Best Of

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.

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.