While that's true, there are also millions of leavers, and five London Boroughs (Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Havering, Hillingdon, and Sutton) all voted for exit.London is Remainer Central.RefUK underperformed because they didn't run a lot of candidates.They ran a full slate in London. The Conservatives outpolled them by 4:1.
At the GE they will have a full slate of candidates
At the GE they will have Nigel Farage
It is hopium is the Tories think they can simply project last week's result forward
Reform amount to very little.
Yes, I fully approve of the French tax system (although it is less generous to high earners with kids than it used to be). Specifically, it means that someone earning EUR60,000 a year with a stay at home wife, and two kids, essentially pays zero tax. By comparison, a single man with no kids, will have handed over about EUR24,000 in taxes. It makes parenting dramatically more affordable than it would otherwise be.France provides substantial tax breaks for people with families, IIRC.rcs1000 asked: "How would you explain Singapore? That's typically about as high on national morale measures as you can get; people are wealthy; the economy is growing; there are lots of pro-natal policies.I'm sure that's part of it.
And yet the TFR is 1.1."
Fair question. And one to which Lee Kuan Yew never found an answer, as smart as he was. Two thoughts and a cartoon for you, and then I have to get back to doing my chores: In the US fertility rates are higher in rural areas than suburbs, and higher in suburbs than in central cities. In Japan, the highest fertility rate is found in the Okinawa prefecture, the most, or one of the most, rural.
The cartoon: A young woman is saying to a young man that she too wants to have children, "just not in this apartment".
But then again, that would suggest that countries with higher proportions of people living in houses would be more likely to have children. It would also suggest that rural areas would have more population growth than urban areas.
In Japan, the opposite is happening. The countryside is depopulating, while Tokyo - one of the world's largest cities - continues to grow.
And the Singaporean government is not unaware of this problem. Their Housing Development Board has made a huge effort to provide affordable housing for parents: have a kid, and a whole bunch of subsidized housing opens up to you.
I would also point out that France's TFR is well above the US, Germany and the UK. It's the only place in the world where college educated women have TFRs above replacement level. So they must be doing something right. (Not M Macron himself of course, but that's another story.)
ChangeUK was already taken, of course. RIP to their political careers.I would have said "change" or the "people's party" would be better. People don't say they want reform, they say they want change.My guess would be that reform resonates a bit less than ukip because we already had Brexit... I also think the branding is off. Reform is a think-tank/technocratic kind of word... they should have called themselves something else imo.On the other hand.
If you're pissed off about how your Party is governing what better word to describe what you want?
It also leaves the question of what kind of reform open.
Actually that works to about €86,000 (3 x 28,797) where the tax the family would pay would about €5,500Yes, I fully approve of the French tax system (although it is less generous to high earners with kids than it used to be). Specifically, it means that someone earning EUR60,000 a year with a stay at home wife, and two kids, essentially pays zero tax. By comparison, a single man with no kids, will have handed over about EUR24,000 in taxes. It makes parenting dramatically more affordable than it would otherwise be.France provides substantial tax breaks for people with families, IIRC.rcs1000 asked: "How would you explain Singapore? That's typically about as high on national morale measures as you can get; people are wealthy; the economy is growing; there are lots of pro-natal policies.I'm sure that's part of it.
And yet the TFR is 1.1."
Fair question. And one to which Lee Kuan Yew never found an answer, as smart as he was. Two thoughts and a cartoon for you, and then I have to get back to doing my chores: In the US fertility rates are higher in rural areas than suburbs, and higher in suburbs than in central cities. In Japan, the highest fertility rate is found in the Okinawa prefecture, the most, or one of the most, rural.
The cartoon: A young woman is saying to a young man that she too wants to have children, "just not in this apartment".
But then again, that would suggest that countries with higher proportions of people living in houses would be more likely to have children. It would also suggest that rural areas would have more population growth than urban areas.
In Japan, the opposite is happening. The countryside is depopulating, while Tokyo - one of the world's largest cities - continues to grow.
And the Singaporean government is not unaware of this problem. Their Housing Development Board has made a huge effort to provide affordable housing for parents: have a kid, and a whole bunch of subsidized housing opens up to you.
I would also point out that France's TFR is well above the US, Germany and the UK. It's the only place in the world where college educated women have TFRs above replacement level. So they must be doing something right. (Not M Macron himself of course, but that's another story.)
The issue is that it's very hard* to implement such a measure if it doesn't already exist, because it creates an enormous number of losers.
* Actually, it is essentially impossible.
LOL well was it Churchill who sent your gallant grandfather in to help?Wrong war pal. I'm not that old.That's fantastic and well done him. Similar to MSF. It wasn't Haig or Asquith sending them in, though, was it.My grandfather was a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit who followed up quite closely behind the Allied advance on the Western Front to provide humanitarian support.Agree. Like all the aid convoys that we sent into Dresden and Remagen.One obvious and simple difference would be Israel providing adequate levels of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in areas of Gaza where Hamas have been defeated. That Israel have failed at even that obvious task, means it is not necessary to spend too much time discussing the nuances of targeting decisions.So wat do you think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like ?I think what you're trying to do is to make a conclusion about someone's motivation, and that's very hard to do.@paulwaughWhere Suella may be making her mistake, is on what job it is that many within the Israeli Government want to do. If their job were the defeat, or even the extermination, of all armed Hamas combatants, with proportionate (it could never be zero) destruction and civilian casualties, she would have a very strong argument. It would be crazy to stop before it were done - as crazy as stopping a course of medication before an infection is dealt with.
Labour MPs (who are in the Urgent Question in big numbers) make clear how appalled they are as Suella Braverman says it's right that Israel "finishes the job".
"Disgusting" heckles one MP.
However, it looks to me (and I'm open to being shown to be wrong) that the job isn't defeating Hamas with proportionate destruction and civilian casualities, it is destruction and civilian casualties, with proportionate defeat of Hamas. Perhaps I'm wrong, and Israel and Suella are correct.
What I think we can do is to judge Israel's actions against what we think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like. I think you can judge that Israel is falling short of its duty to minimise civilian casualties and to provide for civilians in areas where it has defeated Hamas.
Since Israel appears unwilling or unable to take remedial action for these failings, then I think the question of whether it is Israel's intent to cause this suffering is moot. I was willing to cut Israel a lot of slack on the assumption that, as a democracy, they would hold themselves to higher standards as they took reasonable steps to defend themselves.
I was clearly mistaken in the confidence I placed in Israel and its institutions.
Notably he wasn't bombed by the RAF or USAF.
Neither is the RAF or USAF!Wrong war pal. I'm not that old.That's fantastic and well done him. Similar to MSF. It wasn't Haig or Asquith sending them in, though, was it.My grandfather was a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit who followed up quite closely behind the Allied advance on the Western Front to provide humanitarian support.Agree. Like all the aid convoys that we sent into Dresden and Remagen.One obvious and simple difference would be Israel providing adequate levels of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in areas of Gaza where Hamas have been defeated. That Israel have failed at even that obvious task, means it is not necessary to spend too much time discussing the nuances of targeting decisions.So wat do you think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like ?I think what you're trying to do is to make a conclusion about someone's motivation, and that's very hard to do.@paulwaughWhere Suella may be making her mistake, is on what job it is that many within the Israeli Government want to do. If their job were the defeat, or even the extermination, of all armed Hamas combatants, with proportionate (it could never be zero) destruction and civilian casualties, she would have a very strong argument. It would be crazy to stop before it were done - as crazy as stopping a course of medication before an infection is dealt with.
Labour MPs (who are in the Urgent Question in big numbers) make clear how appalled they are as Suella Braverman says it's right that Israel "finishes the job".
"Disgusting" heckles one MP.
However, it looks to me (and I'm open to being shown to be wrong) that the job isn't defeating Hamas with proportionate destruction and civilian casualities, it is destruction and civilian casualties, with proportionate defeat of Hamas. Perhaps I'm wrong, and Israel and Suella are correct.
What I think we can do is to judge Israel's actions against what we think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like. I think you can judge that Israel is falling short of its duty to minimise civilian casualties and to provide for civilians in areas where it has defeated Hamas.
Since Israel appears unwilling or unable to take remedial action for these failings, then I think the question of whether it is Israel's intent to cause this suffering is moot. I was willing to cut Israel a lot of slack on the assumption that, as a democracy, they would hold themselves to higher standards as they took reasonable steps to defend themselves.
I was clearly mistaken in the confidence I placed in Israel and its institutions.
Notably he wasn't bombed by the RAF or USAF.
Dropping bombs, no way. Disarming them? Fine and dandy.The Society of Friends by its nature had quite a few objectors, though many who served as per normal.Yes, Friends = Quakers in this context. Older PBers will remember a BBC documentary about the Home Guard in which WW1 conscientious objector Private Godfrey is discovered to have won the Military Medal for bravery.LOL well was it Churchill who sent your gallant grandfather in to help?Wrong war pal. I'm not that old.That's fantastic and well done him. Similar to MSF. It wasn't Haig or Asquith sending them in, though, was it.My grandfather was a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit who followed up quite closely behind the Allied advance on the Western Front to provide humanitarian support.Agree. Like all the aid convoys that we sent into Dresden and Remagen.One obvious and simple difference would be Israel providing adequate levels of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in areas of Gaza where Hamas have been defeated. That Israel have failed at even that obvious task, means it is not necessary to spend too much time discussing the nuances of targeting decisions.So wat do you think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like ?I think what you're trying to do is to make a conclusion about someone's motivation, and that's very hard to do.@paulwaughWhere Suella may be making her mistake, is on what job it is that many within the Israeli Government want to do. If their job were the defeat, or even the extermination, of all armed Hamas combatants, with proportionate (it could never be zero) destruction and civilian casualties, she would have a very strong argument. It would be crazy to stop before it were done - as crazy as stopping a course of medication before an infection is dealt with.
Labour MPs (who are in the Urgent Question in big numbers) make clear how appalled they are as Suella Braverman says it's right that Israel "finishes the job".
"Disgusting" heckles one MP.
However, it looks to me (and I'm open to being shown to be wrong) that the job isn't defeating Hamas with proportionate destruction and civilian casualities, it is destruction and civilian casualties, with proportionate defeat of Hamas. Perhaps I'm wrong, and Israel and Suella are correct.
What I think we can do is to judge Israel's actions against what we think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like. I think you can judge that Israel is falling short of its duty to minimise civilian casualties and to provide for civilians in areas where it has defeated Hamas.
Since Israel appears unwilling or unable to take remedial action for these failings, then I think the question of whether it is Israel's intent to cause this suffering is moot. I was willing to cut Israel a lot of slack on the assumption that, as a democracy, they would hold themselves to higher standards as they took reasonable steps to defend themselves.
I was clearly mistaken in the confidence I placed in Israel and its institutions.
Notably he wasn't bombed by the RAF or USAF.
Edit: I suppose peoples' views of "gallant" may differ as google tells me it was staffed by conchies.
The impression I've got from reading through several Quaker memoirs of the WW2 years (for other reasons) was that the SoF were pretty clued up in terms of doing things like field ambulance units, and therefore in keeping a degree of credibility with the Government when it came to speaking for their members at CO tribunals.
Quite a lot of COs volunteered for bomb disposal units during the air raids on the UK, too. Very useful addition to the stretched manpower at the time.
Many of the ideas that have shaped societal development, whether artistic, political or philosophical, originated in Italy. Even today, discourse and the media are focused on the theoretical rather than the practical, to a degree that would frustrate Brits and infuriate Americans. Just a few days ago I was standing outside the office of the social democratic candidate for Spello, campaigning for re-election for his third term, and his five-point prospectus under the heading “together for Spello” was all entirely theoretical; there wasn’t a single item that a British or American voter would recognise as a concrete promise that something specific might come about if he is re-elected. Most of us would dismiss this as simply vacuous waffle. One assumes that Italian voters like that kind of stuff.Interesting. I’m reading David Gilmour’s “The Pursuit of Italy” while I’m here. So far it’s good not great but it does make some compelling observations even soTo be fair, the houses for pennies is more to do with geography - younger people don’t want to live in some medieval house in some hill village five miles up a winding mountain road - than shortage of people per se. The Italian model has always been, family owns a significant property that stays in the family and eventually gets handed down to the next generation; better off families have a smaller second home somewhere by the coast or mountains, available for the wider family and friends to use, which also gets handed down; then the younger members rent flats in cities where the jobs are, where they probably live Monday-Friday and return to the family home at weekends (with their washing), or they commute to the city from the family home.What? Italy has one of the lowest birthrates in the world and the collapse is accelerating. At the peak of the baby boom in the 60s they had 1m babies born in a year. So it’s now a third of that380k doesn't seem that bad for a population of 60m.Yes, and it’s not just because of “women wising up”. There is a whole host of reasons. Young people abandoning sex, the incel phenomenon, declining sperm counts + declining testosterone, the problem of unaffordable housing - on and onLots of countries have tried paying people to have more children, and I don't think any have succeeded in increasing the birth rate above the replacement level.Which is not the same as saying humanity is dying out. The western lifestyle and the general need and desire for women to have careers, and thus delay or choose not to have children is clearly an issue. But the best thing for the planet is fewer humans, so its not all bad. If population decline became a global thing and became an issue you can imagine that society would adapt - it would pay people to have more children (unlike the UK situation now).Birthrates are collapsing worldwide. Quite astonishingly fast in some places…It is? Not obviously so yet.What a grotesque story. Maybe it’s good humanity is dying outThis is one of those articles that just had me WTF !!!!!A certain minority of every population are complete scum. That's where you get people like Beria and Dirlewanger from.
Monkey torture videos. I am genuinely lost for words
"The investigation exposed a global monkey torture network involving a private online group paying people in Indonesia to kill and torture baby monkeys on video.
The BBC reported that LeGresley used the username “The Immolator” and ran a poll for members of the group on which method of torture should be inflicted upon an infant monkey."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/british-woman-admits-role-in-global-monkey-torture-network/ar-BB1lYi3y?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=a70c3f3c4244464edbfad5d9a0ae3f6c&ei=8
I’m in Italy where people famously love and indulge their children. Except, of course, they don’t. If they did they’d have more. Instead:
“Births in Italy dropped 3.6 per cent last year to an all-time low, highlighting the uphill battle facing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as she seeks to reverse the rapid ageing of the Italian population.
Just 379,000 babies were born in Italy in 2023, down from the previous year’s record low of 393,000 — which Istat, the national statistical agency, had then noted was the fewest births since Italy’s unification in 1861.”
FT
Italy is dying out. And you can see it. Lots of old people, not so many young couples with kids
Japan and Korea have a bigger issue with this. (Maybe soon an issue in China)
Nor can they blame unaffordable housing. The country is depopulating so fast there is plenty of housing to be found for pennies if you are prepared to do it up
It seems to be more of a cultural malaise. A good spectator article on it here (not by my infernal stalker)
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/low-birth-rates-are-a-threat-to-humanity/
The social change in Italy has been the shock expressed when any family has a second child. It’s seen as risky, in a society that is only a generation or two away from subsistence farming and is chronically risk averse.
Eg the whole introduction explains that Italy is actually and essentially a poor country in terms of fertility and topography. So many mountains. Rivers non navigable. Mediocre soils. Prone to earthquakes. Dangerous volcanoes. And a position that makes it easy to invade by sea from all sides
It was the “accident” of Rome that made Italy appear naturally important and wealthy
On the other hand I am sitting here in a square in Vieste watching the passeggiata and it is still very charming (albeit old). It will be a damn shame if it disappears
My wife's uncle was a CO in WWII, for religious reasons. He worked in the field ambulances.The Society of Friends by its nature had quite a few objectors, though many who served as per normal.Yes, Friends = Quakers in this context. Older PBers will remember a BBC documentary about the Home Guard in which WW1 conscientious objector Private Godfrey is discovered to have won the Military Medal for bravery.LOL well was it Churchill who sent your gallant grandfather in to help?Wrong war pal. I'm not that old.That's fantastic and well done him. Similar to MSF. It wasn't Haig or Asquith sending them in, though, was it.My grandfather was a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit who followed up quite closely behind the Allied advance on the Western Front to provide humanitarian support.Agree. Like all the aid convoys that we sent into Dresden and Remagen.One obvious and simple difference would be Israel providing adequate levels of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in areas of Gaza where Hamas have been defeated. That Israel have failed at even that obvious task, means it is not necessary to spend too much time discussing the nuances of targeting decisions.So wat do you think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like ?I think what you're trying to do is to make a conclusion about someone's motivation, and that's very hard to do.@paulwaughWhere Suella may be making her mistake, is on what job it is that many within the Israeli Government want to do. If their job were the defeat, or even the extermination, of all armed Hamas combatants, with proportionate (it could never be zero) destruction and civilian casualties, she would have a very strong argument. It would be crazy to stop before it were done - as crazy as stopping a course of medication before an infection is dealt with.
Labour MPs (who are in the Urgent Question in big numbers) make clear how appalled they are as Suella Braverman says it's right that Israel "finishes the job".
"Disgusting" heckles one MP.
However, it looks to me (and I'm open to being shown to be wrong) that the job isn't defeating Hamas with proportionate destruction and civilian casualities, it is destruction and civilian casualties, with proportionate defeat of Hamas. Perhaps I'm wrong, and Israel and Suella are correct.
What I think we can do is to judge Israel's actions against what we think a reasonable campaign to destroy Hamas, without disproportionate civilian casualties, would look like. I think you can judge that Israel is falling short of its duty to minimise civilian casualties and to provide for civilians in areas where it has defeated Hamas.
Since Israel appears unwilling or unable to take remedial action for these failings, then I think the question of whether it is Israel's intent to cause this suffering is moot. I was willing to cut Israel a lot of slack on the assumption that, as a democracy, they would hold themselves to higher standards as they took reasonable steps to defend themselves.
I was clearly mistaken in the confidence I placed in Israel and its institutions.
Notably he wasn't bombed by the RAF or USAF.
Edit: I suppose peoples' views of "gallant" may differ as google tells me it was staffed by conchies.
The impression I've got from reading through several Quaker memoirs of the WW2 years (for other reasons) was that the SoF were pretty clued up in terms of doing things like field ambulance units, and therefore in keeping a degree of credibility with the Government when it came to speaking for their members at CO tribunals.
Quite a lot of COs volunteered for bomb disposal units during the air raids on the UK, too. Very useful addition to the stretched manpower at the time.