ymu

Why gas-free? Bad idea for a liveaboard or winter use. Diesel stove for cooking will probably need help from an sf stove for heating. Pricey. If it's a holiday boat, you'll boil in the boat when cooking in summer. So, don't do it (liveaboard) or don't bother with cooking (holiday boat). Unless there's a very good reason to avoid gas, it's a terrible idea. IMO, obv.

More likely I think that they don't want to create a precedent for sub band A charges. The rebanding exercise is well overdue, so they might just find it easier than trying to extract full CT and having to invest in the mooring for, eg, rubbish collection, lighting or road/lane improvements.

Long-term moorings are any kind with a permit oytside winter to stop more than a fortnight. They may have residential planning permission. They may have leisure only planning permission. The planning permission might not specify, which is usually the case with leisure moorings and you can wing it. The councils concerned are unlikely to care as long as no one is establishing a local connection or creating a need for more street lighting or rubbish collections or incurring criminal justice costs.

Well, yes. We sit around in our pants most of the time. Set of clean scruffy clothes and clean smart clothes to drag on when needed and we can get away with one laundry day every 2 months. We have all the windows covered with thin scarves though. Perfect privacy in daylight and we black out towpath side when we switch the lights on. He gets a bit agitated about flashing passing boats but I'm sure it doesn't happen very often. Takes us a while to answer the door, mind.

:cheers:Interesting stuff, Alnwick. Thanks. One of the nice things about being stay and play CCers. I'm not the most observant, but I give good research. He is phenomenal at noticing stuff to get me to look up. One mystery I've not really looked at yet, probably because I noticed it so he's not nagging me … the bridge with a road to nowhere opposite The Rock of Gibraltar at Emslow Wharf has no towpath under it, but looks old. Is there a story, anyone know?

I resemble that remark.

The 1995 Act is all you need since BW vs Davies. To spend 6 weeks in Lower Heyford alone, moor south of Cleves Bridge, south of the rail bridge and then north of the station.You could do much the same in Upper Heyford after that.

Interesting times.

By historical/political analogy. The age of oil is over, and much of what is left is in Africa, along with mineral wealth of increasing importance as new technologies come on line. South America is in a similar position, but it is politically more developed, so I don't think the same struggles will occur there. The African people face possible effective enslavement along with Chinese investment, to the benefit of the new Chinese middle-class and the enrichment of their mostly brutal rulers. Of course, each country has its own specifics, and I don't know enough about Africa or patterns of Chinese investment to give much detail, but I'm talking the resource-rich, governance-poor south and centre, mainly.

Well, it won't happen overnight, but last time this happened, the world was unrecognisable two decades later. Big crash, bankrupt major powers fighting too many wars on too many fronts, rise of the far right, a 'fifth column' ethnicity which can be openly abused and upon whom people are encouraged to spy,. Our world will be equally unrecognisable in twenty years time. Different players, same story. I predict terrorism from Africa next. But mostly aimed at China. South America will form its own power bloc, with Russia and China as the big monolith superpowers, and a client state Africa. We will have to scramble to keep/rebuild what industry we have. Europe this century will look a lot like South America did last century, I think. Argentina was once the 6th largest economy in the world. It's our big downfall next.

The top 1% have increased their wealth by a third since the crash. There's a very good reason they're demanding these suicidal policies continue and it's not because they're stupid.

It might have been a cheap potshot, I have no idea which comment you're referring to so I can't check. But you did make the assumption that I was doing so out of loyalty to some sort of party line. You said so. I'm quite capable of despising elected pokiticians for their despicable ignorance and self-serving actions, regardless of the ideological heritage they claim. I'm critiquing neo-liberalism. I'm not going to be doing so from a position of support for a neo-liberal party. Really.

You assume I support Labour? I don't do tribalism. If your starting point in politics is that one set of politicians is talking sense, you are doomed to fail. The problem is that no party offers a manifesto that the majority want to vote for. We only get to choose the least worst option, and they can renege on everything they said to get elected once in power. We need to break the link between money and political power. I'd abolish political parties and send local delegates to bash out policies much like the committees do now. It's patronage that allows corruption, and the parties are the primary vehicle for patronage in our system.

That doesn't mean we have no means to influence policy. The poll tax, and Maggie, fell because of a mass campaign of non-payment and Tory realisation that she had become a liability. We'll only ever get as much democracy as we demand. And people will be demanding it. I'm making a prediction, not stating an ideological position. Although I will be joining the strikes and protests because I agree that this vandalism has to be stopped before it is too late. Rebuilding what we lose now will take generations.

Yes. And it is that ideology which will drag us under. You can't afford to shrink the state in a recession. Even Maggie grew it year on year, and she still tipped us into some unnecessary dips. It's not up to them. This is supposed to be a democracy and they have no mandate for this. If the Lib Dems dob't crumble soon, there'll be strikes and riots until they're out. They're going too far too fast, and the majority know it, judging from the opinion polls and -20 to 30 approval ratings. They can't survive this incompetence. One way or another, they'll fall unless there is a very radical shift. They're hurting their base, which is stupid. They are too out of touch to play this one well enough, I think. Their base isn't stupid enough to keep falling for this.

You're not the only person being responded to! You say it has to shrink. But which functions of the public sector are unnecessary? What are we just not going to do at all any more? The private sector pays itself more, so privatising it is just as stupid as the US healthcare system, where they pay the highest % of GDP in the developed world on healthcare in return for the lowest life expectancy. So no easing essentials off the books. What are we just not going to do any more, and how will it make us richer? This is what Osborne's plan does to household debt (this is the difference between OBR projections before his first budget and after his latest). The OBR is his baby, they run the numbers for him, http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/household-debt-up He's relying on the banks to lend us 7 times as much more as he is saving, just to keep the economy afloat. But we pay massive interest rates compared to the government. Bonkers. Bonkers. Bonkers. How can this work? The deficit is the difference between taxes and spending. Someone explain how cutting us into recession can cut the deficit? Who is going to be spending money so that tax is paid on incomes and profits? And where will it come from? Why are we insane enough to try this when our debt is lower than Germany's?

Since when was Capita a drug company?

Here's a good article on multipliers, which could never take values greater than 1 if the public sector were not productive. There's no credible argument here - government spending typically grows the economy by more than it takes out n taxes. http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/spending-cuts-harm-the-economy-more-than-tax-rises Which public sector jobs exist for no reason? Where are these unnecessary jobs we're wasting money on for no reason?