Best Of

I had lunch today with a former colleague from my government days who now works for the Treasury. He doesn't work directly on the Budget but obviously picks up news and gossip from colleagues. He is a fairly apolitical centrist managerial type - certainly not partisan, and weighs his words carefully before speaking, which is doubtless how he got to his present, fairly senior position.. Most of our conversation was about a DSGE model I'm working with, but obviously I asked him about how things were going at HMT. So take the following for what it's worth.

He surprised me by saying without me prompting that most of HMT is now disillusioned with this current government, having welcomed them after several years of decay under the Conservatives. He said that Reeves and her team has virtually been sidelined, or sidelined themselves, and that most of the work is being done by Torsten Bell and his RF cronies, who never listen to official advice and have, even for Think-Tankers, completely exaggerated ideas of their own intelligence. And he claimed that Reeves is like a rabbit in headlights on growth, not having the faintest idea how to stimulate it. He maintains that she's well-meaning, but doesn't have any idea what she's doing.

That last point, anyway, I'd come to realise myself after about a week of watching her, but I thought his other comments were interesting. The choice between Reeves and Bell is basically one between incompetence and disaster.

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

No. Less damage would have been done if children hadn’t received hideous treatment at the tax payers expense. It’s the “be kind” attitude which enabled that.

A young person very close to me went through a phase of being genderfluid. It got as bad as asking quite persistently for pills - puberty blockers

Thank God her mum is sensible and said No. Not a thing until you’re 18. Pronouns fine, surgery no bloody way. Kind but firm as @StillWaters puts it

She’s now forgotten the whole trans thing and is happily female, wears dresses, and is voluptuously in love with some young Brazilian guy - who loves her right back. Yay

But I feel for those families where it didn’t turn out this way

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

But it didn't just "blow over" it took court cases and a Trump victory to end the nonsense. The idea that it just went away by itself is for the birds. Without the effort of the women and women's rights activists, the American right and the LGB alliance the situation would be far worse than before because the trans activists were getting zero pushback from "centrist dads" telling us all it costs nothing to be polite when in reality they were telling us to appease the nonsense and knuckle under because they were afraid of being cancelled.

Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.

The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.

Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.

Your Party = ALBA

No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.

I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.

I'm not sure the Green Party share a preoccupation with green issues.

Man who threatened Farage sentenced to 5 years in jail

Paid for by us. And he gets to stay.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj97lkmd23po

He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.

Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?

He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.

And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?

Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?

He won’t be deported. He will be a burden on the taxpayer for life.

He has his "human rights", completely unfettered by his human responsibilities.

I hate percentage stats in isolation without anything to compare it to. It makes the stat almost meaningless.

What's the baseline here?

54% of by-elections with higher than normal turnout are being won by Reform. Yes, and . . . ?

What's the percentage of overall by-elections being won by Reform?
Or what's the percentage of by-elections with low turnout being won by Reform?

If Reform are winning, say, 55% of by-elections in general, including 54% with higher turnout, then the higher turnout percentage is not especially significant. If they're winning 70% of by-elections in general, then they're actually doing worse, not better, on higher turnout elections. If they're winning 30% of by-elections in general, then they're doing better as implied.

You need a baseline or context to go with percentages.

Whodathunk it

1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
 
(h/t @FIRE data in particular)

2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.

Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023.


https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Now weep for the young people mutilated - because a bunch of creeps hijacked teenage angst, and a lot of lefties and politicians who should know better supported this madness

Which means that the panic was massively overblown? And the centrist dads were right?

What an utterly ridiculous take. The centrist dads went along with all this. It’s what they do. Now - as I predict - when it all turns out to be madness they will claim “oh we never believed it anyway”

No, the centrist dads - like me - said this was all going to blow over.

Basically, our take on most things is "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", and you do more damage by reflexive behaviours than by just ignoring it, and waiting until it goes away.

My view has always been - and I've repeated it 100x on here - use whatever pronouns you like (i.e. be polite to people and treat them as they would like to be treated), but no sport and no access to single sex spaces. I would, however, make accomodartions in terms of creation of gender neutral bathrooms.

That is literally the most centrist dad take you can have.

And guess what? It was the right take, and didn't involve being a total cock to people.

The problem with "Broken Britain" hyperbole is it risks becoming self-fulfilling because it rolls the pitch for political extremists and populist charlatans (no names no pack drill). They are the main beneficiaries of this sentiment going mainstream. That's why they work so hard to promote it.

Again, straight out of the Trump playbook.

Depressingly so. An instruction manual for all the wrong people, a warning for everyone else.

I agree with you btw about this feeling like a crux few years for us. But for me the absolute biggest short term priority is preventing far right populism getting its mitts on government. So long as we manage to stop that we have a chance of meeting some of our many challenges. If not, forget it and we'll be looking back at today quite wistfully.