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A grim prognosis from Professor Azeem Ibrahim:

https://x.com/AzeemIbrahim/status/2035361179879547244

Britain is now in accelerated decline - gradual for decades, now at risk of sudden collapse.

My stark verdict: unchecked, UK heading for relative poverty - a deindustrialised, sectarian, indebted island with first-rate pretensions & third-rate power.

Wow! And it was all going so well until the Conservatives left office 20 months ago.

The Tories are more to blame for our current state than Labour. They've had more time in office, these last three decades, and they are meant to be the smart capitalists who make amends for mad socialism. I hope the Conservatives DIE

Osborne was pure politics. He simply viewed elections as a game to maximise votes to get in. The only thing I think he genuinely seemed to believe in was lowering Corporation Tax, and avoiding urban social embarrassment for being a Conservative.

Cameron should have challenged him on it. But I think he was more interested in being chairman of the board, rather than CEO.

This really is just fantasy. The reality is that the UK economy appeared to be built on the profits of financial services for more than a decade after big bang. These profits proved to be illusory after 2008 resulting in a structural deficit similar to that of a major war. Our entire system was bankrupt and the largesse of the state completely unaffordable.

This is what Osborne had to deal with and it was extremely difficult involving many short term decisions with negative long term consequences simply because there was no choice. By 2019 the worst was over and the finances were back in some sort of order, albeit with much higher debt than before. And then came Covid. And then Ukraine. And now Iran.
Without the turbo boost of financial services and with the rebalancing required our economy has struggled to generate growth since 2008. As the economy with the largest proportion of GDP being generated from FS we were hit harder than almost anyone else. We still have not recovered. We have still not found an alternative way to pay our bills. There are no simple solutions for this government, the last government or the next government. The best we can do is what Osborne did and tiptoe back from the brink but one crisis after another is testing our resilience to destruction.

I agree difficult choices were needed and the deficit had to be dealt with, I didn't agree with the way he did it - featherbedding pensioners, stiffing students and cutting defence and justice to the bone.

I've bought fancy cooking knives that are so sharp I cut myself on first usage, ten minutes ago, and now I'm scared of them

The whole point of high end knives is not only better cutting experience but should reduce chance of accident because you shouldn't be having to apply much force to cut things.

There is a dangerous period when you adjust from one to the other.

Had my wife's parents over for dinner last week (roast chicken, potato gratin, etc, was delicious, thanks for asking) and my father-in-law sharpened our knives for us. First couple of days I was getting them stuck in the wooden chopping board because I was pressing too hard.

Recommendation for knife sharpener for the unskilled:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AnySharp-Knife-Sharpener-PowerGrip-Silver/dp/B0029X0RTU/

I do them once a week.

That's a fixed angle draw through type.

I don't want to start a nerd-match but I think that would ruin any decent knife in minutes.

The only knives I put through one of those are a set of utility knives that came at 3 for £7.

Take the time and learn the skills; it does not take long.

The older I get the more I shed my youthful nerdery. In fact, it embarasses me.

I've bought fancy cooking knives that are so sharp I cut myself on first usage, ten minutes ago, and now I'm scared of them

I have a selection of reasonably sharp knives, and I bought a single fancy Japanese kitchen knife. I opened the box to look at it and cut myself

Hah!

Yes, that's me, I've bough

A sharp knife seems to have cut off the end of your comment. I'd be careful with that if I were you. Might do yourself an injury.

Here is my toothbrush jar-holder

I defy any PBer to show me a prettier toothbrush jar-holder

What's the half-used bog roll in aid of?

Edit: more importantly, who dusts all this shit? Do you have staff?

That's my bog roll. In my special historic bog roll holding bowl. See if you can guess the origin

You intuit correctly btw. I have indeed significantly added to my cleaning lady's salary, now that she has to "dust all this shit"

Claude suggests Ikea, the Range or H&M Home for the loo-roll receptacle, and Chinese porcelain in the famille rose style for the tooth brush holder. *

The English glasses if that is correct holding the rock spheres are cool. You previous comments about those made me consider getting a few.

* This is not Claude's core skillset, I surmise.

Yes, well spotted

That's a Georgian English "jelly glass" - ie a glass made for serving a semi-solid pudding, like a syllabub. They are a brilliant way to display spherical rocks. I've got an agate and a labradorite and that is, IIRC, a carnelian sphere in the photo

A grim prognosis from Professor Azeem Ibrahim:

https://x.com/AzeemIbrahim/status/2035361179879547244

Britain is now in accelerated decline - gradual for decades, now at risk of sudden collapse.

My stark verdict: unchecked, UK heading for relative poverty - a deindustrialised, sectarian, indebted island with first-rate pretensions & third-rate power.

I thought the Right viewed the 'relative poverty' metric as a load of cobblers.

Relative poverty is more about equality than measuring how many people are essentially destitute. It feels like shifting the goalposts. If poverty was about not being able to heat your home or choose heat or eat, relative measures can be affected by perverse incentives.

Exactly. So why worry about the UK becoming 'relatively' impoverished?

Because, as @williamglenn notes, it means Britain looks relatively impoverished, more and more, compared to other countries. For the main reason that we ARE

I travel the globe, in case you haven't noticed, and I see this all the time. Britain looking more and more clapped out in comparison to others

HOWEVER, and to be fair, this is true of many western European nations, with exceptions like Denmark, Norway, Switzerland - they look increasingly bedraggled compared to the USA, East Asia, Australia, etc

Much of it is immigration of the most astonishingly stupid variety. It's hard for a country to look rich when you've got illiterate Afghans or Somalians aimlessly wandering the streets with nothing to do because there is literally nothing for them to do - even if they want to work (as of course very many do) they don't have the skills. So they become welfare bums, or just itinerants

I'm always astonished at how many people I see wondering around town centres "not working" on a regular workday, on the rare occasions I'm off.

I usually have the centrists tell me they are "shift workers".

They are not shift workers.