the Royal Wedding on the scale of Nelson Mandela’s release.

“In my memory, nobody would have known when she got married, when or what,” he said.

“We had no South African link to the wedding or to her marrying Harry.

“I am truly surprised by this. For me it is a non-event, the whole thing.”

Lindiwe Mkhize, a South African actress who sang the opening song The Circle of Life in the film, was at the premiere but did not speak to the Duchess.

God Save the Queen!  Other than that I couldn't possibly comment.  😀

On 16/01/2020 at 21:28, Andy Millne said:

Found this in the loft;

@threegee tells me it is Mr Weeks who has a connection with the mines and was an owner if not the original owner of Lairds House when it was built in 1777.

Does anybody have any more info? I thought it might interest others or at least serve as mild amusement if nothing else.

He was the Bedlington Coal Company over-manager; in modern parlance the Managing Director.  I say over-manager because both the Doctor Pit and the 'A' Pit had under-managers.  His son was the 'A' Pit (Bedlington Station) under-manager and my grandfather (James David Millne) was the Doctor Pit under-manager - though grandfather had a manager's "ticket" and was offered colliery manager positions elsewhere which he gratefully declined.  Both reported to Mr Weeks Senior - which I've always assumed is the above depicted one.  The Weeks family were succeeded at Laird's House by the Crudas family.

Mr Weeks was also probably a board member of the coal company, and likely held shares.  The house was owned by the coal company, so in fact he didn't actually own it.  I can tell you this as a certainty as that's the party it was purchased from in the late 1940's or very early 1950's.

6 hours ago, Canny lass said:

...90p gives him a two mile journey for each log entry...

And here's me imagining it was for six of Bercow's car stickers!

https://www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/mp/540

Doesn't look like all those thousands of our money spent on "Publicity services and local paper column writing" delivered any results Ian!  I'm fascinated to know what those six items below £1 are, and how much in administrative costs that fiver or so you couldn't spare incurred.

Another farce perpetrated by our utterly biased BBC!  I'm not going to bore anyone with further comment, but will simply relay the correct answers to the questions.  These are answers no one at the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation actually wants to hear!

Quote

1) Can you guarantee to get Brexit through parliament by the end of October?

A) Of course it can't be 100% guaranteed. No one can guarantee it, and anyone that does guarantee it must be looked upon suspiciously. However, the plan that gives us the highest possibility of success is to inform the EU we will be leaving on WTO terms at the end of October, state clearly that there will be no money changing hands in that case and we will start to prepare for a WTO brexit as pace. If or when the EU want to come to London to discuss altering the current deal they have on the table we will of course listen to what they have to say.

2) In the event of a no deal, my husband could lose his job and my children face an uncertain future. Why contemplate a no deal?

A) There's no such thing as a no deal brexit.  Even if we were to leave at the end of October without the withdrawal agreement, over 100 agreements and side deals have already been reached to allow brexit to happen with a little impact to the current trading agreements. There's no reason to believe leaving on WTO terms will impact the property sector as that is largely unrelated to trade in international goods. As to your Children's future, there is little that they will not be able to do after a WTO withdrawal that they can do now.

3) How will you solve the issue of the Irish Border?

A) As PM I will not be putting up border infrastructure between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in any eventuality. If the EU wish to interfere with Irish national sovereignty and infrastructure and put up a border that is up to them and it is something that we will strenuously point out to the EU and Ireland is not a good idea. Unfortunately the residents of Ireland will not be able to ask these questions of the candidates of the EU presidency as there is no election and the decision about who is to be president is made behind closed doors.

4) What is your plan to lift the tax burden on the working classes?

A) I will align national insurance to the income tax rates. Ensure nobody working on the living wage pays any tax. Ensure that the basic rate bands are extended to ensure people aspire to progress and generate jobs, and will link the bands to inflation so they continue to raise automatically. I will also within the parliament combine employees NI and income tax to streamline and make the burden of administering your tax affairs simpler as well.

5) What are you going to do for vulnerable children?

A) While Government spending has decreased to councils, the local councils have been able to keep more of the income from business rates. This offsets the cuts and gives the councils more incentives to regenerate their local high streets and retail areas. Unfortunately some councils have chosen to stockpile their cash and use the government cuts as a smokescreen for poor performance. I will conduct a thorough investigation in to each and every council that has reduced support for vulnerable people and if they have been found to be wasteful with money then I will ensure there are special measures implemented to improve their financial management. Where councils are found to be in genuine need then, yes, I will look to improve the funding, but this is not a zero sum game. If we put more money in to supporting vulnerable people we need a grown up conversation about which programmes we will have to take money from to do that.

6) Do words have consequences?

A) Yes, of course they do. Some words more so than others. Just last week the BBC allowed a comedian to claim that they thought battery acid should be thrown on politicians. A disgusting comment. Unfortunately the BBC is allowing that same comedian on air again. Comments that incite violence should never be tolerated. Similarly the anti semitic comments currently coming from the labour party membership shows just how far that party has descended in to racism. The Labour party has been referred to the equalities watchdog for its racist comments, the only other party to have do so before them is the BNP. A serious consequence for vile words.

7) Will you commit to zero carbon emission by 2025?

A) No I will not commit to zero carbon emission by 2025. Unfortunately, as unpalatable as this message is, the UK accounts for less than 1% of the world's CO2 output. The two biggest culprits are China and the US. Some of the biggest exports from the US and China are iphones, android phones laptops and consumer gadgets. If you really want a serious discussion on CO2 emissions, then I would like to see the climate rebellion take leadership by shunning all forms of phones and electrical equipment. Bringing London to a standstill is pointless. Going without electrical equipment is the kind of leadership that you will need to demonstrate if you want to be taken seriously.

Credit for the above goes to Brian Chambers.

4 hours ago, Steve said:

Apparently we won Eurovision, well if you add up all the losing countries with our score anyway.. lol

Yes, I heard the ruskies hacked the scoring system - we must demand a people's score board.

Some interesting info from Lord Ashcroft's polls about how the establishment parties are fracturing:

Quote

More than half (53%) of 2017 Conservative voters who took part in the European elections voted for the Brexit Party. Only just over one in five (21%) stayed with the Tories. Around one in eight (12%) switched to the Liberal Democrats. Labour voters from 2017 were more likely to stay with their party, but only a minority (38%) did so. More than one in five (22%) went to the Lib Dems, 17% switched to the Greens, and 13% went to the Brexit Party.

That's totally astounding, and obviously there are still more to make the jump.

The establishment line will be that it's only a protest vote, but the polling indicates that a majority already see it as a permanent transfer of allegiance.  So, things can never be the same again - thanks Theresa and Jeremy!

Oh, isn't this fun, and Labour's utter duplicity is clearly getting through to Labour voters too!   TBP actually out-polled Liebour in Bradford.  A majority of immigrants starting to think just like native Brits is socially cohesive and bodes well.  It means Blair's cynical plan to flood the country with ever-grateful voters who themselves have no idea where he's actually coming from, is running out of steam.

One more push and we are free of a system which gifts power to some pretty despicable and useless people at multiple levels (I'm looking at you too Mr Lavery) on the eternal basis that they are the lesser of two evils.  Britain has finally woken up!  Onward the revolution! 

..totally destroy the Tory Party!   Yes, you read that right!

https://theblueanchor.wordpress.com/2019/04/11/brex-terminate-the-tories/

P45's all around for the current Westmonster lot!  May they all rot in hell afterward; because few of them are in any way employable.

2 hours ago, Symptoms said:

I wonder where Cympil (the orignal poster) is now ... he was last here in 2013.  I often wonder where all our 'lost friends' end up - some must croak and other might just get fed up of the Forum.  I don't post as often as i used to ... I just got turned-off by the infestation of all those Kippers a while back.  The place seems to have been fumigated so perhaps it's time for some more Symwisdom. 

You've got the gender of Cympil wrong I think.  Nothing wrong with patriotic Kippers, unless you've still got a dose of that leftie "common purpose" bilge they serve up at uni, and I'd have hoped you'd have got most of it out of your system by now.

And another one representing #1, and who refuses to do the honourable thing...

Quote

Nck Boles has quit his local Conservative association in the face of efforts to deselect him over his views on Brexit. The former minister said he was resigning "with immediate effect" because he disagrees with his association's support for a no deal Brexit, which he said will "do great harm".

However, Mr Boles said he will continue to "take the Conservative whip" at Westminster if it is offered "on acceptable terms".

Is he going to refuse to accept the money when he decides not to do what he was elected for, but committed to do in order to get the job?  Answers on a post card...

Once again Ronnie Campbell does the right thing by his electors and has abstained from a whipped vote for the so-called Spelman Amendment. This attempts to take the no deal option with the EU off the table, and so tie our negotiator's hands.

The same can not be said for our Mr Lavery, who is once again playing politics with his country's future!  You'll come to regret your duplicity Mr Lavery; your electors aren't as stupid as you assume!

Quote

..still no response from the government :- 

Why would the people with their noses in the trough ever agree to this without receiving a huge kicking at the polls first?  The same is true for constituents right of recall of their MP.  When Carswell tried to introduce a RoR bill it was rapidly buried by the establishment.  We are going to have to drag the ConLabLib alliance kicking and screaming into the 21st Century!

23 hours ago, Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) said:

I won't sign, and I voted 'Remain'.

If you are looking for a currently running petition Eggy then try this one for size:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/242193

BTW, you might have noticed that this is precisely what both those who defected from the Tories to Ukip honourably did, and I think both were re-elected as a result.

Quote

"There is a rapidly growing petition to re-run the referendum but I would strongly oppose such a move because Britain has already delivered its verdict. Those MPs who, like myself, came to a different view during the campaign must not seek to obstruct the decision of the people".

Sarah Wollaston MP: June 2016

Quote

Stop possible second referendum on E.U. membership

There is a growing band of people that want to reverse the result of the democratic vote of this country to leave the European Union and are calling for a second referendum. This is mainly by the people that lost the vote two years ago and cannot accept the democratic vote of the majority decision.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/226071

I disagree with the "not legally binding" bit (because there is a load of historic and constitutional evidence to indicate it is binding) but that's a mere detail.