Best Of

My retired mother-in-law was previously one of Corbyn's greatest supporters and voted Labour in 2017 and 2019.

With Starmer in charge Labour lost her vote, to Reform.

In the event Corbyn creates himself a new party, I have no doubt she will be switching back to Corbyn's new party.

I wonder how common she is amongst the current Reform voters ?

Basically left behind, wanting a massive shake up with very left leaning economic ideas ?

I suspect there may be a rather large cross over between Farage and Corbyn supporters and this new party may have some unexpected results in where they get their voters from.

It's not really that surprising, Corbynites and Fukkers are both essentially yelling 'it's all wrong' while putting up fantasy solutions that sound attractive unless you examine them in depth.

Big day today in the Horizon enquiry when the judge rules on compensation:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g267xe3y6o

Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.

It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.

Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).

The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.

I am spending the day in the garden sorting stuff for the shed which I have ordered. It is also a beautiful day.

The second report will not hold people criminally responsible because a public inquiry cannot legally do that. It is one of their failings but it will apportion blame.

In the meanwhile here is my Post Office Bingo Card for you to tick off:

- The human impact was awful.
- It was made worse by the conduct of the Post Office and others, including its lawyers and governments over many years.
- It is still continuing.
- Compensation is due, is urgent, is too slow and the government needs to get a move on because the current situation is disgraceful. 350 of the ca. 900 SPMs affected have died without getting compensation or the return of the money fraudulently taken from them.
- Tribute will be paid to the SPMs.
- The government will welcome the report, say how terrible it all is and pretend that it has no power to do anything about compensation even though the Treasury's dead hands are all over it.
- The Post Office will issue some PR guff about how sorry it is and how much it is doing. Someone will use the appalling phrase "at pace".
- Most journalists will forget to ask why it is that Rodric Williams one of the shiftiest of the PO lawyers who gave evidence and who was heavily involved during the entire period when the problems were known about and covered up is now in charge of compensation at the Post Office.
- The phrase "conflict of interest" will not be mentioned because no-one - other than me - seems to understand or recognise one, even when it is staring you in the face.
- The government continues to think overturning convictions & giving out a few baubles is enough.
- This is how all governments since at least Aberfan have operated. It is Potemkin justice.

Too cynical? Or just realistic? Let's see, shall we.

Thousands more thieves, thugs and drug addicts will avoid court under new plans to ease the crisis in the justice system.

A government review led by former High Court judge Sir Brian Leveson will recommend that ‘out of court resolutions’ are used routinely for ‘low-tier’ including theft, drug-taking and some public order offences.

The move will mean many more offenders will escape with a slap on the wrist, with some not even receiving a criminal record.

Sir Brian will also propose increasing the ‘discount’ for a guilty plea from one-third to 40 per cent of an offender’s sentence. Coupled with recent plans to allow offenders to serve just one-third of their sentence, the move would see some criminals serve less than a fifth of their nominal sentence.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14883535/Government-sentencing-revie-thieves-thugs-addicts-green-light-shoplift-drugs.html

Another review Reform would reverse

You do sound like you might be just a hop, skip and a jump away from defecting to the very dark side.

No I will remain one of the few still PB Tories left even if this site is also painfully short of Reform backers compared to the national electorate

Are we that painfully short?

I can think of many Reform backers here, mainly those who caveat it with "more in sorrow than anger" type of remarks, but pollsters don't show caveats on whom people have chosen.

Plus we have thousands of self-identifying 'falcons' here who back Reform.

29% of current voters back Reform on average in polls, no way do we have 29% of posters on here backing Reform.

Reform even got 14% at the last GE and even Leon voted Labour then

At the end of the day, a prison sentence is expensive for the state/taxpayer, isn't very successful at rehabilitatiing offenders and doesn't seem to deter many from reoffending. On top of this, many with criminal records, especially if they are jailed, have problems finding work afterwards (if they are lucky, it's usually minimum wage menial work) so continue to be a drain on the state/taxpayer. The system is completely broken, and building more prisons is not a solution.

Building more prisons - on its own - is not the answer. It may be that building more prisons is part of the solution, but it needs to be combined with many other things. Like - for a start - fuding the criminal justice system properly.

Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

[1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.

Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..

Yes but the later you leave it the harder it is to have children, peak fertility for women is in their twenties and early thirties.

Plus as the population ages the working age population will have to pay more and more tax to pay for the healthcare etc to support them

Fewer babies born now means fewer oldies in 60 years' time.

We are headed to the 421 families seen in China. 4 grandparents, 2 parents, 1 child.

For which planet Earth says "Thank fuck..."

The question is whether capitalism works without perpetual growth

Um, yes. People conflate "capitalism" with the rather corrupt lobbyist transnational billionaires at one end and overworked peons at the other end version that we have at the moment. But at heart it's just use of fiat money to mediate transactions, allowing speculative investment to build things and companies, free and perfect markets to buy and sell things, bankruptcy to remove poor performers, courts to oversee contract law, and so on. There are problems with the way we do it and the bits we add on, but basically it works.