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Westerley event one year

The 2014 winter warmer - the first event I organised!

In hindsight I should have cancelled, and I would do now. But I fudged it then and said we would leave it up to riders - refund if you want or ride at your own risk.

We got caught out by the temps dropping more than forecast overnight (as they always do!) and it froze when it wasn't expected to. The route went up Bottrells Lane, which is always wet, and it was slippy as. Riders down everywhere. Nobody got (majorly) hurt, thankfully.

I rode the whole thing, mainly because I felt I ought to, and after that first section it was clear of ice. The following year I re-routed it to avoid Bottrells Lane, and we've never had a cold morning with ice since.

I think these might actually be your pictures

It can get definitely get worse - (real) headbangers get in, fully privatise the NHS

Sometimes it's about abolishing the death penalty or creating the NHS.

Yes, good to acknowledge that good things have been done by politicians.

And I agree Johnson / Trump seem to have a psychopathic disregard for the truth which previous politicians did not - and our constitution, which assumes gentlemanly conduct, struggles to cope.

But there has always been a tendency for people to say the current politicians are not as good / honest, etc as the ones when I was younger - apparently this goes back forever.

It's not stupid if it works

Yes, I agree.

I'd argue that it long predates Johnson.
Think of Thatcher and her household analogy of the economy, Cameron on how he justified austerity, reeves and Starmer now saying there isn't any money...

Politics has probably always been about doing exactly this.

Possibly, but the reason I say that is that I think many people (and I don't mean you - not personal) underestimate just how bad the period since 2010 has been. Destruction of the British state, Brexit, widespread poverty, failure of the economic model, stagnation of the econony and of productivity, death of towns and cities outside London and commuter belt, etc.

The great skill of the Tories has always been to protect just enough people to get them re-elected while absolutely shafting the rest.

You are right though in that however bad things might be, that is no guarantee that they won't get worse!

So, nothing changes and it's more of the same then!

It will take a lot of unpicking...

Labour has never elected a woman. Labour is very conservative.

Brexit was means by which it was destroyed.

But I'd argue there are bigger forces behind it: the break up of the post-war political consensus and the advance of neoliberalism since Thatcher/Reagan. That has led to rabid right wing politics across the West, and other parties have had similar fates. Les Republicains in France is tiny now, not sure what became of the Christian Democrats in Italy. Even the mighty CDU (which is arguably the most successful political party of the post war era) is retreating in the face of competition from the right.

Without Brexit I believe the tories would have found other rocks on which to flounder!

Corbyn Vs Starmer is an indicator that there is little space to the left of labour

Depends on how you define 'space'. If you mean number of people willing to support, then the Corbyn years showed that there were an awful lot of people there. But if you mean what can be acheived given the strong and sustained headwinds of the press and other UK institutions, then I fear you are right. I agree that we are institutionally a right-wing country but I do not think that that comes from the population, it comes from the top / centre.

Regarding the Tories, I would change 'are' to 'were'. They may become so again - but they may not, they have the ability to self-destruct and may not adapt to changed times - which they were always very good at in the past. The Whigs under Gladstone were once the most successful party!

Well put: reassuring to hear my pessimism is not alone!

Indeed. Classic fallacious both-siding going on there.

I think the assumption follows from assuming Labour is and will always be on the left.

Maybe the tories have been forced to move further to the right because Labour moved right and stole their patch..? In truth I think it's a bit of both, but we saw how a left-leaning labour party was able to drag the tories under Johnson to ditch austerity in their 2019 manifesto. Long since abandoned now that Labour has re-embraced austerity.

The Greens are making progress but only slowly, as the constraints are money and people. The greens came second in 17 seats in London. With enough resources they would target them all (plus the others where they came second outside London). But they are likely to only target one seat in Hackney.

Lack of friendly billionaires has always been the key structural weakness of left leaning parties!

£705

I knew they were expensive but I'm still shocked at that. I guess the market is city boys going for grouse shooting.

Tbh I would never expect a great night's sleep on one so, to avoid sleep dep from the start, I'd get the last train up in the evening and do the Premier Inn in Inverness.

Given I planned to ride a 1200 the other week after 1 hours sleep max on the Dover-Dunkirk ferry, I have realised I am much better at giving advice to others than formulating sensible plans myself!

Is that not what they've been doing all along?

Whenever I think of the tories from now on it will always remind me of unsparing anal. And whenever I think of unsparing anal, it will make me think of the tories - not sure which is worse!

Tbh it might suit them if they could just get rid of the members, then they could deal directly with donors without complications. Maybe Starmer could advise them on how to get rid of 300k members...

Interesting twists yesterday, and in the run up. Clearly cleverly has the momentum and jenrick peaked too soon / blew his chances by opening his mouth at conf. Not over yet though. I've been long on those two and, for the last week or so, very short on Badenoch. Was also very short on Tugs, and Mel Stride (who I'd never heard of until a couple of weeks ago). I thought Badenoch was a busted flush a few days ago when I went short on her, and she didn't have a great conference. She probably still is busted as there is talk of cleverly lending jenrick votes to make sure she's knocked out, and when push comes to shove, I reckon the tory members will vote for the whiter option, whatever the polling samples say.

Monevator's broker table is the best place to look to compare them, as per Matt's post above.

Mainly it depends on your fund size, whether you are better paying a fixed or % fee. Otherwise they all essentially so the same thing. Vanguard only has its own funds, which may or may not be an issue for you (would be for me) .

I'm with iweb. They've been fine for 15 years but I am thinking of switching as they are expensive for US shares. I didn't have any US shares until this year so was never previously an issue.

I noticed that freetrade is doing a promo the other day, they pay you for transferring a pension to them.

Edit - this has been a bit superseded by the subsequent discussion. I think running a mile sounds like a good plan!

Suggestion to get a low cost wrapper / SIPP and invest in a global tracker is good advice. Unless you think you can beat the market at investing that's the best thing to do.

I can certainly see how you would be disappointed if you only look for food in petrol stations, but my experience was different...

Back in the 80s - when the overnight train was called Nightrider - there were reports of people improvising bunks out of the overhead luggage racks.
Never tried it myself - not sure what weight they would take. And how to get up / there

people just woke up at Euston

Haha that is a good one - and people would be thinking 'great sleep - hardly noticed the bumps'!

Is it easy to get bike reservations on the sleepers nowadays? That was an issue last time I looked but may be easier now.

Well, it's probably in the top 3!

If we allow non-uk destinations, the ferries to France would shade it as more capacity, cheaper and no bike reservations.

Northern Ireland via train to Liverpool and overnight ferry is not a lot harder than Scotland.

This is the problem with Scotland: France is a hell of a lot nearer and easier to get to. And the food and weather are better.

I don't think there is but you could try one of the splitting apps like splitmyfare and it will tell you.

I met a French woman on the ferry to Calais the other day and she had just got the train down after touring round scotland for 3 weeks. She said she got the train down just in a normal seat as the sleeper prices were horrific. She said it was just about bearable.

Or there is always the overnight coach. I used to use that to get to university (back in the days before parents took adult children to university in massive cars) and it wasn't exactly great for sleeping but it was cheap!

Actually overnight coach won't get you all the way to inverness so forget that.

I think, even more importantly, a lot of the ones that have gone over to Reform still love him

So you think he just bought more at the same price? But that implies the price jumped by 10% between quotation and execution. Markets have been a bit volatile lately but not that much!

But I guess, with small numbers it could get a bit lumpy, so could be right.

I thought what he was saying was he got hit with an unexpected £2 charge, but buying £2 more than you wanted at the same price doesn't sound so bad.