People will rip off the headsets if the ads are too intrusive and annoying. Which is why they’ll either be dead subtle, or they’ll offer you paid ways to avoid them.

I don’t think there’ll be mass adoption of this either way, mainly because it’s an expensive gadget coming at a time when folks on median incomes are feeling the pinch.

What’s his negotiating stance with doctors again?

What’s funny about all of this is everyone is obsessed with the funding model instead of the delivery model.

If you choose to fund it privately, please keep in mind that they need to make a profit - which means that if a publicly funded service could do things within the same cost envelope they would be cheaper as they wouldn’t need to add the profit margin on top. There is no more cost effective solution than single payer, public sector service.

So. Why does no one talk about how healthcare is actually delivered?

In Liz we Truss. Amen.

That’s right. Let’s totally fail to consider arguments on their merits, one way or the other (and recognise that his party has been holding down doctors pay for over a decade while demanding more of them, not to mention the whole pandemic thing), and instead worry about “sending a message”.

I wonder if he has a bet riding on the outcome of this?

“Government does not understand” - standard current-era (c.2010 onwards) Tory.

Cancelling a chunk of HS2 in a way that at the time and increasingly since comes across as “on a whim” suggests a total lack of understanding not just of rail but of national infrastructure, our economy and our people.

HS2 never had to be some kind of souped up bullet train service. All HS2 had to be was an increase in capacity, with any added speed as a bonus. Four track instead of two track - so that fast trains didn’t get stuck behind stopping services. That’s all that was needed.

This country is ridiculous. We are a tiny island. How hard is it to connect up all the bits with road and rail? The roads are falling apart and our once world-leading and world-beating railways are outdated, poorly routed/connected and economically constrictive.

Predictably it’s the 15-minute-city conspiracy crap.

The inside of the right-wing brain must be a fearful place; ripe for radicalisation and manipulation.

I don’t see the £50m in quite same way as you do; I see it as the “opportunity cost” of the strikes - and it often seems to be the case that the opportunity cost is much higher than what it would cost to negotiate and settle (by extension, it also seems that employers / governments playing hardball with workers is probably based more on ideology than on financial sense).

I believe we share the same sentiment though; these RMT folks are critical to the economy and they should be treated (and compensated) as such.

I thought Domino as depicted in Deadpool 2 was pretty cool. Just lucky enough.

There seem to be a number of ideas around the ULEZ, some of which are perhaps reasonable and worth discussion (e.g. the costs of upgrading or renewing existing vehicles, challenges involved with certain commercial vehicle types) and some of which are, frankly, unhinged (e.g. conspiracy theories that the whole thing, ULEZ, 15-minute towns, LTN and so on are part of some elitist plot to limit individual freedoms).

I find the conspiracy folks and their freedom particularly odd.

It has always been the case that your freedom to swing your arm ends where my face begins; freedom is not without constraints.

So on the one hand, those who subscribe to the conspiracy theory want the freedom to pollute.

On the other hand, there is a fair amount of overlap between this conspiracy theory and the desire to limit the freedom of cyclists by removing cycle lanes and introducing licensing and taxation.

Internal consistency and clarity of thought are not particular strengths it seems.