LandOfConfusion

The wiring can deteriorate and I've heard of at least one case where it caused an intermittent fault leading to a section of plumbing becoming live. And sadly the tenant died in that one. In general though it seems to be OK provided you leave it alone. When my parents' house was re-wired a few years ago I got to see them take out the old 1960's cabling. Some of it had started to turn to what was in effect wire-in-powder, which I imagine that's actually safe provided you don't move, nail into or otherwise interfere with it in any way (like for instance when redecorating!). Oh, and still having a wire-based fuse board (no RCBs) wasn't ideal either.

3 months to complete + 1 month delay. Just had a look at Zoopla's asking prices, 3.3% for here and 1.52% for where I'm currently looking. Prices for the last 3 months are essentially no change but then there doesn't appear to have been any sales so no surprise.

True although HP's had been falling since Jun 2016 and from what I've seen in my local area the recent pickup has only continued. Case in point: a house I looked at had it's asking jacked up by £10k in less than a week, probably because of the interest (2k+ views on Zoopla alone). And I thought it was already pushing it a bit at it's original price...

Well looking at the latest Land Reg' statistics it so far doesn't look like prices are falling: That said the data range is Jan 2010 - Mar 2020, so there might have been a downturn since but if that's the case then it's certainly not happening around here (SE England).

No offence but I'm guessing you're new to this? The general public just isn't that smart and far too many (most?) have a 'live for the moment' mentality.

Looks normal then?

Well I suspect there are already extra deaths caused by people not seeing the doctor or going to hospital due to worries about being infected, so there's that. But as for the extra deaths caused due to a recession, that's not something I know how to quantify. We were overdue for a nasty, deep recession anyway so does having it now make any worse a difference, especially considering the loss of life which might have occurred due to exhaustion of hospital facilities in the no lockdown / 'do nothing' scenario?

It's always interesting when a scientist goes against the grain. I've had a look and he raises lots of points, but two central ones pop out to me. The first is that most people will get infected eventually and all we are doing is delaying the deaths. To which I'd respond: er, yes? Where trying to stop the NHS from being overloaded and if we can keep the rate of infections low enough then we can manage this. His second position seems to be that lockdown isn't data driven, i.e. that we have no evidence that it will work or does anything useful. To that I'd say it hasn't happened before so naturally there is no data, only information from previous flu epidemics, which themselves showed that the introduction of lockdowns reduced the rate of infections and consequently deaths. That's not a 1:1 comparison but it's better then going "Oh well, lets' just see". But of course all of this depends on your priorities. In the anarcho-libertarian 'economy first' scenario people dying, especially if they are retired or otherwise economically inactive isn't really a concern. And after all, they're going to die anyway so why worry?

Given how some governments (and people!) are acting it probably is. If it weren't for all those years debating BTL'ers I would have said the level of selfishness I've seen has been stunning. But as I've said before, all you can do is try and protect yourself & your family. And you should do what you can to let the others suffer, i.e. like the grasshopper & the ants but without the happy ending. I suspect over time it'll get better at spreading & infecting but also less dangerous. Don't hold your breath. (Well then again that might actually work but only until you can either get home or get a FFP3 mask).

The government is now going nearly full whack on tacking on debt, so from that perspective they're going to need to engineer inflation which in turn will devalue the real value of everyone's debts, including yours. They've had a few goes at this already (see house prices going up over the last few months) but with all this mass spending things are now going to get really serious. So it's either force inflation higher and make current debts worth less (worthless?) in real terms or allow the state go bankrupt. I'll let you decide which of those is the most likely outcome.

Those figures tend to get revised, so I wouldn't put a lot of stock into them just yet. And anyway, it's not just us: Eurozone growth close to stalling as French and Italian GDPs shrink Personally and as a Brit I have no issue with Scottish independence. If a people want to run themselves independently of another country then so be it, just so long as we don't share a currency, stop paying bribes and tributes Barnett formula money and the people involved get to choose whether they want to be solely Scottish or British nationals.

This I agree with and I suspect many if not most of the Brexiteers would find palatable. But let's face it: the civil service would never let it happen and our best chance at achieving a trade & cooperation-only stance was sunk when Cameron came back with his superficial "deal". Perhaps we will and perhaps we won't, but I know two things will now change: I will have a chance to lobby my representative to actually change existing bad laws rather than just hope some executive branch magically does something about them and I am far less likely to simply be ignored.

Excuse my brevity; we keep getting power cuts and it's really starting to f-me off. ECJ rulings on dangerous non-EU foreign nationals, free money for farmers; free money for landowners who have tenant farmers and who force those farmers to grow certain types of crop; unnecessary rules rules designed to help the car industry by doing things like altering the MoT so that the failure of certain non-safety related functionality (traction control for example) is a fail. 500K sold by Christmas 2017; ~1.5M sold by Christmas 2018 and those are just from places like Tesco's. Numbers of private imports and homebuilds is unknown.

It's unnecessary intervention but one with which I'm fine with so long as it only affects the integrationist parts of Europe. People from outside of Europe will still need to register so why can't we join them in that? Oh yes, the Lisbon treaty. I can't find the original source ATM but commercial operations will still be covered by a separate permissions (licence). It was a bit vague as to how exactly that works but from what I remember you need to submit operational plans / outlines to your country's CAA and, having then got approval from them use that to apply for permissions from the EU country in which you intend to fly. Personally I have no issue with this; as I've said already it's the red tape for private operations that I have issue with and for a country which doesn't want to enter into an "ever closer union" why are we being subjected to what are essentially foreign laws? For commercial operations I have no issue but if you want to travel to Spain to use your new drone then why can you not apply for permission for EU flights? Again, this is no problem if we wanted to merge politically but clearly we don't. And as for safety, there's lots of blogs, videos & articles out there attacking that fallacy. So was the intent to introduce anti-jamming to all modern radio transmitters even though they already have this feature. Except now there's the EU's LBT standard on one side and the perfectly fine, tried & tested FCC/international standard on the other. New Zealand has suggested putting up posters and handing out leaflets on safe & legal drone use to arriving tourists and Canada has essentially no restrictions on anything under 250g - just fly safely and don't endanger anyone but here in Europe we have rules so complex you need a lookup table. And you have to register because all will do it and it'll make everyone safe. Just like it's done with guns & cars. I remember reading an article regarding that terrorist who was so difficult to extradite. Turns out the same thing has happened to France & Germany and their solution was to extradite anyway and just live with the ECJ's wrist-slapping. But here in the UK we follow the rules to the letter. Not sure if you're intentionally missing my point or just having problems with comprehension, so let me make it clearer. It seems to me that most people in this country don't want to be part of an ever closer union. Now I'm sure most wouldn't mind agreeing on trade rules & rules designed to make business easier etc but I'd also suggest that a majority would probably be against invasive policies designed to harmonise the various state's internal laws. The trouble is we've been dragged deeper and deeper into this part of the project and even Cameron's "deal" didn't completely address the issue. And now look at what's happened.

No it wasn't and I even said as much; it was merely the most recent issue and a convenient one to pick. Nice strawman though. 'An ideologue a day keeps the rationality away'.

There was no "mess" to begin with. Originally anyone, regardless of age could fly, subject to some pretty sane, common sense regulations that everyone could and should agree with. Then EASA came along and now we have multiple categories where previously there were just three (sub 20Kg, large model (mainly gas turbines) & full pilot's licence). And now there's also two EU-recognised registration schemes, private and commercial where there were none before. And the justification for the private registration is, as I've said before nonsense. But that doesn't mean I'm totally against it, things like requiring documentation to be included with the sale of each commercial model regarding it's safe operation is a good idea; it's the attempt to harmonise and 'fix' a problem that was never there that I disagree with. And that's the crux of the matter, if E.U. countries want to move to an ever closer union then things like this are fine. But why should we get dragged into it if we don't want to merge along with them? The BMFA is very much hostile to it; they were mentioning it as where EASA is looking to next. Ah, it now only applies to commercial operations who use it in a way similar to news aggregation. But then that raises the question, is this site considered commercial? And what about a hobby site attached to a commercial operation? Or if I have adverts on my personal webpage? I could arguably be making pennies from the presence of those links as they attract traffic so am I liable to pay?

I don't understand. The term "key worker" tends to refer to someone who is both on the public payroll and who performs a societally important job, e.g. medical staff, teacher, firefighter. Given that, do you believe that all public sector workers add the same value and that their reduction or loss is equivalent? Or do you believe that some public sector jobs are critical to the functioning of society? The problem is that wealth isn't distributed geographically evenly and the risk is that if you offered important, skilled staff like doctors, nurses & teachers local rates of pay then they would leave, making the area even more impoverished. So how do you prevent this if not by paying marketable rates for those skills or equivalent in kind? I'm no expert but my experience of Unions has been about what I'd expert, i.e. nice media, shame about reality. The only way I can see real change is though people doing like what they did around the start of the 20th century but that requires mass organisation, and people seem just too busy rolling in self-pity to care. Well apart from those that get educated and get out.

Their commutes are longer, if the same as everyone else in the same in the same position but then their value to society is arguably also greater. One thing though, I would be interested to know if you would support an entirely private model of education & healthcare if it would mean that key workers in those fields received no special governmental treatment and were paid at the going commercial rates by the users of those services?

Should society favour those that add the most value to it or should it reward & treat everyone exactly the same? This is a different issue. Progressive governments of all colours have paid lip service to those that elect them and often been rewarded with re-election. You should be instead asking why companies that do business here, that enjoy our infrastructure & security and use our workforce pay so little tax. It shouldn't be key workers you attack but the parasites using the legal infrastructures that various governments have created for them to extract wealth from communities like yours. Key workers see the system they're working in being propped up by immigration, so I can see it from their point of view. But OTOH if I was in a low-employment area I might too be hostile to immigration but that would be wrong. The question is skills and opportunities - where are they? Why are we not making proper use of our workforce? And why have so many governments, Liebour included - failed so many people?

So 3/4 of 2+ hr commutes are national, a number that is as the articles point out, rising. Also the articles are a few years old now, so more older workers who live near their place of work will have retired whilst those that replace them will now be facing even higher HP's. And longer commutes as people don't tend to move that much when they retire, sadly. Whilst I'd agree to that too an extent, it doesn't change the fact that entry level key workers don't get paid enough salary to compensate for HPI, something which has been made worse in recent years by the public sector pay cap.

I was asked and gave an example of a change in the law which affected me personally. And I've given some more which will likely affect everyone. If you can't grasp that then I'm afraid I'm unwilling to hold your hand for you. In the beginning and for decades it used to be fairly straight forward. Then commercial operations were introduced, then more tinkering and now this. With some exceptions and no doubt implementation quirks (don't you just love harmonisation?) toys and models below 250g takeoff weight which do not have a "data collection device" don't require registration (open category), although some may be subject to age restrictions at the whim of the state. And certified toys are completely free from registration even if they have an onboard camera (so so much for privacy concerns). My information for indoor flying comes from BMFA News issue 157. This correct, the Europe-wide rules will come into effect in June at which point you will need an operator ID and a flyer ID (+ in some cases a PfCO). Technically these are separate registrations in a similar vein to registering your car + obtaining a driver's licence are separate registrations. It's also my understanding that the PfCO, being a commercial operations certificate is Europe-portable but the Op & flyer ID's are not as they are held, maintained and accessible only by the issuing state. As for point 2, when the rules come in and as I understand it many countries, the UK included have already started implementation. The problem is they can extend them if the think that necessary, hence the very real risk of someone being EU compliant but in violation of local statute, even if they think they're flying legally. And to be honest, if the E.U. was to be helpful here they'd simply mandate that flyers cannot endanger people or property, fly above 400ft without the member states' CAA permission and not fly within 4km of an airport or aerodrome. That would be enough and there would be no need for all this red tape. Well unless I'm reading it wrong the exact text says: But they also mention that implementation is up to the member state so maybe your right. It would be nice if this was a sensible EU-wide laws which was the same regardless of member state and with none of these optional articles. But that's just another perennial problem with the E.U.

[Citation need] Because they're a key worker, a worker who's services are considered especially beneficial / critical to the functioning of society?

Justify this Accuse me of using a stawman and then engage in goalpost moving yourself. Nice. I said: And the links I have provided support this. The BBC article even says: [My emphasis] So are you're suggesting that public sector workers are somehow different or not affected by the same pressures as private sector workers I don't see your point. And just to add one more to the mix: [My emphasis] Source.

Oh, I though I was clear when I gave that as an example of the E.U.'s attitude to overreach. Perhaps I need to dumb it down for those on here who are struggling to keep up & who find it difficult to properly criticise an argument?

You didn't make that point in the part I was commenting on but in any case it's not about airspace safety. In fact UKCAA has already said as much. But at the recreational level that's not what's happening. My understanding as a non-pro drone operator is that the business-related parts of the legislation are pretty favourable and yes, once registered (and appropriately qualified by a CAA approved exam site) you can ply your business across the E.U. This is great and exactly the sort of thing the E.U. should be about. As I said the legislation re: indoor flying hasn't yet been been drafted; it's still being ignore-sulted on, hence why the BMFA is involved. Which two? There are lots of sites which are not owned by a major media corporation and some aren't even U.S. based. But that won't matter as they can still bring action and if need be obtain court injunctions blocking access to those services. And they'll win as fighting that sort of thing is well beyond most people's and company's resources. That source also says: But I do grant that: But even then it's still not an acceptable situation.