Best Of

It's the economy (stupid), because it usually is. And there have been a couple of years now where wages have grown faster than prices. But as long as most people have more month than money, they are going to be understandably unhappy.

But to a very large degree, that's out of the government's hands to fix, in the short term anyway. We can shuffle how things are paid for, but they will largely cost what they cost.

One interesting suggestion that I've come across recently is that PCP car financing explains why people are angrier than ever about the cost of living even though wages have grown faster than prices, and even though the large number of new cars about would suggest a healthy level of prosperity.

It has enabled people to buy cars that they previously wouldn't have been able to afford - but really they still can't afford them, and so they're struggling to make ends meet because of the millstone of car finance.

I haven't interrogated the idea to see if the numbers stack up, but it suggests a way forward for the government to help square the circle. Increase regulation of car financing to save people from immiserating themselves spending beyond their means, and although this will mean more people have to make do with a lower status motor, they will end up happier when they can more easily reach the end of the month with the money previously being spent on finance for the car they couldn't afford.

Another day, and yet more russian infrastructure on fire.

Belgorod this time.

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1972339228299362780

Speculation that this was a HIMARS missile attack on Belgorod, which if confirmed will be the first known use of the American-made missile in Russia, something which until now they had been denied permission to do by the Americans.

https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1972386258795352523

Are we starting to see some good come from the NATO sideline meetings at the UN last week? There’s no way that the Russians aren’t going to see an American-made missile hitting Russia as a severe provocation.

Aye, but Russia sees Ukraine being independent as a provocation, and Georgia being proximate as a provocation. Not doing something because it 'might' provoke Russia means doing sod all except capitulating.

Golf is so fricking ridic

It's been a wonderful weekend watching it. Love it. Bets going well too.

Not trying to spoil your fun! Golf can be very entertaining, and the Ryder Cup is probably the most absorbing form of it, because of the varied competititons - foursomes, Swissnicks - and also the genuine niggle between the teams

It's just that when I watch golf, and before I get into it again, I get a sense of what non-sports-fans feel "this is so absurd, grown men chasing after spherical objects. I never get that with football, rugby, cricket, tennis etc

Part of it is the absurd costumes and shoes and all that

@Leon Tips for Bangkok please - we are off in November - staying very near Lumpini Park, then going up to Chang Mai then back to Bangkok riverside. Me and Mrs Stocky, up for fun but not too depraved.

Last time I went to Bangkok I met these two beautiful women, they told me sex with them was like winning the lottery, they were right, we had six matching balls.

Meanwhile, topically in Switzerland:

A referendum in Switzerland to decide whether to introduce electronic identity cards is taking place, with initial projections suggesting voters are evenly split.

It is the second nationwide ballot on the issue, after the idea was rejected in 2021 over data protection concerns and unease over the proposed system being largely run by private firms.

Under the revised proposal, the new system would remain entirely optional and in public hands, with data stored on users' smartphones rather than centrally.

Interesting and the word optional is the key difference between Starmer mandating them [I expect the idea will be quietly dropped in the fullness of time]

Here is what the government has said about its plans so far;

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-id-scheme-explainer/digital-id-scheme-explainer

Of course there will be some spin here. But it's a very long way from the proposal to the scheme that people are filling a petition out against. As far as I can tell from the government explainer, the only situation where it will be essential is for people taking up new jobs. In theory, those checks should already be happening, and they are a bit of a pain, as @eek has pointed out.

The problem with that is mission creep and I really do not expect it to become law

Next time I’m in Llandudno - I will take you to a council estate where I can guarantee 50% won’t have the passport required to meet the employment requirement of a national firm.

But hey you are more concerned about x then making it possible to get a job.

Worse the database is going to be implemented anyway so let’s give people the small benefits that can be derived from it

Which takes us back to how warped and unhinged the national conversation is.

The way to think about this plan is using technology to make life easier for citizens. Whenever you move house, change jobs, do significant financial transactions or vote in person, you have to prove your identity. At the monent, that involves various degrees of clunkiness- it's not too bad if you have a passport and/or driving licence, but plenty of people don't. (And even then, the paper bank statement/utility bills thing is getting tricky.) Having a thing that you can show that proves who you are and not much else is the sort of incremental improvement that makes everyone's lives a bit better and makes the national administration a bit smoother that governments ought to be doing.

We can't talk about it that way, because all the media want to ask about is the alleged migration crisis. This will probably help a bit there (at the moment, ID checks are more faff than they are worth for microbusinesses, and more faff than they are worth to investigate for the government... streamlining the process should help), but they aren't the real benefit.

So yeah, it's probably fine, and a lot of the shroud-waving about tech conspiracies is misdirected. But some people have such an intense Starmer hatred that anything he proposes must be evil.

Which isn't to say that I wouldn't rather someone better was doing the job. But PM isn't really the sort of role where you can run a recruitment process and decide not to appoint.

It's fortunate that I'm not looking for work as I have neither a driving licence or a valid passport. All I have is an OAP bus pass, with a 20+ year old photo!

I'm impressed you could get an OAP bus pass at 20+. Most people have to wait until 60.

Is there some significant psychological barrier crossed when the Tories come fifth? Surely fourth would be bad enough

Anyway I love these polls. A plague on both their houses

Yes, right now some Tories have been able to argue that being third in the polls is due to Starmer being rubbish and boosting Reform, but ending up consistently fourth/fifth behind the Greens/Lib Dems will be a barrier crossed.

I agree, I was just querying that distinction twixt 4th and
5th

This feels like a death spiral now, for the Tories. As you say there’s a tipping point when they look terminally irrelevant and any vote for them is wasted. They are horribly close to that point, and it’s not obvious how they reverse the slide. Dumping poor Kemi is necessary - but not sufficient

Labour have different problems. Unlikely to go extinct but facing a defeat so bad they are out of power for 15 years

Perhaps.

I am writing a piece which should go up later on this week which points out based on the MRPs/polls Reform are on course to win the election with a lower vote share/votes than Labour in 2024 (the YouGov MRP had them on 27%) and we saw how unpopular Labour became.

I reckon within a year of the next election Reform could be in the single digits and we end up with a very left wing party leading the polls such as the Greens.