Best Of

https://x.com/frasernelson/status/1898322047824003203

VERY good q. If just 6% of Birkenhead is unemployed, how can 51% of central Birkenhead be on out-of-work benefits?

Answer is the smoke-and-mirrors of categorisation. Those on sickness benefit don't show up on unemployent figures.

The DWP list of all "out-of-work benefits" gives the full picture

At last count, just 1.7m are claimant unemployed.
Reality: a full 6m out-of-work benefits...

It is a significant problem. Our government/political machine has been captured by the "one more cut" mentality. How have we got all these people now in work claiming "benefits?" Lets cut. How have we got few unemployed but lots on the sick? Lets cut.

You can cut the funding, but you can't cut the need. We need to go after the roots of the problem:
Too many jobs do not pay the bills
Jobs which invest zero in training and skills
Not enough jobs
Not enough childcare at times / prices to enable work
Not enough money invested in preventative care as its been cut

We could take an axe to "benefits: in Birkenhead. The people on them won't be driven back into work as the work isn't there and what work there is isn't viable to live on. So then you get a big uplift in crime which costs loads and crapifies whole communities which costs loads more.

We need to completely reimagine work and social security. And I am increasingly persuaded that UBI needs to be at the heart of it.

The little food bank I'm connected with has families where both parents have full time jobs but their combined income still doesn't cover the bills.

Do they have TVs, internet, cars, phones, alcohol, cigarettes, holidays, meals out etc? If so then their incomes probably cover the basic essentials of food and drink, clothing and accommodation, just the food bank helps them afford relative luxuries

Again I don't know, but I do know our front-of-shop people aren't pushovers.

He's on another planet. On one hand the Tories want to abolish food banks because "scroungers" should just get a job. On the other hand we get "do they have"
TVs - so they should have to sell it to Cash Converters first?
Internet - as you can't access most government services without the internet this is beyond stupid
Cars - again, is the proposal that it should be forcibly sold first?
Alcohol & Cigarettes - because people who need a food bank to eat have a bottle of Lambrini and 40 Lambets?
Holidays - an awful lot of people don't have those
Meals Out - hospitality is having a terrible time as people are skint. Go ask anyone in the trade who isn't a high end restaurant how business is

Tories think poor people are scroungers who need to be further punished. Reform think poor people are target voters who are the victims of the system. Which is why the polling trend has Reform looking likely to hoover up votes in places briefly won by the Tories until they realised they were being blamed for the mess they were in by the people they'd voted for to rescue them from it.

...

Not entirely true given new Trump sanctions on Russia. It is more a question of where the territorial boundaries go in a ceasefire, even Trump is not giving Russia all of Ukraine

The US is supplying Russia with intelligence, while doing all it can to undermine the Ukrainians.

Stunning that we are writing sentences like this, even though seems true.

Just incredible that the US can be turned to support a sworn enemy of decades standing on the say so of one man.

Obama pushed for military cooperation with Russia and called them a strategic partner over Iran.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/us-russia-relations-reset-fact-sheet

Circumstance changed massively once Putin made his unprovoked attach on Ukraine. Prior to that, Germany, amongst others, also thought it might be possible to have some sort of constructive relationship with Russia. They now know they were wrong and have acted accordingly. Trump, on the other hand, has doubled down and is now actively helping Putin

...

Not entirely true given new Trump sanctions on Russia. It is more a question of where the territorial boundaries go in a ceasefire, even Trump is not giving Russia all of Ukraine

The US is supplying Russia with intelligence, while doing all it can to undermine the Ukrainians.

Stunning that we are writing sentences like this, even though seems true.

Just incredible that the US can be turned to support a sworn enemy of decades standing on the say so of one man.

Obama pushed for military cooperation with Russia and called them a strategic partner over Iran.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/us-russia-relations-reset-fact-sheet

He never went all-in, on Russia’s side.

I don't think he has gone all in on the Russian side. The negotiation with Russia hasn't started - he's decided he must get the Ukrainians to agree first. This undermining of their position is to secure that. It's a lot more than I would be comfortable doing, but it's a sort of strategy.

"he's decided he must get the Ukrainians to agree first."

What rubbish negotiations that is. "You Ukrainians agree to whatever Putin and I agree together."

It's basically a Ukrainian surrender. No wonder Putinite shills like it.

I don't know if they have to give Trump carte blanche. But certainly he seems to want them to accept some basics before he starts negotiations with the Russians.

What basics?

1. Accede to Russian territorial demands.

2. Acknowledge that what is left becomes a Russian satellite.

3. Agree to let the country be strip-mined by the USA.

That is the “peace” that Trump is seeking.

...

Not entirely true given new Trump sanctions on Russia. It is more a question of where the territorial boundaries go in a ceasefire, even Trump is not giving Russia all of Ukraine

The US is supplying Russia with intelligence, while doing all it can to undermine the Ukrainians.

Stunning that we are writing sentences like this, even though seems true.

Just incredible that the US can be turned to support a sworn enemy of decades standing on the say so of one man.

Obama pushed for military cooperation with Russia and called them a strategic partner over Iran.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/us-russia-relations-reset-fact-sheet

He never went all-in, on Russia’s side.

I don't think he has gone all in on the Russian side. The negotiation with Russia hasn't started - he's decided he must get the Ukrainians to agree first. This undermining of their position is to secure that. It's a lot more than I would be comfortable doing, but it's a sort of strategy.

Furthering the invasion in order to halt it isn't a strategy.
It's either insane, or deliberately pro-Russian.

William Atkinson's resignation article in ConHome. He's a bit...anguished.

https://conservativehome.com/2025/03/04/living-on-a-thin-line/

The social contract is broken. Before me lies a future of personal immiseration, demographic revolution, and global war. I just want the same lives my parents had. I want a Britain that is vaguely civilised, not a bankrupt, self-loathing, and crime-ridden Yookay

He may be disappointed in that case. But is definitely sounding the alarm.

Too many in our party don’t quite realise just how much we’re hated. MPs are blinded by survivorship bias. Labour’s travails lull them into a false sense of smug security, rather than waking them up to how volatile politics has become. They write Reform off as a passing fad, and assume that since we’ve made it through 300-odd years, that we have a divine right to exist.

We do not. We are dying on our feet.

That’s the problem.

So many people on the right have persuaded themselves that living in a flawed, but free and prosperous democracy, is the worst fate that can befall a nation.

It used to be the far left which was this fucking stupid.

Because your diagnosis of the uk is fucking bullshit

You’re a paranoid rich man, who’s persuaded himself he lives in the worst of times.

My grandparents faced much worse, with a lot more fortitude.

I've faced much worse.
My 10 year old daughter came home from school the other day concerned because people had been telling her Putin was going to drop a bomb on Britain. Which he might. But is struck me that for my childhood, the threat of annihilation was the constant background noise. As was discussed earlier, the USSR's plans for the destruction of the world were so comprehensive they even made time to wipe out New Zealand.
Objectively, today is a far better time to be alive than the early 80s.

I remember being scared witless by The War Game and Threads.

@leon often accuses us of being centrist dads, but in reality he is a centrist granddad. He reminds me of those oldies who always say it was better in the good old days. It wasn't. Not by a long chalk. I grew up in a house without a bathroom and an outside loo and no central heating and where we were constantly reminded of nuclear destruction and smog and rationing was a recent memory of my parents.

The good old days were not good compared to any time since.

Its a fair point. I do think things have gotten a bit worse in the last 10 years, but the past wasnt rosy.

Even kings used to shit in buckets, the past sucked.

Got worse, or just stopped getting better?

Stasis isn't brilliant- it means the only way to pay Paul is to rob Peter. And it's much less acceptable to borrow now if we're not going to be much richer in the future.

But compared with the desperation that has driven people to the extremes in the past, the genuine discontent that propels Trump, Farage et al is pretty low-key.

...

Not entirely true given new Trump sanctions on Russia. It is more a question of where the territorial boundaries go in a ceasefire, even Trump is not giving Russia all of Ukraine

The US is supplying Russia with intelligence, while doing all it can to undermine the Ukrainians.

Stunning that we are writing sentences like this, even though seems true.

Just incredible that the US can be turned to support a sworn enemy of decades standing on the say so of one man.

Obama pushed for military cooperation with Russia and called them a strategic partner over Iran.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/us-russia-relations-reset-fact-sheet

He never went all-in, on Russia’s side.

I don't think he has gone all in on the Russian side. The negotiation with Russia hasn't started - he's decided he must get the Ukrainians to agree first. This undermining of their position is to secure that. It's a lot more than I would be comfortable doing, but it's a sort of strategy.

"he's decided he must get the Ukrainians to agree first."

What rubbish negotiations that is. "You Ukrainians agree to whatever Putin and I agree together."

It's basically a Ukrainian surrender. No wonder Putinite shills like it.

William Atkinson's resignation article in ConHome. He's a bit...anguished.

https://conservativehome.com/2025/03/04/living-on-a-thin-line/

The social contract is broken. Before me lies a future of personal immiseration, demographic revolution, and global war. I just want the same lives my parents had. I want a Britain that is vaguely civilised, not a bankrupt, self-loathing, and crime-ridden Yookay

He may be disappointed in that case. But is definitely sounding the alarm.

Too many in our party don’t quite realise just how much we’re hated. MPs are blinded by survivorship bias. Labour’s travails lull them into a false sense of smug security, rather than waking them up to how volatile politics has become. They write Reform off as a passing fad, and assume that since we’ve made it through 300-odd years, that we have a divine right to exist.

We do not. We are dying on our feet.

That’s the problem.

So many people on the right have persuaded themselves that living in a flawed, but free and prosperous democracy, is the worst fate that can befall a nation.

It used to be the far left which was this fucking stupid.

Because your diagnosis of the uk is fucking bullshit

You’re a paranoid rich man, who’s persuaded himself he lives in the worst of times.

My grandparents faced much worse, with a lot more fortitude.

I've faced much worse.
My 10 year old daughter came home from school the other day concerned because people had been telling her Putin was going to drop a bomb on Britain. Which he might. But is struck me that for my childhood, the threat of annihilation was the constant background noise. As was discussed earlier, the USSR's plans for the destruction of the world were so comprehensive they even made time to wipe out New Zealand.
Objectively, today is a far better time to be alive than the early 80s.

I remember being scared witless by The War Game and Threads.

@leon often accuses us of being centrist dads, but in reality he is a centrist granddad. He reminds me of those oldies who always say it was better in the good old days. It wasn't. Not by a long chalk. I grew up in a house without a bathroom and an outside loo and no central heating and where we were constantly reminded of nuclear destruction and smog and rationing was a recent memory of my parents.

The good old days were not good compared to any time since.

...

Not entirely true given new Trump sanctions on Russia. It is more a question of where the territorial boundaries go in a ceasefire, even Trump is not giving Russia all of Ukraine

The US is supplying Russia with intelligence, while doing all it can to undermine the Ukrainians.

"The US is supplying Russia with intelligence" is one step further than I've seen so far. I'd be interested to know if that is being claimed somewhere, as it would be a very big further step over another line by Trump.

A friend who I think is in the know says we
should assume that everything the US knows about Ukrainian operations, morale, and equipment is being forwarded to Russia.

Much as I loathe Trump, I think I have even more contempt for the Republican “mainstream” who have become his willing enablers.