Best Of

I am about to spend a day in London and I'm not takiung any cash with me.

Just the two grand phone, the ten grand watch, the fancy shoes and the sharp suit…

I am slumming it today, just the £1,500 watch, Watch Ultra 3 Hermès.

JohnO and myself are off to our regular working man’s venue for lunch, Claridge’s.

I never understood the joy in expensive watches. For any human purposes, my £5 Chinese watch is just as accurate as one 300 times the price. And if I lose it - which I do, frequently - it causes me only very minor vexation. I can wear it in a mosh pit, or in bed, or on the beach, or on a bike ride, without any anxiety whatsoever.

Having a phone, why is there a need for a watch at all? I haven't worn one for years.

Your wrist is more accessible than your pocket or bag.

And getting your phone out immediately attracts a flock of bicycle thieves I believe.

Strange lot in Scotchland, then.

In London, the bicycle thieves steal bikes, mostly. May a plague of suppurating boils afflict their nether regions.

I heard a story recently about a bike thief trying to steal a very expensive triathlon bike from outside a cafe. He didn't get far, as he found it nearly impossible to ride and ended up abandoning it at the end of the road when the owner and his friends noticed. He didn't even steal the bike computer.

At the boat club, one of the rowers has had her bike stolen. The tracker (well integrated into it) shows the exact location. The police refused to do anything. There is some discussion about seeing the first two eight crews round to borrow it back - it's not far.

The police really need to be told (continually) that with many items being 100% trackable their unwillingness to do what many people believe is their job (tracking thiefs and returning stolen goods) is destroying the public's opinion of then.

Secondary effects. Policing doesn't seem to consider those.

I grew up in Oxford. In that period - up to the early 90s - there was the following phenomenon. A certain individual was known by all to be in charge of the drug trade in West Oxford. People I knew bought cannabis from his associates. He was quite visible. He would even have chats with the police. It was also noticeable that his attempted rivals in the business were rapidly arrested. This included students at the University - every year there would be someone who thought that getting into retail would save themselves money...

Speculation was generally blatant corruption. My thought was that the police were happy with an organised, non violent trade. See Olivia Channon.

Some years later, I was talking to ex-police officer at a social event. We got onto the topic of discretion in policing. When I mentioned my theory as to the chap (above) he said nothing. But looked quite smug.

I then pointed out that, whatever the truth, the police had convinced a generation of Oxford students that the police were corrupt. And who does PPE at Oxford?

I am about to spend a day in London and I'm not takiung any cash with me.

Just the two grand phone, the ten grand watch, the fancy shoes and the sharp suit…

I am slumming it today, just the £1,500 watch, Watch Ultra 3 Hermès.

JohnO and myself are off to our regular working man’s venue for lunch, Claridge’s.

I never understood the joy in expensive watches. For any human purposes, my £5 Chinese watch is just as accurate as one 300 times the price. And if I lose it - which I do, frequently - it causes me only very minor vexation. I can wear it in a mosh pit, or in bed, or on the beach, or on a bike ride, without any anxiety whatsoever.

Having a phone, why is there a need for a watch at all? I haven't worn one for years.

Your wrist is more accessible than your pocket or bag.

And getting your phone out immediately attracts a flock of bicycle thieves I believe.

Strange lot in Scotchland, then.

In London, the bicycle thieves steal bikes, mostly. May a plague of suppurating boils afflict their nether regions.

I heard a story recently about a bike thief trying to steal a very expensive triathlon bike from outside a cafe. He didn't get far, as he found it nearly impossible to ride and ended up abandoning it at the end of the road when the owner and his friends noticed. He didn't even steal the bike computer.

At the boat club, one of the rowers has had her bike stolen. The tracker (well integrated into it) shows the exact location. The police refused to do anything. There is some discussion about seeing the first two eight crews round to borrow it back - it's not far.

The police really need to be told (continually) that with many items being 100% trackable their unwillingness to do what many people believe is their job (tracking thiefs and returning stolen goods) is destroying the public's opinion of then.

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.

Yes, car list prices have gone up a lot in recent years, and the spike in interest rates a couple of years ago has made many new deals totally unaffordable on a like-for-like basis.

Why your average Joe leases a new car will remain a total mystery to me, it’s totally dead money as the depreciation is horrific for those first three or four years. It’s understandable for a company car, but totally mad for a personal one.

If you can't afford the 4 bedroom detached house your parents have, having a better brand of car may make you feel better.

The issue as you say is that people who leased cars are suddenly discovering that the due to higher interest rates (and to a lesser extent higher list prices) they can't afford to replace their current car with an identical replacement as the PCP rate is £200+ more due to interest rates. But because interest rates were so low between 2009 and 2022 people have got used to low risk borrowing being very low cost so the PCP rate of a car was discounted bulk purchase price - expected 3 year value + sod all interest and now it's less discounted bulk purchase price - lower 3 year value + a lot of interest.

I'm starting to feel a little sorry for Starmer, in an odd way.

He is, I think, a fairly decent man. Like Sunak before him, or Cameron. He wants to do what is right, and wants a better country. He might even have gone into politics for that reason. None of those three needed to go into politics, and they could all have had (or had) a decent career outside.

So he's a decent man, but he's also terrible flawed. In his case, the flaws combine to make him a terrible PM, even when he has a massive majority.

A skilful PM might be able to steady the ship, even now. But I fear that Starmer isn't skilful at that sort of politics. Much will depend on what happens at the Labour Party conference.

"I'm starting to feel a little sorry for Starmer"

Nobody made him take the job.

He sat in Corbyn's Shadow Cabint for years whilst it was cover for some pretty hateful thinking. Time he clearly didn't use to come up with implementing a strategy of practical difference from what the Tories were doing. "We're not the Tories!" isn't enough when not only are you just as shit, you have been trusted as the receptacle for millions of voters' hopes for something much better.

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.

I think there's a lot of truth in that and it holds more broadly, hence those articles in the Telegraph etc with headlines like "I earn a six figure salary but we are struggling". People assume a kind of entitlement to a certain kind of lifestyle and are then enraged when they can't afford it. I suppose that's just human nature, but it is accelerated by our hyper consumerist society and the advertising industry. It's better of course to aim for a lifestyle that is some way below your income and seek happiness and validation through things that don't cost much money, like spending time with family and friends or joining a local voluntary organization.

So it’s all @Roger ’s fault?

Basically, yes.

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.