Best Of

On topic, TSE says: "Labour’s problem is self inflicted, for fourteen years Labour kept on saying austerity was a choice, this week’s vote was when those chickens came home to roost."

The thing about this is, it *was* a choice. The economy was understimulated, you kind of could print money and spend it and nothing bad would happen, there would just be more useful work happening in the economy. Now there's inflation, and any money you spend on one thing has to come from somewhere else.

The problem here is that political messages have a time lag on reality ranging from 5 to 40 years. This is why Osborne applied the lessons from the 1970s and early 1980s to post-Lehman-shock Britain, and it's also why Starmer is now lumbered with a party full of people who don't realize that if you spend money on one thing you can't spend it on another thing.

Politicians being younger nowadays, this side of the pond at least, a problem for that. Some older heads in the cabinet would have been through more economic cycles and would be less tied to whatever the politics and policies of their youth happened to be.

37 years ago today since the Piper Alpha disaster. My Dad was working off shore in the North Sea at the time but he was away on a short holiday with my Mum and my sister and I were both at home house/cat and dog sitting for them. We had neither the radio or the TV on that day, but I always remember the phone started ringing as old friends of my Dad who didn't realise which rig he worked on or that he was on shore started phoning to check in with him and their relief when they discovered he was away on holiday. I think it was about the third random phonecall from an old friend of his when I said right what is going on and why is everyone suddenly phoning to check in on my Dad today.

I had moved from Aberdeen the year before to take up a nursing job in Edinburgh, but one of my best friends was on duty at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when the news came in and the hospital went into emergency mode in preparation for a large amount of incoming casualties and she still talks about the utter shock and sadness that overwhelmed the staff on duty there that day when those casualties didn't materialise as the enormity of the tragedy unfolded.

I had my interview for my first job offshore on the day after Piper Alpha.

60 were due to be interviewed. 12 of us turned up.

We all got jobs

I had been with Chevron about a week. An horrific introduction to the North Sea oil and gas industry.

I have spent my whole career in the shadow of that night. It was utterly transformative for the oil industry around the world.... except the USA.

It may be little consolation to the relatives of those who died but it is undoubtedly the case that many times that number have worked in safety because of the changes wrought by Piper Alpha.

MRP goodness from More in Common

A year from GE 2024 our MRP in @thetimes with @cazjwheeler finds Reform winners from Labour’s early stumbles. Tories/Lib Dems fight for third
➡️ REF UK 290 (+285)
🌹 LAB 126 (- 285)
🌳 CON 81 (-40)
🔶 LIB DEM 73 (+1)
🌍 GREEN 7 (+3)
🟡 SNP 42 (+33)
🟩 Plaid 4 (-)
⬜️ OTH 8 (+2)

So Kemi Kingmaker as to whether Farage or Starmer becomes PM

How does Starmer with a loss of 285 seats carry on as PM??? Not a chance. Even if he gets replaced - by (gulp) Rayner? - how do the Cons and the LibDems backing Labour get them over the line? The SNP can demand a new referendum. Farage can probably give them it if it means he governs for England and Wales and NI.

MRP goodness from More in Common

A year from GE 2024 our MRP in @thetimes with @cazjwheeler finds Reform winners from Labour’s early stumbles. Tories/Lib Dems fight for third
➡️ REF UK 290 (+285)
🌹 LAB 126 (- 285)
🌳 CON 81 (-40)
🔶 LIB DEM 73 (+1)
🌍 GREEN 7 (+3)
🟡 SNP 42 (+33)
🟩 Plaid 4 (-)
⬜️ OTH 8 (+2)

It only gets worse here for Labour IMO because they either have to break their pledge not to put up the main taxes or make big cuts to welfare spending and up to a million public sector job cuts. I wouldn't be surprised if Labour end up with fewer than 100 seats after 2029.

Most likely they will end up going for a big wealth tax

Yes, only solution they can get past Ange, easy to sell to a lot of voters that it’s the “wealthy paying their fair share” and can target it just above the point where anyone on the inside of the party is really affected so all wonderful.

It's time to outline £100bn in spending cuts and tax rises, split 75% towards spending cuts with the majority coming from welfare and entitlements. If the government doesn't do this and continues to borrow like a drunken sailor we're heading for a bond vigilante strike and another bout of QE which will push inflation up and destroy people's disposable incomes.

The only way out is to cut welfare spending and get people back into work. We can't afford to pay the lazy to sit at home doing nothing on benefits.

'Benefits' according to the OBR are £150bn on Pensioners; £88bn on UC; and £74bn on other benefits. Where would you axe to get the £100bn?

Should we get pensioners back into work?

£20bn each out of UC and "other" benefits.

Cut the triple lock entirely.

£20bn out of the state pension by tapering above £40k, spend half of the saving on increasing the state pension for those who don't have any or significant private income in retirement.

NI payable on all income types/merge NI and income tax.

50% haircut on defined benefit public sector pensions for amounts over £40k (so a £60k DB pension becomes £50k).

Freeze thresholds for a further 3 years.

Cut at least 500k public sector jobs within two years, ban use of agency staff and severely limit the use of consultants and contractors. Use half of those savings to offer competitive salaries for technical roles.

I think that would probably make a £100bn worth of closing the deficit, the resulting fall in bond yields and inflation would probably add another £20bn saving per year on the interest bill.

And means test the NHS for the wealthy

You’ll need to spend to save.

What about - “British jobs for British workers”?

A plan to increase the number of medics trained, so that at point x (15 years from now??) we are training 100%+ of the predicted requirements of the NHS?

Merge apprenticeships with degrees - the universities provide the academics and give transferability. The companies provide the work experience. This gets round the problem of quality/standards in apprenticeships. Also encourage mixed blue collar/white collar degrees.

One thing that is noticeable about US managerial types - they all did “shop” classes at school. Welding, carpentry, car maintenance etc. So there is much less fear of the practical and physical.

37 years ago today since the Piper Alpha disaster. My Dad was working off shore in the North Sea at the time but he was away on a short holiday with my Mum and my sister and I were both at home house/cat and dog sitting for them. We had neither the radio or the TV on that day, but I always remember the phone started ringing as old friends of my Dad who didn't realise which rig he worked on or that he was on shore started phoning to check in with him and their relief when they discovered he was away on holiday. I think it was about the third random phonecall from an old friend of his when I said right what is going on and why is everyone suddenly phoning to check in on my Dad today.

I had moved from Aberdeen the year before to take up a nursing job in Edinburgh, but one of my best friends was on duty at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when the news came in and the hospital went into emergency mode in preparation for a large amount of incoming casualties and she still talks about the utter shock and sadness that overwhelmed the staff on duty there that day when those casualties didn't materialise as the enormity of the tragedy unfolded.

My firm acted for 3 of the deceased. We were a medium sized firm based in Cupar in Fife which shows how widespread the consequences were. A horrific tragedy.

It was, and lives long in our family's memory having lost a special member of the family on that bleak day

It's time to outline £100bn in spending cuts and tax rises, split 75% towards spending cuts with the majority coming from welfare and entitlements. If the government doesn't do this and continues to borrow like a drunken sailor we're heading for a bond vigilante strike and another bout of QE which will push inflation up and destroy people's disposable incomes.

The only way out is to cut welfare spending and get people back into work. We can't afford to pay the lazy to sit at home doing nothing on benefits.

'Benefits' according to the OBR are £150bn on Pensioners; £88bn on UC; and £74bn on other benefits. Where would you axe to get the £100bn?

Should we get pensioners back into work?

£20bn each out of UC and "other" benefits.

Cut the triple lock entirely.

£20bn out of the state pension by tapering above £40k, spend half of the saving on increasing the state pension for those who don't have any or significant private income in retirement.

NI payable on all income types/merge NI and income tax.

50% haircut on defined benefit public sector pensions for amounts over £40k (so a £60k DB pension becomes £50k).

Freeze thresholds for a further 3 years.

Cut at least 500k public sector jobs within two years, ban use of agency staff and severely limit the use of consultants and contractors. Use half of those savings to offer competitive salaries for technical roles.

I think that would probably make a £100bn worth of closing the deficit, the resulting fall in bond yields and inflation would probably add another £20bn saving per year on the interest bill.

And means test the NHS for the wealthy

I don't think this would make much difference, the wealthy already opt out of the NHS with private healthcare and health insurance. I also don't think that breaking the universal commitment of the NHS is a good idea. In an extreme scenario, let's say there's a terrorist attack in the square mile that targets an investment fund that funds arms purchases for Israel - do those people who are injured in it receive bills from the NHS after the fact because they likely are above the income threshold for NHS treatment?

I also think there's an aspect that high income earners still need to see something for their taxes and the NHS is a big something in the event of emergency illness etc...

I don't think there is enough to be gained from ending universal healthcare at the point of use. Maybe incentivising more middle income people to take private health insurance would work better but realistically the NHS needs to solve the 80/20 problem because it isn't the wealthy and middle income people that take up the resources, most are in the 80% that only use 20% of resources. It's finding solutions to get the 20% that use 80% of resources much healthier so they stop consuming so much health resource.

Reminder that being opposed to air strikes killing thousands of civilians and the systematic kidnap and torture of doctors, doesn't make you the prime candidate to be a terrorist in that dramatis personae.