The Odds Are Going Towards Yes
When I first looked up the Scottish referendum odds on Odds Checker, the results were as follows.
August 25th
No! – 1/8
Yes! – 9/2
They are now.
September 2nd – No! – 1/4 Yes! – 3/1
September 5th – No! – 2/7 Yes! – 14/5
September 7th – No! – 4/9 Yes! – 9/4
September 9th – No! – 4/9 Yes! – 2/1
But they’ve now started to go the other way.
September 11th – No! – 3/10 Yes! – 10/3
September 12th – No! – 5/19 – Yes! – 7/2
September 15th – No! – 1/4 – Yes! – 7/2
September 17th – No! – 2/9 – Yes! – 15/4
So it would appear that the vote is moving towards a Yes! It’s been quite a swing in the first seven days.
It’s All About Votes!
The phone-in on Radio 5 this morning was about child abuse and the Rotherham scandal in particular.
It was generally informative, but it livened up at the end, when a Muslim of Pakistani orgin from Rotherham denied the facts of the court case, where several men of Pakistani origin were found guilty and jailed.
Then a member of the Labour Party in Rotherham described meetings of the local party, where members tried to ask questions about the scandal, only to be shouted down.He then finished by saying how certain Asian councillors deliver several thousand votes and make sure Labour win.
Politicians of all parties have courted minorities and interest groups, as long as elections have been contested. But in this case, a group’s baggage has been discounted in favour of votes and power.
This must not be allowed to happen.
Do We Really Need A New London Airport?
The Guardian is running a report this morning, about the resignation of the Mayor of Berlin. This is the first paragraph.
Klaus Wowereit, the openly gay mayor who turned Berlin into a capital of cool, announces intention amid delays to new airport
If you read the Wikipedia entry about the new Berlin-Brandenburg airport, you’ll see a large number of problems.
It looks like to me, that Berlin has bitten off more than it can chew with this airport.
So would it be the same if London decided to build an airport in the Thames Estuary? Or anywhere else for that matter?
I think that we’re in some ways trying to make a decision about new airport capacity in the South-East, before all the things we’re doing now have had time to settle down.
The aviation industry obviously wants more airport capacity, as it will make the aerospace, airline and airport companies larger. And Directors, Senior Managers and Shareholders would like that, as it would enrich them. Just as British Airways has merged with Iberia, will other mergers happen, that will effect our decision on airport capacity. The shape of the airline industry will be driven by the desire to get bigger and also American companies wanting to be more tax efficient.
The airlines too, will be bringing in lots of new aircraft. If we take the example of replacing say an A330/A340 with an A380, this will probably increase the passengers going through an airport for the same number of aircraft movements. Even small airliners like the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 are squeezing in a few more passengers every couple of years or so.
So in the future we may need several more terminals. But perhaps only one extra runway! If that!
We also don’t know what the air passenger market will be. If I read the travel pages of serious newspapers, you find that the self loading cargo is restless and complains about everything from drop-off and parking charges to security delays. Even Ryanair is introducing a Business Class. Things are changing and in some ways, I think I’m typical of the new breed of passenger. I go to and from the airport by train, I only carry hand baggage and if it is available, I can afford to travel Business Class. Incidentally, I’ve had five or six outward flights from the UK this year and only one inward.
In some ways the most interesting flight I had was to Iceland, for my holiday. Many of the travellers I met, were going between North America and Europe and were having a holiday and flight break on the island. I never liked long flights and would often go to Houston or California, by changing planes at Boston.
So I think we’re going to see passengers demanding flexibility in how they book flights and they’ll adjust their schedules to make the most of the awful experience of sitting in an aluminium tube for several hours.
With the growth of low cost airlines, have we in the UK changed our pattern of holidays and swapped long haul holidays for several short-haul ones.
I believe that every flight that can be avoided should be. After flights this year, I think my days of travelling steerage are over.
All the vested commercial interests also ignore the herds of wildebeest and zebra in the room. Trains in the UK will shape our airports policy more than anybody predicts.
Manchester is now the UK’s third busiest airport. With the Northern Hub rail developments and the expansion of the Metrolink tram, the airport is getting much better connectivity. Already, electrification in the area, has allowed new electric trains to connect the airport directly to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Heathrow gets Crossrail and Gatwick gets an updated Thameslink in 2018/2019, which coincidentally is the date when the Northern Hub developments will be substantially complete.
If you look at the top ten airports by passengers, only Glasgow and Bristol don’t have a rail link, although Glasgow may be getting one. But then Glasgow’s trains need a good sorting out, as I discussed here.
I think by the end of this decade, that a much higher percentage of passengers will go to their departure airport by public transport, mainly because of more frequent and passenger friendly tram and rail links. Although the way airports see motorists as cash cows will help.
And then there’s the elephant in the room of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. By now, London should have been linked to at least Amsterdam and Cologne, in addition to the current destinations. I wonder sometimes if there is lack of political will in the various governments to get more services through the tunnel. Or is our policy determined more by the British government discouraging immigrants than providing a proper rail service?
All of these factors must be allowed to settle before we decide if we need any more airports or runways in the South East.
How Did The Rotherham Child Abuse Scandal Get So Big?
I suspect nearly everybody feels like I do, about the size of the child abuse scandal that has been revealed in the report by Professor Alexis Jay. This BBC article fully reports on the scandal.
C was always sweeping up the mess from child abuse, but she never dealt with anything on this scale. However, she would have her views on what needed to be done and like me would be questioning, why the abuse was allowed to get so large and carried on for so long, when it appears it had been reported to the authorities.
The BBC report publishes this.
The report found: “Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”
If a particular group of men are thought to be responsible, surely they should be restricted in their movements. Or perhaps they should only be allowed on the street, if accompanied by a responsible female.
We’d probably get called racist, but somehow we must stop child abuse on what is an industrial scale.
I also feel that a lot of social workers, council employees and police should be given the sack.
Labour’s Instinct Is To Control Our Lives
In an article discussing the identity of the psychotic moron, who beheaded the unfortunate James Foley, there is this insert.
Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said those returning from fighting in the Middle East should be forced to take part in compulsory de-radicalisation programmes, even if they cannot be charged with a criminal offence.
It may be a popular policy, but where does it end? Will those who leave Oxford, who have joined the Bullingdon Club, be re-educated. And what about Malky Mackay and Iain Moody?
Let’s face it, one of the reasons we’re in this dangerous mess is because of Tony Blair’s continuous licking of Dubya’s arse.
I cdertainly wouldn’t trust the Labour Party, with anything. I doubt they could organise a piss-up in a brewery!
Wars Of Religion
This was the big headline in The Times on Friday. It does sum up the mess involving Muslims in the Middle East in particular. Admittedly, with a little bit of help from their bogeymen; the Israelis.
A commentator yesterday on the BBC who had a military background, said that what is going on between the two main factions of in Islam, is akin to what when on between Catholics and Protestants in Europe in the Thirty Years War. Wikipedia describes that war like this.
The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) was a series of wars principally fought in Central Europe (primarily present-day Germany), involving most of the European countries. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest continuous wars in modern history.
The commentator said, that it is conceivable that the two factions is Islam, will bring on a similar conflict.
We must do our best to not be drawn into this stupid conflict. To air drop food and water to refugees is one thing, but to favour one side or the other is a complete no-no.
Centralised Stroke Care Is Good For You
I had what some doctors have described as a serious stroke, although I think it might not have been that severe, although it did leave me with damaged eyesight.
I had the stroke in Hong Kong and within about an hour, I was in hospital receiving the special clot busting drug.
But if I’d had that stroke in London, I would have probably had that drug in the ambulance and I would have been in hospital within thirty minutes.
In common with Manchester, London has centralised stroke care in what are called hyperacute stroke units or HASUs. And according to research published in the BMJ, they work well and save lives and money for the NHS. Read all about the system in the Guardian. The article finishes like this.
So what’s stopping this system from being rolled out in other metropolitan areas? It’s a question that Morris’s collaborators are seeking to answer, by studying the potential barriers and facilitators of country-wide stroke unit reconfiguration. Morris himself wants to look at the cost-effectiveness of the exercise: does the improvement in care and reduction in hospital (and hospice) stays make the reconfiguration worthwhile?
There are a few hundred people alive today who would undoubtedly answer “yes”.
My life may not have been saved by a HASU, but I did have similar care.
Admittedly, not every hospital could have a HASU, but most metropolitan areas could and should.
If you take where I used to live near Cambridge, and you draw a thirty-minute ambulance ride area around Addenbrookes hospital, you would enclose about 300,000 people. So it is not just the large metropolitan areas that would benefit.
Everyone possible, should be within range of a HASU.
London Has A New Island And Bridge
City Island is a housing development in a bend of the River Lee. The island has been connected to Canning Town, by a new bridge, that was lifted in place by the UK’s largest mobile crane.
Unfortunately, by the time I got there the bridge was in place and the crane was virtually dismantled.
A New Job For A Beautician
This report from the Thurrock Gazette tells how London Gateway is making a big effort to recruit more women. Here’s an extract, which explains the title of this post.
One of these is former beautician Nicki Allabush from Stanford-le-Hope, who has been a terminal operative for 18 months.
“I absolutely love the challenge that this job offers,” she said. “I thought, if men can do it, women can too.”
Note that the paper didn’t bother mention Ms. Allabush’s age, something that many papers find essential information.
Let’s hope this campaign is as successful as the one by the London Underground to recruit more female train drivers, by placing an advert in Cosmopolitan.
Sharp Infrastructure Growth Predicted
That is the headline on this report in New Civil Engineer. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
The infrastructure new build market will grow by more than 50% over the next five years, according to respected forecasts published today.
The Construction Products Association’s closely-watched summer forecasts predicted a strong and steady increase in the value of new civils work to 2018.
So if you’re a manufacturer of orange high visibility clothing, you must be pleased.
The Anonymous Widower 