Best Of

Ouch.

https://x.com/deborahlipstadt/status/2059796300296573253

'British Museum cancels Jewish cultural event because of fear of protesters. Bottom line: The protestors won and they did not even have to show up.'

I wouldn't underestimate the resentment this kind of thing can provoke. To be fair though the pro Paly types have quite skilfully managed to frame everything around Israeli war crimes. So perhaps they'll let us go back to being a civilised country once the Gazans get justice?

On a similar topic, someone was shouting abuse at Helen Mirren in the street last night, including calling her a "Zionist bitch".

https://x.com/CrimeLdn/status/2059920113382408340

Keep up William, there’s already been a spasm of outrage over this on this very page.

I am sure the story grows in socio-politocal stature every time it is posted with a several hour gap by a PB right winger. Expect the murderous Sikh to get several outings before sundown too.

You're defending the Sikh, presumably?

So who has made more U turns - Burnham or Jenrick ?

Burnham's are swerves not U-turns. He's still going in the same direction.

Leftwards or rightwards?

I can't tell any more.

Not leftward or rightward but sensible: This is the clear direction.

* Introduce PR (majority of public in favour)
* Remove red lines on EU single market and customs union (majority of public in favour)
* Take water companies into public ownership (big majority of public in favour even if it might seem left wing)
* Enable local authorities to build more social housing (majority of public in favour)

I’m pretty sure Burnham is not calling to take these companies into public ownership?

Are you? What makes you so sure? He took the buses in Manchester into public ownership and it has been a great success.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/andy-burnham-putting-everything-line-33989167

In this interview, Burnham says he thinks there is case for public ownership of Thames Water.

I thought he rowed back on this because of the costs involved.

iirc Burnham didn't take the buses back into public ownership. He put them under public control

Happy to be corrected if I have got this wrong.

I think you are right. It is a franchise model similar to Transport for London I think. TFL works well.
If it were applied to Thames Water, the government would set the prices, determine investments etc but outsource the actual operations for a fixed fee to one or more suppliers. I can see that working.
It works in the NHS where most GP practices are outsourced and many hospital services.

I think it's a good model.

EDIT: It looks as if Horse and I are in agreement on this.

I think the distinction is whether the supervisory body believes that strong regulation is necessary to the extent to maintain support for it.

There is an analogy with corporate outsourcing, and the contrast between just letting it go, or retaining enough in house expertise such that the outsourcing supplier is kept on their toes.

For young people the welfare state needs to become a spring board to work and not a safety net.

Alan Milburn.


As someone on here asked earlier - why on earth didn't they do this report while in opposition and preparing for government?

Ming Empty Vase strategy....

There is a big problem that none of the major parties are really doing the hard yards, investigating problems and thinking hard about solutions. Instead its stuff like overtime tax free, abolish stamp duty, etc type policies without being a) thought out and b) are wider joined up package.

There has also become a lot of starting with a particular idealogical policy in mind and working backwards, and that goes for think tanks as well.

Abolishing stamp duty is an excellent policy with basically no downsides though. No real need for a wider joined up package there because the deadweight costs of the tax are so high. Can get rid of stamp taxes on shares at the same time - the deadweight cost of that tax exceeds the amount raised.

Some policies really are “do this & everyone ends up better off” - the problem is that the system (for good reasons) has enormous inertia & change is politically difficult. The way the OBR accounts for tax revenue has become a huge barrier to any real change in the system - they are simultaneously barred from taking into account any economic growth from abandoning stupid taxes whilst also forced to believe that the current government will definitely raise taxes in the final year of this Parliament. Huge incentive for any Chancellor to promise future tax rises that won’t happen in the Budget instead of actually fixing anything.

There's also the question of the problem it would solve. The day to day operations of water companies aren't really the main problems the industry faces, which is far more about sewage spills and net zero capex. Taking the industry's infrastructure into public ownership would do nothing to solve either of those - instead, any investment to solve them would have to come from a constrained Treasury that would cut their budgets in the 8 out of 10 years when it is short of money. And you'd be reliant on some governmental organisation to plan and implement capex. See HS2 for how well getting politicians involved in infrastructure generally works out.

Finally, there's the government finance problem. The water industry needs huge investment, and adding that burden to the government's balance sheet would increase bond yields noticeably, when they are already uncomfortably high. Neither the government nor the taxpayers can be expected to welcome that.

There are good arguments for outsourcing individual operations, provided those are kept under control by an accountable, central and incentivised management. When done well, this can provide real benefits (though when done badly it can mess up the whole system). But that's very different from franchising out all the operations for a few years.

But overall the franchising model, though perhaps theoretically attractive, would cause far more problems than it solved in the water industry.

The problem it solves is that the private owners extracted dividends and loaded companies with debt. This is solved by not having the company be in private ownership.

Ouch.

https://x.com/deborahlipstadt/status/2059796300296573253

'British Museum cancels Jewish cultural event because of fear of protesters. Bottom line: The protestors won and they did not even have to show up.'

I wouldn't underestimate the resentment this kind of thing can provoke. To be fair though the pro Paly types have quite skilfully managed to frame everything around Israeli war crimes. So perhaps they'll let us go back to being a civilised country once the Gazans get justice?

On a similar topic, someone was shouting abuse at Helen Mirren in the street last night, including calling her a "Zionist bitch".

https://x.com/CrimeLdn/status/2059920113382408340

Keep up William, there’s already been a spasm of outrage over this on this very page.

I am sure the story grows in socio-politocal stature every time it is posted with a several hour gap by a PB right winger. Expect the murderous Sikh to get several outings before sundown too.

You're defending the Sikh, presumably?

No, not at all. And you know that to be the case. I am suggesting that PBers like a story that benefits their particular political or socio- political agenda. We don't see too much posting when the criminals don't have an ethnic interest narrative.