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How lomg before Reform also disappoints?

I suspect they will be pretty rubbish at running councils. Speaking of which, how would Farage resolve the bins in Brum? Maybe someone would like to ask him. Unless they have some ex-counsellors in their ranks - maybe defectors from the Tories? - they will be pretty clueless from day one.

The truth is that no party has the answers to our problems.

Hard, long-term decisions are required but if anyone attempted to be really honest with the electorate they would howl and whine because a substantial wedge of the electorate want everything to be excellent (healthcare, education, defence) but don't want to pay the price necessary (not personally at least). No party can square that circle so the voters lurch about latching on to the next snake-oil salesman.

Like it or not autocracies have the upper hand over democracies in this respect which is why I also expect China to win its battle with Trump.

I’ve been saying for a while. Democracy is dwindling - and it is probably doomed over time. A relatively brief experiment in the context of human history

There are multiple reasons for this. Just one is the greater ability of autocracies to make difficult long term decisions

Stop it. It is most unnerving when you make a point that is both controversial and correct for once. It really makes me wonder if I have got it wrong.

One has only to look at the way in which the South Koreans dealt with a wannabe dictator to realise that, no, democracy isn't dwindling.

Most of the "democracy is doomed" commentary is based on the current situation in the United States.

The situation has arisen largely because the previous Democratic administration (1) failed to control the border & (2) tried to run Biden for a 2nd term. The opinion polls had been clear for a long time that US voters were concerned about the border & felt that Biden was too old. The Democratic establishment tried to ignore the clear will of the voters & failed in this attempt.

If they had actually looked the opinion polls and (1) acted promptly in 2021 to implement border control measures and (2) forced Biden to retire in 2023, so there was a proper primary process & a new candidate, then Trump would have most likely lost the election.

Anyway, democracy is still alive and well in the United States. The Democrats have done very well in the Wisconsin court election & the Florida special elections have recorded a significant anti-Republican swing. Trump's favourable numbers are sinking rapidly & he will lose control of the House in the 2026 midterms.

I know I’ve been joking about Solzhenitsyn and the Terror and the “Gooly Archypoo” but - incredibly - I’ve just had a real proper taste of what life was like under that police state

I overtook a slow lorry on the steppes - crossing a solid line - and I was IMMEDIATELY pulled over. Almost brutally. The copper swaggered out and we couldn’t understand each other. Then he made serious threats about bad stuff happening to me

So then he got in my car - got in my car!!! - and we drove to a nearby place with decent cell signal. And we used google translate. With that it became clear I was either going to jail or I could bribe him

I offered a bribe. He said yes. Then we drove back to his friend in the cop car and the copper got out of my car and he shrugged and changed his mind and said into Google translate “nah, what the hell, you’re a guest, we don’t want a bribe - on you go. Enjoy Kazakhstan”

The whole ordeal must have taken 12-14 minutes

Now I can look the great Russian dissidents in the eye. Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Solzhenitsyn, the many that died in the camps. I’ve been there

The moral of this story. When in an ex soviet state, don’t steppe over the line.

I apologise if this point has already been made, I haven't had time to read the thread yet, but this polling shows how little the general public understand about the world and position we are in.

It is not that the Tories and Labour are the same, they come from different places and have different priorities and ideologies. It is that THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. Our government, of whatever stripe has extremely little room for manoeuvre. This was demonstrated to all but the very dimmest by Truss and her hapless Chancellor and yet Labour still managed to get elected after persuading people that "austerity was a choice". Even some on here, who are inevitably better informed and more engaged than most, seem to have believed it.

Well it wasn't and it isn't. Ask Rachel Reeves. And if the collection of crackpots known as Reform took over they would discover exactly the same. Unless and until our politics comes into alignment with that reality we face ever more disillusionment and disengagement.

How lomg before Reform also disappoints?

I suspect they will be pretty rubbish at running councils. Speaking of which, how would Farage resolve the bins in Brum? Maybe someone would like to ask him. Unless they have some ex-counsellors in their ranks - maybe defectors from the Tories? - they will be pretty clueless from day one.

The truth is that no party has the answers to our problems.

Hard, long-term decisions are required but if anyone attempted to be really honest with the electorate they would howl and whine because a substantial wedge of the electorate want everything to be excellent (healthcare, education, defence) but don't want to pay the price necessary (not personally at least). No party can square that circle so the voters lurch about latching on to the next snake-oil salesman.

Like it or not autocracies have the upper hand over democracies in this respect which is why I also expect China to win its battle with Trump.

I’ve been saying for a while. Democracy is dwindling - and it is probably doomed over time. A relatively brief experiment in the context of human history

There are multiple reasons for this. Just one is the greater ability of autocracies to make difficult long term decisions

Stop it. It is most unnerving when you make a point that is both controversial and correct for once. It really makes me wonder if I have got it wrong.

People don’t know what they’ve got, till it’s gone.

We have a marvellous ability, as a species, to foul our own nests.

If democracy is replaced by autocracy, what we’ll get is both less freedom and a worse standard of living.

Morning all. Things are better here today. Mrs C is recovering from her hospital trip; fell and took some of the skin off her shin. Lots of blood and general tissue damage, but she's all bandaged up now and she's walking as little as possible.

On topic, or at least one of those currently discussed when I look at my family, are they living better or worse than we were thirty (say) years ago. Eldest son, I would say yes, but he didn't make the commercial mistakes I did, so he's quite comfortably off, working part-time/semi retired although he's worried about his 'children' who aren't settled in either education or employment. Younger son, maybe; he is moving toward semi-retirement, although because of where he lives education of his children is expensive and it'll probably be ten years before his youngest is earning.
In other words they've got worries and problems as we did, but they're different.

They're not similar. Labour have raised taxes more and far more inclined to Statist solutions.

What they have done is take centre-right positions on defence and welfare spending, however - and more effectively than the Conservatives did - which is a sweet place to be electorally.

Conservative Governments have also raised taxes. They may not do it as overtly as Labour but you're not telling me the freezing of personal allowances is anything other than a tax rise for those dragged into the higher rate of tax. It was also a Conservative Government which raised VAT from 17.5% to 20%.

Labour rarely cut taxes though they have in the past.

The Conservatives often cut public spending but it's Labour who do it more brutally whether now or back under Healey in the mid 70s.

It's not a question of being two sides of the same coin or two cheeks of the same arse - it's the circumstances in which they find themselves and the responses they are able to put forward. If you are having issues with the public finances what are your options? Some argue for raising taxes and cutting spending, others argue for cutting taxes and spending to generate growth. It's not however an either/or or even a both/and.

At a fundamental level, it's about the kind of life and society we all want or are willing to pay for. It's also about some form of longer term vision for what the country could or should be in terms of what it provides for its citizens and the obligations placed on its citizens in return. I'd rather we'd spent 2016 discussing that than whether we should be in the European Union.

Yes, Conservatives raised taxes.

Labour have raised them much more.

The difference is that Conservatives will raise if they think they must, whereas Labour will raise as far as they can so they can achieve their social and public policy objectives.

Labour hasn't done that at all. Carrying the ming vase, they boxed themselves in by ruling out all of the obvious ways of raising significant funding, have raised a few extra dribs and drabs by tinkering, and as the money is proving inadequate, semi-broke their promise by going for employers' NI. But there's still nowhere enough resources to both tackle the mess the Tories left almost everywhere and pay a lot more for defence.

I filled up the car this morning. Diesel 135.9p, petrol 129.9p. Ridiculously and criminally cheap. Across in France it’s about 165-169 cents. A 10p hike in fuel duty would raise around 12 billion per year and bring pump prices back to where they were only a year or so ago.