Richard Branson bloodied by cycling crash after hitting pothole and falling "hard"

Rich_cb wrote:

I'm pretty sure I didn't. I argued that the oil and gas produced in the UK would lead to lower imports to Europe from elsewhere. It's complete indisputable that European produced gas has a lower carbon footprint than that produced elsewhere and shipped here. For LNG the difference is huge. Your only counter argument was that increasing oil production here would lead to an increase in global supply. I argued it would lead to decreased production elsewhere. Since that discussion American oil and gas production has increased hugely. Global prices have decreased in response to this increased supply and OPEC have cut their production in response to that. Your only counter argument appears to have been disproved. So now you just resort to shouting "lies". https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/30/energy/saudi-arabia-extend-production...

So much truth here and so aplicable to so many other products, it makes you wonder why a vocal minority were allowed to tell our closest neighbours to fuck off!

Last time I checked if something was genuinely manufactured in the EU then it can be sold to the UK tariff free.

If it's manufactured a long way away and then imported into the EU for a bit of paint etc then it can't.

Glad it's got your support.

I know it's fantastic, remind me again how one demonstrates genuine manufacturing in EU and the paper trail, and of course associated cost rises, that have been introduced. The costs must be similar to the agreements we had peviously when nothing needed checking.

How would you know you were importing a genuine European product under the old system?

It could have come from anywhere. Now you can be sure you're getting the more environmentally friendly option.

It didn't make any difference. All goods entering EU were subject to EU regulations. Internal movement wasn't an issue. And, of course, we all know how standards in UK are dropping without EU protection. You've just shot yourself in the foot there.

"The more environmentally friendly option" give your head a wobble, UK farmers losing out to imported lamb from NZ. The whole process of border control isn't exactly environmentally friendly.

I'm surprised that you actually believe the shite you spout.

Your precious, and failed, brexit is now in the hands of the racists and the billionaires, normal people have woken up and seen (and paid/are paying for) the damage. .

You might want to look up the carbon footprint of NZ lamb compared to EU. You might be surprised.

Regardless we could import just as much NZ lamb as EU members as we do now so not sure what point you're making. I'd be surprised if you were to be honest.

I'm honestly surprised, not surprised, that you've taken such a complex comparison and cherry picked the info that you want.

Quote:

The researchers, which compared New Zealand’s on-farm emissions to a range of countries’ footprints across the globe, concluded that when New Zealand beef or sheepmeat is exported, the total carbon footprint is lower or very similar to domestically-produced red meat in those nations.

I see Europe at 41 kg/co2e https://apps.carboncloud.com/climatehub/product-reports/id/474195137510

While NZ is at <7kg/co2e https://beefandlambnz.com/discover/road-to-carbon-neutral-low-carbon-bee...

This is unbelievable.

Agreed. I guarantee there'll be a graph appearing shortly. I'm not hanging around.

Most people do, it's called tax. Unfortunately our billionaire PM thinks that it should go to his mates and not the needy. You really should stop voting for these cretins.

Rich_cb wrote:

Almost every person in the UK is 'hoarding' an enormous amount of wealth relative to the global average.

Of course!

<slaps forehead>

That explains why food bank use has rocketed in the last 14 years and why qualified, trained professionals and many others are working yet are struggling to pay their mortgage/rent and other bills. The cost of living crisis is real, we're not all sitting on piles of money (and most people are not financially illiterate), but some people are getting richer as a direct result of decisions made by politicians and the wealthy; those decisions are made solely to protect their own wealth.

Your comparison is pathetic and an insult to every single person who is finding it hard to make ends meet. It is a direct insult to every person made worse off by changes to disability allowance, those affected by the sick joke that is Universal Credit and lots more that has been deliberately done by the Tories since 2010.

You can take your 'median wealth' and stick it up your arse. 99% of it is hoarded and invested by a tiny fraction of the population. They use 'creative accounting' (what is considered fraud to anyone with an ounce of integrity) to avoid paying taxes and influence their friends in government to tax the workers more.

Many of them were made wealthier by the 2008 crash, as former trader Gary Stevenson has shown. They got richer through the Covid-19 pandemic and are on course to further increase their wealth. So yet, Billionaires should be taxed more.

But then you seem to be a huge fan of these lying thieves and grifters.

To paraphrase Paul Kimmage, what is it about those deeply selfish, possibly sociopathic charlatans that you admire so much?

Nope.

The average person in the UK is incredibly wealthy by global standards.

I'd suggest you look up what 'median' actually means as a start.

Once you understand that you'll see why the rest of your post wasn't really relevant.

I'd give you 100 likes if I could, great comment!

"Rich people are scum".

Fact - most of the people trotting out this kind of class war / school age twaddle are themselves very rich when compared to the poverty most of the world lives in.

The lack of self awareness is hilarious.

open_roads wrote:

"Rich people are scum".

Fact - most of the people trotting out this kind of class war / school age twaddle are themselves very rich when compared to the poverty most of the world lives in.

The lack of self awareness is hilarious.

That's a very good point, road.cc published the results of a visitor survey for the benefit of their advertisers, and it appears that the sampled data in the response are not exactly living hand to mouth. One person's "rich" is often another person's "doing OK'... 

https://road.cc/content/page/306469

road.cc wrote:

What does a typical road.cc reader look like?

According to our survey results, road.cc users are, in the majority, high earners. We asked our readers what their household income is, and the most frequent response was £100k+. The average is £75,000 which is inline with the top 80% of the UK population.

The results also show that on average our readers own 3.6 bikes each and have 1.4 cars per household.

mark1a wrote:

That's a very good point, road.cc published the results of a visitor survey for the benefit of their advertisers, and it appears that the sampled data in the response are not exactly living hand to mouth. One person's "rich" is often another person's "doing OK'... 

https://road.cc/content/page/306469

road.cc wrote:

What does a typical road.cc reader look like?

According to our survey results, road.cc users are, in the majority, high earners. We asked our readers what their household income is, and the most frequent response was £100k+. The average is £75,000 which is inline with the top 80% of the UK population.

The results also show that on average our readers own 3.6 bikes each and have 1.4 cars per household.

Wow - I am clearly not an average road.cc user 

I know.

Had no idea most were so hard up...

HP's probably only ever had one tyre for his unicycle, it's just patch now... still dreaming of a front wheel.

Another reason for liking cycling - there's snobbishness for sure but you can get and stable a poor-man's-nag for a price affordable to most in the UK.

chrisonabike wrote:

HP's probably only ever had one tyre for his unicycle, it's just patch now... still dreaming of a front wheel.

Another reason for liking cycling - there's snobbishness for sure but you can get and stable a poor-man's-nag for a price affordable to most in the UK.

I am in possession of 4 unicycles, so I'd guess I'm well above the average.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I am in possession of 4 unicycles, so I'd guess I'm well above the average.

I mean, you and three friends should turn up to claim max car-share points and confuse people at drive-thru takeaways.

My £100 eBay bike celebrated its 7th anniversary as daily commuter recently.

Good reason to support cycling infrastructure, helps to level the transport playing field significantly.

An excellent purchase!

I've still got my xth hand Dawes which used to be my one bike - free so only costs me what I replace to keep running.  OTOH the new everyday bike was bought new and ten times the cost of yours...

I don't know if cycle paths actually make the Dutch much greener *.  However - it definitely increases resilience.  I imagine if they needed / wanted to suddenly decrease the use of motor transport they could - without causing people to declare that life was impossible and riot.

* Very hazy anecdata (a handful of visits) but they seemed to be doing a lot of consuming, burning and throwing away and also building / rebuilding.  However articles suggest people are a bit healthier and urban areas are certainly much nicer.  I suspect between that, the fitness and wider "independent mobility" (recall who else benefits) people's wellbeing is better.  Certainly the surveys suggest their kids are doing better.

Perhaps you should set up a gofundme page !

road.cc wrote:

The average is £75,000 which is inline with the top 80% of the UK population.

That would mean that only 20% of UK households have an income below £75,000. What an income of £75,000 would do is put them in the 8th decile (for 2021/22), which is slightly (alright, totally) different to being in the top 80%.

Rendel Harris wrote:

road.cc wrote:

The average is £75,000 which is inline with the top 80% of the UK population.

That would mean that only 20% of UK households have an income below £75,000. What an income of £75,000 would do is put them in the 8th decile (for 2021/22), which is slightly (alright, totally) different to being in the top 80%.

I think they meant "80th percentile".

Nail. Head.

Rich_cb wrote:

Nail. Head.

How 'bout you two open your own rightwinger cycling forum somewhere, and stop boring us on here with rightwing bollocks comparing the average Briton to Richard Branson (what about the difference between 1600t of CO2 to 9t of CO2 do you not get?).

Both are unsustainable.

Take some personal responsibility.

Get your own carbon footprint down to a level compatible with a liveable planet.

It's easy to sit and bleat about the billionaires destroying the planet, it's a lot harder to do something about it yourself.

Cue the rightwinger simulating concern for the planet, while actually defending a billionaire...

I'm very confident I've done far more to make my lifestyle sustainable than you have so if I'm 'simulating concern' I'm not sure what you're doing.

Deflecting attention from your own shortcomings by denouncing others is a tale as old as time.

Pretend all you like, as long as you're a rightwinger who defends billionaires, you're part of the problem, not the solution.