But he voted Trump in 2016. I think that’s what @Chuymatt@beehaw.org meant by a ‘historical conservative’.

Yeah, it’s not exactly a fun walk even now. I normally go through Soho if I’m in the area even if it takes longer.

I read a while back that the average speed of a bus in central London is 3 (three!) miles per hour.

You are right that they can’t compete directly with online shopping, but that’s not why people go there. Studies have consistently shown that closing shopping areas to through-traffic is good for businesses, precisely because it makes them easier, not harder, to access. Shops don’t benefit in any way from hundreds of cars (or, in this case, buses and taxis) driving past them!

EDIT: Thought I should link to a specific study rather than just vaguely waving at them. There are many to choose from but this one is particularly interesting because it’s from the US, where they generally don’t have good cycling and public transport infrastructure, but it still shows benefits for businesses:

While we observed some mixed results, we generally found that street improvements have either positive impacts on corridor economic and business performance or non-significant impacts.

It’s important to note that nothing always works everywhere (‘some mixed results’, here), but the balance of evidence is in favour of at least trialling traffic reduction schemes in commercial districts.

Yeah, it’s a fair point. I think the downside of caps is that it feels like the article is screaming at you!

The Greens very much do run on nimby platforms, including their co-leader, mentioned in the article. And it is just deeply aggravating when they oppose green infrastructure for nimby reasons, whether it wins them votes or not.

Also, lots of words start off as acronyms and then lose that status. ‘Laser’ is a good example: originally ‘Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’, but now always written in lowercase.

What about this one person I heard about who’s old and also blind and she needs to take her cat to the vet and if she can’t drive at 30mph past a primary school her cat will die? What about her?

Rough sleeping is a specific category of homelessness, meaning people who are sleeping actually outside, on the street. Homelessness can refer more generally to people who are shuttling between different temporary accommodation or couch surfing. Obviously there’s some overlap and people often go from one to the other.

Next they’ll realise giving people food stops them being hungry!

Definitely the right decision. I criticise the Greens a lot for letting their nimbyism trump their environmentalism, so it’s only fair that I praise them embracing their yimby side!

Keep the picture but turn it sideways, then everyone’s happy.

Makes official what we already strongly suspected, I think.

All 72 deaths were due to decades of negligence and in some cases active deception.

Whether or not George Mallory summitted Everest.

Mallory was a great climber. People who knew him think he had the ability. Another member of his expedition saw Mallory and his partner, Andrew Irvine, close to the summit, but not close enough to be certain whether or not they made it.

Neither man returned from the mountain. Mallory’s body was later found, many decades after he died. but Irvine was never seen again, dead or alive.

There are various other bits of circumstantial evidence, but the fact is we’ll simply never know for sure. I like to think they made it.

Technically, yes, as long as the dog’s not a papist.

Does the position of Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office transfer to the heir apparent instantaneously or does it require a meeting of the Accession Council? It’s important to get these things right.

So, you’re saying there was a slight miscarriage of justice which, on appeal, was rectified? I’m sorry there was a problem but, by your own account, it was fixed.

The UK cannot be both Marxist and living under Sharia law; they’re diamatrically opposed. In fact, no where is Sharia law legally imposed, whatever you may have heard.

It is not true that you can’t be ‘proud’ of being ‘English’. There is a St. George’s Day parade in many towns and cities, including London, where it is led by Sadiq Khan, the mayor, who is both proudly Muslim and proudly English. Like most people, he sees no contradiction.

It is not true that talking about Anglo-Saxon culture is considered white supremacy. Schools and universities talk a great deal about figures from Shakespeare to Alan Turing to Millicent Fawcett (I’m picking three examples at random) all of whom were Anglo-Saxon. No one feels the need to point this out, because it would be fucking weird, but like all cultures everywhere, we mostly talk about people from our own culture. The idea this is banned or frowned upon is imaginary.

Yeah, as someone living here, this is nonsense. We put violent rioters in prison. Punishing criminals does not violate freedom; it’s a condition for it.

Same here. I was in the countryside recently, thought I’d be able to see the Perseid meteor shower but it was impossible: even the little village I was in had bright white streetlights on all night along every road, even the ones with no houses! This is a village where you rarely see anyone walking, even during the day. So why the streetlights at 2 in the morning?

Several people here have mentioned the genocide in Palestine, which I accept is a major issue and one no one should be dismissive of. Biden himself acknowledged the validity of the issue in his speech to the DNC.

I honestly find Biden’s decision to keep spending so much money arming Israel baffling, but there is at least some chance Harris will change that policy.

But if Harris doesn’t win the White House, Trump’s policies will intensify the perescution of the Palestinians and also lead to pogroms, if not actual genocide, in the US and elsewhere.

I agree this is not a happy choice to have to make. But it’s also quite clear which is the right choice.