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Ben Barclay@benbarclay.bsky.social |
708 followers 564 following 3109 posts
Twitter refugee. Will probably continue posting on climate, energy, Covid, Spain, Brexit and a bunch of other things.
Occasionally post about the transition to a more sustainable world on Substack: thegreentransition.substack.com/
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Yes, I was just thinking that maintaining flexibility is a good idea for them. Does Labour move to a more obviously centre left position in government? Then there’s space on the centre right. But their current MPs and membership make it difficult for them to occupy that space.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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As I’ve seen it, it’s “they’ll marginalise themselves and become electorally irrelevant, so we won’t suffer another Tory government for a long time”. Like Tories celebrating Corbyn becoming Labour leader. Sort of. Not saying it’s a good take, just explaining what I think is the “logic” behind it.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Those won’t be the rules for this contest. We don’t know what the rules will be.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Ok, sorry. But the first part was answering the question as posed - I wouldn’t have a clue.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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I wouldn’t have a clue, because comfortably off and affluent are both pretty vague and open to interpretation. I think it’s clearer just to say “the sort of people who can easily afford fancy holidays at short notice, but can’t buy a house”.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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But if it gets its additional votes from Con or previous non-voters, it’s still far behind Labour. Until we have a new Tory leader and a new direction for that party, it’s pretty speculative.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Agree. Amongst other things, it depends on who you think they will get the additional votes from. Reform are mainly 2nd behind Lab, but often quite far behind. Take a seat where Lab has 20K, Ref 12K and Con 5K. If Ref increases its vote by 1/3 it gets 16K. If they came from Lab, it could win.
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Adam Cain
@adamcain.bsky.social
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This is my peak optimism thing with Starmer. There are acres of things I wish he'd do but don't think he will, but I do think he knows how to run a team of professionals and get things done. God knows it'd make a change.
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Hotblack
@hotblack.bsky.social
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Some choice quotes from Home Office sources to the BBC too: They say there is "nothing to kill off", adding: "The scheme never started. There is certainly no more work going on on it."
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John Kennedy
@micefearboggis.bsky.social
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When an article says "some scientists think" then remember this: I, a scientist, once thought I could fit a whole orange in my mouth. I could, it turns out, get it in there, but I hadn't given sufficient thought to the reverse operation.
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John Smillie
@johnsmillie42.bsky.social
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techxplore.com/news/2024-07...
Bonkers. Still lab scale, but a team has created an anode free, solid state, sodium battery. It's basically just sodium and an aluminum (some powdered) current collector. Huge theoretical potential for abundance, fast charging, high density.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Beryl’s track and intensity have been defying most forecasts
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Thanks. Good news.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Is there an official announcement?
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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Yes, I know. Starmer is, I think, a very different character from Albo, but what that means in practice remains to be seen.
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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I think they will be more competent and they will invest their political capital in some worthy causes. But I’m not convinced they recognise the scale of the challenges and they will be spread very thin.
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Will Yeates
@wyeates.bsky.social
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Ben Barclay
@benbarclay.bsky.social
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I was initially a bit sceptical about the appointment of Vallance as a junior minister, for reasons that go a bit beyond what I can explain here, but I found this, which makes it more coherent: