Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
Roads and other transport infrastructure Armed forces Security services Stable currency The miriad of Standards and Regulatory authorities Democracy itself...
... all these and more are funded by taxes and benefit everyone, even the rich.
Unless we are threatened by invasion the armed forces does not benefit rich residents in the UK simply by its operations abroad, only in a supporting role it provides to the police (which I already mentioned) same goes for the security services.
Even some roads are privately owned though I grant you that.
A lot of private schools have their own inspectors so standards and regulatory authorities does not cover that completely either
'"The entire basis and rationale of the British state was to defend the property of the wealthy and to ensure they could continue to make more wealth without being put up against the wall and shot." Compare and contrast this assertion for 1800 and today.'
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
That was the LibDem policy, which the Tories are now stealthily undoing by freezing the tax allowance until 2026 at a time of rising inflation.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educate their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
Well @Benpointer has beaten me to the list (of which it is only a small subset). You only have to look at your council tax bill to see how much you pay for the police. You are not using them occasionally. You are using them all the time. All those police cars going up and down the motorway, clearing accidents, etc you are personally using otherwise you are going nowhere. And when you do directly need the services of the police, fire brigade, or an ambulance you are really getting a lot of value. I have personally only needed the fire brigade once to be rescued from a car in a flood. Even got a lift home in a fire engine which was fun. Sadly the car didn't do as well as me.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
If only they'd chucked in a Madonna with the big boobies, all would have been well. Not the most awful try at an Me 262, I've seen worse attempts on modelling sites.
Did you notice the false moustaches and the cheerful use of the Bundesrepublik tricolour and Maltese crosses? Not tactful.
I think the conjunction of the swastika and the German flag will be what's caused most offence and resulted in an official complaint from the German ambassador (as well as one from the Israeli ambassador I believe).
I was thinking that the SS officer's uniform wasn't very accurate around the neck till I realised it was actually a police uniform with a few extra eagles and swastikas.
I'm surprised Hugo Boss haven't sued over intellectual property rights.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
Lol @ the Police announcing that the banknotes that fell from a lorry and scattered across the road “belong to a bank” and asking people who stopped to collect some to return them. Good luck with that!
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educate their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
Well @Benpointer has beaten me to the list (of which it is only a small subset). You only have to look at your council tax bill to see how much you pay for the police. You are not using them occasionally. You are using them all the time. All those police cars going up and down the motorway, clearing accidents, etc you are personally using otherwise you are going nowhere. And when you do directly need the services of the police, fire brigade, or an ambulance you are really getting a lot of value. I have personally only needed the fire brigade once to be rescued from a car in a flood. Even got a lift home in a fire engine which was fun. Sadly the car didn't do as well as me.
I said the police and fire service were the main public service the rich and high earners benefit from (albeit less than average as most also tend to live in safer areas with lower crime rates)
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We paid to get a boiling water tap installed, first in London and then in the US. As far as convenience goes, I would rate it above a microwave, toaster or electric whisk, but below the fridge or oven.
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
I was just idly wondering why I'd never heard the word Zionophobia, so I looked it up and it's certainly been used a fair bit in the USA ("on college campus" often seems to be in the same stories)
It's never been used on PB (at least on Vanilla, that is), nor zionophobic or -phobe.
Is it different from antisemitism?
Is it useful as a kind of differentiator for the antisemites with Jewish friends who all just hate Israel?
Not a word that I have ever encountered. Certainly sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians does spill over to anti-semitism.
Personally I think that British influence and actions in the Middle East over the last Century or so have been a litany of mistakes in which we have managed to offend all sides. We should steer clear of any further involvement.
I'm not sure what British policy vis a vis Palestine was much before the Balfour Declaration (no doubt one of our historians will enlighten me) but Dr F is right; from then on it's been a catalogue of 'how not to do it!' IIRC TE Lawrence was very much against the Sykes-Picot carve-up.
Lawrence was only opposed because he (without authority) had promised something different
If you read Lines in the Sand thought it’s clear. It’s all the fault of… the French
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educate their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
Well @Benpointer has beaten me to the list (of which it is only a small subset). You only have to look at your council tax bill to see how much you pay for the police. You are not using them occasionally. You are using them all the time. All those police cars going up and down the motorway, clearing accidents, etc you are personally using otherwise you are going nowhere. And when you do directly need the services of the police, fire brigade, or an ambulance you are really getting a lot of value. I have personally only needed the fire brigade once to be rescued from a car in a flood. Even got a lift home in a fire engine which was fun. Sadly the car didn't do as well as me.
What if you don't use motorways, don't commit any crimes, have never had a house fire and are hale and hearty, you are getting a real bum deal.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now).
Hence May's plan went down so badly with the Tory core vote in 2017 and most homeowners and their heirs and lost us our majority, while Boris won a comfortable majority in 2019 having abandoned it and is now delivering for the Tory base by protecting most of the value of their estates from care costs
Will it? Surely people will have to top up if the contribution does not cover the cost of the accommodation. Clearly that stops people abusing the system by going into very posh accommodation, but I understand it is not uncommon for people to have to top up fairly basic accommodation. Also living costs you have to pay are understandably quite a bit more than you would have to pay in your own home. So both of these will whittle away the extra if they live long enough.
I have no objection to that but it is misleading to think there is an £86k limit on the costs.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
Have to say the thing I would not be without now is a waste disposal. First had one many years ago when living in USA and have never been without one since.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
You were also elected to deliver levelling up but you seem a lot less arsed about that
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now).
Hence May's plan went down so badly with the Tory core vote in 2017 and most homeowners and their heirs and lost us our majority, while Boris won a comfortable majority in 2019 having abandoned it and is now delivering for the Tory base by protecting most of the value of their estates from care costs
Will it? Surely people will have to top up if the contribution does not cover the cost of the accommodation. Clearly that stops people abusing the system by going into very posh accommodation, but I understand it is not uncommon for people to have to top up fairly basic accommodation. Also living costs you have to pay are understandably quite a bit more than you would have to pay in your own home. So both of these will whittle away the extra if they live long enough.
I have no objection to that but it is misleading to think there is an £86k limit on the costs.
Most people will not need residential care, even if they need at home domestic care. While the state can cover care costs taxpayers should not have to cover living costs as well for those who have permanently had to leave their home to move into residential care.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We paid to get a boiling water tap installed, first in London and then in the US. As far as convenience goes, I would rate it above a microwave, toaster or electric whisk, but below the fridge or oven.
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
A powerful electric kettle that boils your water in the time it takes to make a slice of toast is just as convenient, and much cheaper.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
You were also elected to deliver levelling up but you seem a lot less arsed about that
We were more elected to deliver Brexit north of Watford, that was the reason Leaver Boris got a majority in 2019 unlike Remainer May in 2017 despite the fact both promised levelling up.
In the South and seats we regained in London like Kensington we were elected with a majority more to beat Corbyn and not impose the dementia tax which cost May her majority in 2017
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educate their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
Well @Benpointer has beaten me to the list (of which it is only a small subset). You only have to look at your council tax bill to see how much you pay for the police. You are not using them occasionally. You are using them all the time. All those police cars going up and down the motorway, clearing accidents, etc you are personally using otherwise you are going nowhere. And when you do directly need the services of the police, fire brigade, or an ambulance you are really getting a lot of value. I have personally only needed the fire brigade once to be rescued from a car in a flood. Even got a lift home in a fire engine which was fun. Sadly the car didn't do as well as me.
I said the police and fire service were the main public service the rich and high earners benefit from (albeit less than average as most also tend to live in safer areas with lower crime rates)
And the point I was making is the rich don't use them rarely, they use them all the time, albeit indirectly. Who do you think clears that motorway pile up holding you up, stops the speeders past your kids schools, catches the thief that has broken into a house and will break into your house next if he wasn't caught. You are benefiting indirectly all the time.
And when it rarely happens you do need them you get the tax you have paid many years over for what they provide and you will need them sometime no matter how rich you are.
PS I guess I come in what you would call the rich category. We do not have private health care. One of our children went to state school, the other was privately educated, but because of special circumstances otherwise he also would have gone to a state school.
Wealthy people, of course, use the NHS when they are grievously ill. Was a sign of the end for the DofE when he was transferred from a private hospital.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We paid to get a boiling water tap installed, first in London and then in the US. As far as convenience goes, I would rate it above a microwave, toaster or electric whisk, but below the fridge or oven.
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
A powerful electric kettle that boils your water in the time it takes to make a slice of toast is just as convenient, and much cheaper.
Not possible in America as it’s 110volts so only half the uk power - as the tap can sit on a different circuit (alongside other kitchen appliances) I suspect it can bypass that limit.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now).
Hence May's plan went down so badly with the Tory core vote in 2017 and most homeowners and their heirs and lost us our majority, while Boris won a comfortable majority in 2019 having abandoned it and is now delivering for the Tory base by protecting most of the value of their estates from care costs
Will it? Surely people will have to top up if the contribution does not cover the cost of the accommodation. Clearly that stops people abusing the system by going into very posh accommodation, but I understand it is not uncommon for people to have to top up fairly basic accommodation. Also living costs you have to pay are understandably quite a bit more than you would have to pay in your own home. So both of these will whittle away the extra if they live long enough.
I have no objection to that but it is misleading to think there is an £86k limit on the costs.
Most people will not need residential care, even if they need at home domestic care. While the state can cover care costs taxpayers should not have to cover living costs as well for those who have permanently had to leave their home to move into residential care.
I agree completely. Not the point I was making though.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
You were also elected to deliver levelling up but you seem a lot less arsed about that
We were more elected to deliver Brexit north of Watford, that was the reason Leaver Boris got a majority in 2019 unlike Remainer May in 2017 despite the fact both promised levelling up.
In the South and seats we regained in London like Kensington we were elected with a majority more to beat Corbyn and not impose the dementia tax which cost May her majority in 2017
So now you've delivered Brexit, and got rid of Corbyn, what is the rationale behind your rule? Should you not say mission accomplished let's have an election?
Lol @ the Police announcing that the banknotes that fell from a lorry and scattered across the road “belong to a bank” and asking people who stopped to collect some to return them. Good luck with that!
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educate their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
Well @Benpointer has beaten me to the list (of which it is only a small subset). You only have to look at your council tax bill to see how much you pay for the police. You are not using them occasionally. You are using them all the time. All those police cars going up and down the motorway, clearing accidents, etc you are personally using otherwise you are going nowhere. And when you do directly need the services of the police, fire brigade, or an ambulance you are really getting a lot of value. I have personally only needed the fire brigade once to be rescued from a car in a flood. Even got a lift home in a fire engine which was fun. Sadly the car didn't do as well as me.
What if you don't use motorways, don't commit any crimes, have never had a house fire and are hale and hearty, you are getting a real bum deal.
Most people drive, policing is just not for motorways, and of course you benefit from detection and deterrence of crimes in general. I benefited from the police deciding to raid the cannabis farm upstairs. Fire and health I see very much as insurance payments. In any case, most of us will use a lot of NHS in the final years of our lives however healthy we are now. And you, @malcolmg, presumably need a new spleen every few years.
“The two halves of the Conservative coalition, the only thing they agree on is ‘get Brexit done’,” said Ford. “Any policy that actually falls under the category ‘unleash Britain’s potential’ involves one half of that coalition paying for something the other half wants, or one half of that coalition getting it in the neck for something the other half doesn’t want.”
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
You were also elected to deliver levelling up but you seem a lot less arsed about that
We were more elected to deliver Brexit north of Watford, that was the reason Leaver Boris got a majority in 2019 unlike Remainer May in 2017 despite the fact both promised levelling up.
In the South and seats we regained in London like Kensington we were elected with a majority more to beat Corbyn and not impose the dementia tax which cost May her majority in 2017
So now you've delivered Brexit, and got rid of Corbyn, what is the rationale behind your rule? Should you not say mission accomplished let's have an election?
I admit, we have been in power 10 years and any extra years in power would be a bonus given there is normally a change of government after 10 years and we have achieved our main aim of delivering Brexit and beating Corbyn and delivering for our voters on social care.
However a Tory government would still be better than a Labour led government from my perspective and we must fulfil the full term we were elected for
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
“The two halves of the Conservative coalition, the only thing they agree on is ‘get Brexit done’,” said Ford. “Any policy that actually falls under the category ‘unleash Britain’s potential’ involves one half of that coalition paying for something the other half wants, or one half of that coalition getting it in the neck for something the other half doesn’t want.”
Very much so.
While I hope for a Tory majority I admit some of the Redwall votes lent to Boris (note Boris not really the Tories) to deliver Brexit and beat Corbyn will now return to their usual Labour voting pattern now Brexit has been delivered and Corbyn has gone.
Hence as current polls show the next general election will likely look more like 2017 or 2015 or 2010 or 1992 than 2019.
However if Boris goes I think it will be even more difficult, note how many Redwall voters in 2019 said they were voting for Boris, they still could not bring themselves to say they were voting for the Tories
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We paid to get a boiling water tap installed, first in London and then in the US. As far as convenience goes, I would rate it above a microwave, toaster or electric whisk, but below the fridge or oven.
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
Not good in hard water areas after a few years, unless you invest in a water softener.
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
Are you in favour of itemised billing? Cos otherwise, I'm not sure what the answer is.
No, the rich correctly pay their fair share of tax to support the rest of the population who do need welfare or use the NHS more regularly and state schools. However they do not need to be taxed more than they are in my view
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
I am too suspicious of statist solutions or debt to be a Socialist. I am much more interested in bottom up government than top down, and like non hierarchical self governing local organisations. At heart I am an anarcho-syndicalist.
I've been a member of the Liberals/Liberal Democrats for 59 years but in my early days I subscribed to Freedom and was a fan of Kropotkin.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
I am too suspicious of statist solutions or debt to be a Socialist. I am much more interested in bottom up government than top down, and like non hierarchical self governing local organisations. At heart I am an anarcho-syndicalist.
I've been a member of the Liberals/Liberal Democrats for 59 years but in my early days I subscribed to Freedom and was a fan of Kropotkin.
Yes, but I remember listening to your liberal conference speeches as a youngster, and even back then you were clearly on the wacky wing.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
I agree with you about the Labour left being weak at the moment. But I don't think that's just because of the zeitgeist and the need not to repel floating voters. I think it's as much to do with a dearth of talent on the left of the party these days. Apart from McDonnell, who is obviously a bit marmite, I can't think of any 'giants' bestriding the left of Labour as, say, Benn (T.) and Foot did in the past.
True. I guess they (the left) were sidelined for so long post the Blair reboot that when Corbyn shocked everyone and took over as leader there was hardly any quality around from that wing to form a winning team. And he's only been gone 19 months so ...
Or it's because being extremely left wing generally pre-requires a certain lack of intelligence (or more fairly some intellectual blind spots) whereas you can be intelligent and right-wing (up to a point) provided your compassion to self-interest ratio is low enough?
Ooo no, I don't go with that at all. What I do think, though, is that it's a lot easier to see that capitalism is a deeply suboptimal way for material life outcomes to be dictated than it is to come up with an alternative that both does better on that score and protects individual liberty.
Is anyone else getting tired of performative thick culture amongst football commentators? "Progress the ball?" R5L presenter's head exploding at the sheer linguistic complexity. He must have read some Wittgenstein.
Is anyone else getting tired of performative thick culture amongst football commentators? "Progress the ball?" R5L presenter's head exploding at the sheer linguistic complexity. He must have read some Wittgenstein.
Of what he cannot speak, thereof he must remain silent.
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
And, of course, you benefit considerably in an indirect fashion, from living in a country which does have plentiful education, enabling people who are not the rich to become useful and productive members of society. And where there is universal healthcare, enabling people who are not rich to remain healthy.
After all, if all your buying of private services and goods were to come only from either the rich, or those areas where no education at all was necessary, you would have a rather more limited way of life. The technological and engineering base of the country would be colossally lower, the number of people capable of becoming doctors, scientists, and engineers (and lawyers, for that matter) would, if restricted only to the scions of the rich, be vastly insufficient to support our way of life.
And private healthcare would be overstretched by the desperate middle-earners who need to somehow pay for their healthcare, and even more desperate poor people who could afford no care. It is very possible that in such a scenario, those rich people would need to avail themselves considerably more of the services of the police force.
Looking at itemised billing for how I, personally, benefit from x, y, and z spending on healthcare, education, and so forth, would be astonishingly short-sighted. Given that the entire economy from which I derive my income would be unrecognisable and highly likely to be much smaller and more limited.
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
I agree with you about the Labour left being weak at the moment. But I don't think that's just because of the zeitgeist and the need not to repel floating voters. I think it's as much to do with a dearth of talent on the left of the party these days. Apart from McDonnell, who is obviously a bit marmite, I can't think of any 'giants' bestriding the left of Labour as, say, Benn (T.) and Foot did in the past.
True. I guess they (the left) were sidelined for so long post the Blair reboot that when Corbyn shocked everyone and took over as leader there was hardly any quality around from that wing to form a winning team. And he's only been gone 19 months so ...
Or it's because being extremely left wing generally pre-requires a certain lack of intelligence (or more fairly some intellectual blind spots) whereas you can be intelligent and right-wing (up to a point) provided your compassion to self-interest ratio is low enough?
Ooo no, I don't go with that at all. What I do think, though, is that it's a lot easier to see that capitalism is a deeply suboptimal way for material life outcomes to be dictated than it is to come up with an alternative that both does better on that score and protects individual liberty.
And the LibDems offer you as much radicalism on such core issues as does Labour. The difference in “leftwingyness” is that Labour offers you a more left wing perspective on foreign policy and on various issues of identity politics. Which I don’t see as an advantage, either for you or for them.
I think that plot may be giving a bit of a misleading impression. Firstly the time axis covers only the past ten weeks, and secondly the curves for all the age groups are normalised to start at the same level. In absolute terms, we'd expect the efficacy to have declined more in the older groups because it would be longer since they had their first two doses (and maybe because of their age). So although the curve for the 80+ year olds makes it look as though they're going to end up with even better protection than they had from the first two doses, it doesn't necessarily follow.
We should also take into account the fact that boosters will nearly always be Pfizer or Moderna, which have a higher efficacy anyway than AstraZeneca.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
I agree with you about the Labour left being weak at the moment. But I don't think that's just because of the zeitgeist and the need not to repel floating voters. I think it's as much to do with a dearth of talent on the left of the party these days. Apart from McDonnell, who is obviously a bit marmite, I can't think of any 'giants' bestriding the left of Labour as, say, Benn (T.) and Foot did in the past.
What is continually remarkable to me is how often I interact with people in real life who are superior thinkers and leaders to more or less anyone in Parliament. And I wouldn’t say I’ve trodden a particularly gilded career path blessed with exceptional talent.
I do sometimes wonder whether Parliament as compulsory jury duty would produce a better pool of legislators and leaders than we get lumbered with by the party system. It would be design be more representative of political mood than FPTP too.
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
And, of course, you benefit considerably in an indirect fashion, from living in a country which does have plentiful education, enabling people who are not the rich to become useful and productive members of society. And where there is universal healthcare, enabling people who are not rich to remain healthy.
After all, if all your buying of private services and goods were to come only from either the rich, or those areas where no education at all was necessary, you would have a rather more limited way of life. The technological and engineering base of the country would be colossally lower, the number of people capable of becoming doctors, scientists, and engineers (and lawyers, for that matter) would, if restricted only to the scions of the rich, be vastly insufficient to support our way of life.
And private healthcare would be overstretched by the desperate middle-earners who need to somehow pay for their healthcare, and even more desperate poor people who could afford no care. It is very possible that in such a scenario, those rich people would need to avail themselves considerably more of the services of the police force.
Looking at itemised billing for how I, personally, benefit from x, y, and z spending on healthcare, education, and so forth, would be astonishingly short-sighted. Given that the entire economy from which I derive my income would be unrecognisable and highly likely to be much smaller and more limited.
And far less wealth for the Tories and their supporters to cream off. That is a key issue, given that that is the primary role of the British state and of the Conservative party and its lineal predecessors since at least the 17th century.
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
As 60% of Leave voters are still voting Conservative but only 18% of Remain voters are voting Conservative.
So of Conservative seats won in 2019 you would still expect to see the biggest shift away from the Tories in Remain seats like Chesham and Amersham, not strong Leave seats like North Shropshire and Old Bexley and Sidcup
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
A true tory speaks and, yes, this is the fork in the road. Do we drop our aspiration for a decent welfare safety net and good public services for all, funded by general taxation? Big decision. Course it won't get presented like this but I do think that's the slowly evolving choice.
A decent welfare safety net by definition only needs to be for the poorest but still just a safety net which means they would also still be better off getting at least a minimum wage job.
Public services, including the NHS, have just had even more billions spent on them from Sunak but I believe we need more choice and reform in public services, not just more money spent on them
But in practice 'choice and reform' tory style leads to the basics for those without money and delux for those with it. Of course we have this already in many areas but for this to become the accepted norm for services across the board would represent a different vision. I'd like to see it presented as such and put up against the alternative (higher and steeply progressive taxes inc a wealth tax) at the ballot box. As it is, it's going to be fudged because the Tories won't fess up to having that vision and Labour won't fess up to wanting to raise tax so as to protect us from it. However, over several elections, the choice will be made.
But apart from the infrastructure and the vaccine research, the healthcare & the schools, the universities & protection of the courts, the environmental standards and the workplace protections, the regulation and the stable currency, the democracy & the emergency services & the protection against terrorism and foreign invasion... what has the state ever done for us?
57% of state spending in the UK goes on welfare (excluding the state pension), the NHS and state schools.
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
A true tory speaks and, yes, this is the fork in the road. Do we drop our aspiration for a decent welfare safety net and good public services for all, funded by general taxation? Big decision. Course it won't get presented like this but I do think that's the slowly evolving choice.
A decent welfare safety net by definition only needs to be for the poorest but still just a safety net which means they would also still be better off getting at least a minimum wage job.
Public services, including the NHS, have just had even more billions spent on them from Sunak but I believe we need more choice and reform in public services, not just more money spent on them
But in practice 'choice and reform' tory style leads to the basics for those without money and delux for those with it. Of course we have this already in many areas but for this to become the accepted norm for services across the board would represent a different vision. I'd like to see it presented as such and put up against the alternative (higher and steeply progressive taxes inc a wealth tax) at the ballot box. As it is, it's going to be fudged because the Tories won't fess up to having that vision and Labour won't fess up to wanting to raise tax so as to protect us from it. However, over several elections, the choice will be made.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
Roads and other transport infrastructure Armed forces Security services Stable currency The miriad of Standards and Regulatory authorities Democracy itself...
... all these and more are funded by taxes and benefit everyone, even the rich.
And even your hermit on St Kilda does too. The only way there is by Army landing craft, and the Services provide rescue cover and I'm sure medical emergency cover too.
Per head providing all those services to the remotest bits is pretty expensive. When I send letters to Mull and Orkneys at least I feel I'm getting my money's worth. And when you look at the school at Ulva Ferry (what a set of fine views) it's sobering to wonder what it costs per head to run it.
Is anyone else getting tired of performative thick culture amongst football commentators? "Progress the ball?" R5L presenter's head exploding at the sheer linguistic complexity. He must have read some Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Schopenhauer and Fichte are are fine back four.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We have a heavy duty kettle that boils quickly and makes a hell of a racket. It really makes its presence felt while it's on. Very useful for if we're having an argument. My wife will be just getting into her stride and I'll hit the button on that big steel baby and within 2 seconds that's all you can hear.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
Roads and other transport infrastructure Armed forces Security services Stable currency The miriad of Standards and Regulatory authorities Democracy itself...
... all these and more are funded by taxes and benefit everyone, even the rich.
And even your hermit on St Kilda does too. The only way there is by Army landing craft, and the Services provide rescue cover and I'm sure medical emergency cover too.
Per head providing all those services to the remotest bits is pretty expensive. When I send letters to Mull and Orkneys at least I feel I'm getting my money's worth. And when you look at the school at Ulva Ferry (what a set of fine views) it's sobering to wonder what it costs per head to run it.
The St Kilda outpost does have a primary role of being a radar station for the missile range. Being able to help visitors and NTS staff is a purely secondary issue; as indeed was (until very recently) the civilian rescue role of the military rescue helicopters.
As for the rest, it has to be seen in a historic context of massive depopulation - in fact, what we see today are far fewer populated bits than there used to be, and smaller populations in the bits that are still populated, on the groundfs of what was seen as efficiency by central government and rich landowners. Where does one draw the line? It has already been drawn further back, to so speak, and far more than would be accepted in say the Faroes or Norway.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
Roads and other transport infrastructure Armed forces Security services Stable currency The miriad of Standards and Regulatory authorities Democracy itself...
... all these and more are funded by taxes and benefit everyone, even the rich.
And even your hermit on St Kilda does too. The only way there is by Army landing craft, and the Services provide rescue cover and I'm sure medical emergency cover too.
Per head providing all those services to the remotest bits is pretty expensive. When I send letters to Mull and Orkneys at least I feel I'm getting my money's worth. And when you look at the school at Ulva Ferry (what a set of fine views) it's sobering to wonder what it costs per head to run it.
PS Also: there is a lot of multitasking in the small places - so part timers, and so on.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
Roads and other transport infrastructure Armed forces Security services Stable currency The miriad of Standards and Regulatory authorities Democracy itself...
... all these and more are funded by taxes and benefit everyone, even the rich.
And even your hermit on St Kilda does too. The only way there is by Army landing craft, and the Services provide rescue cover and I'm sure medical emergency cover too.
Per head providing all those services to the remotest bits is pretty expensive. When I send letters to Mull and Orkneys at least I feel I'm getting my money's worth. And when you look at the school at Ulva Ferry (what a set of fine views) it's sobering to wonder what it costs per head to run it.
The St Kilda outpost does have a primary role of being a radar station for the missile range. Being able to help visitors and NTS staff is a purely secondary issue; as indeed was (until very recently) the civilian rescue role of the military rescue helicopters.
As for the rest, it has to be seen in a historic context of massive depopulation - in fact, what we see today are far fewer populated bits than there used to be, and smaller populations in the bits that are still populated, on the groundfs of what was seen as efficiency by central government and rich landowners. Where does one draw the line? It has already been drawn further back, to so speak, and far more than would be accepted in say the Faroes or Norway.
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
A true tory speaks and, yes, this is the fork in the road. Do we drop our aspiration for a decent welfare safety net and good public services for all, funded by general taxation? Big decision. Course it won't get presented like this but I do think that's the slowly evolving choice.
A decent welfare safety net by definition only needs to be for the poorest but still just a safety net which means they would also still be better off getting at least a minimum wage job.
Public services, including the NHS, have just had even more billions spent on them from Sunak but I believe we need more choice and reform in public services, not just more money spent on them
But in practice 'choice and reform' tory style leads to the basics for those without money and delux for those with it. Of course we have this already in many areas but for this to become the accepted norm for services across the board would represent a different vision. I'd like to see it presented as such and put up against the alternative (higher and steeply progressive taxes inc a wealth tax) at the ballot box. As it is, it's going to be fudged because the Tories won't fess up to having that vision and Labour won't fess up to wanting to raise tax so as to protect us from it. However, over several elections, the choice will be made.
Not necessarily eg free schools and academies
But if we keep edging along that road - of choice/competition being prioritized over investment/provision - the ultimate destination is a land where 'good public services for all' is replaced by 'you get what you pay for'.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We paid to get a boiling water tap installed, first in London and then in the US. As far as convenience goes, I would rate it above a microwave, toaster or electric whisk, but below the fridge or oven.
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
Why is Scotland about to extend vaccine passports?
To do the opposite of England, probably.
Well, if what is done in England is the wrong thing in the circs, then there you are. Wales and now NI too are using passports.
What criteria are you using to determine what is the right or wrong thing to do?
I'm less interested, at least at this stage, of arguing about the merits of the case. I just want to know what the reasoning is. What is it expected to achieve? Why now? Until when? What alternatives were considered and why were they rejected?
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
This stuff all just seems so pointless. You want to boil the kettle? Press the on switch and wait for a minute. Want to know if your fridge is running low? Open it and look inside. One day we're going to wake up and realise we can't have a cup of tea because Vladimir Putin has hacked our kettles. It all reeks of more money than sense, too. Like boiling water taps and wine fridges. Meanwhile the world heats up, refugees are drowning in the channel, kids in this country are going to school hungry, hospitals are failing, the government shovels billions to its pals. But let's keep on buying pointless tat!
All just marketing fluff. Doesn't benefit quality of life very much if at all. And unless you earn at the rate of a PL footballer or above it certainly does not benefit quality of life to justify the extra working hours to pay for it all resulting in reduced leisure time.
It’s interesting though.
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
We paid to get a boiling water tap installed, first in London and then in the US. As far as convenience goes, I would rate it above a microwave, toaster or electric whisk, but below the fridge or oven.
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
I've seriously never heard of this device.
Since it costs over £1000 to install, maybe you’ve heard of it frivolously?
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
For these reasons three.
1. Leave voters don't trust Labour/Lib Dems not to reverse Brexit.
2. Remain voters are still bitter about the manner in which we left.
3. Brexit isn't done yet.
Interesting thanks. In the 1980s defence (i.e. the nuclear deterrent) was a massive driver of voting intention and then suddenly it became irrelevant. Surely Brexit is destined to go the same way. But when will this happen?
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
I agree with you about the Labour left being weak at the moment. But I don't think that's just because of the zeitgeist and the need not to repel floating voters. I think it's as much to do with a dearth of talent on the left of the party these days. Apart from McDonnell, who is obviously a bit marmite, I can't think of any 'giants' bestriding the left of Labour as, say, Benn (T.) and Foot did in the past.
True. I guess they (the left) were sidelined for so long post the Blair reboot that when Corbyn shocked everyone and took over as leader there was hardly any quality around from that wing to form a winning team. And he's only been gone 19 months so ...
Or it's because being extremely left wing generally pre-requires a certain lack of intelligence (or more fairly some intellectual blind spots) whereas you can be intelligent and right-wing (up to a point) provided your compassion to self-interest ratio is low enough?
Ooo no, I don't go with that at all. What I do think, though, is that it's a lot easier to see that capitalism is a deeply suboptimal way for material life outcomes to be dictated than it is to come up with an alternative that both does better on that score and protects individual liberty.
And the LibDems offer you as much radicalism on such core issues as does Labour. The difference in “leftwingyness” is that Labour offers you a more left wing perspective on foreign policy and on various issues of identity politics. Which I don’t see as an advantage, either for you or for them.
Yes, I'm quite attuned to the Labour left on foreign policy and social issues. But I would vote LD in a Con/Lib marginal and that's a promise.
Why is Scotland about to extend vaccine passports?
To do the opposite of England, probably.
Well, if what is done in England is the wrong thing in the circs, then there you are. Wales and now NI too are using passports.
What criteria are you using to determine what is the right or wrong thing to do?
I'm less interested, at least at this stage, of arguing about the merits of the case. I just want to know what the reasoning is. What is it expected to achieve? Why now? Until when? What alternatives were considered and why were they rejected?
Fair enough; it is evidently deemed desirable in the runup to winter.
Oh no. Give Flight Deck a hug. 😢 His jumping rustiness put him out of position. Maybe faster early pace would have helped him and other favourites too.
Regarding the internet of things: Read Shoshana Zuboff's book 'the Age of Surveillance Capitalism'; or if you can't manage the book, some of the articles and podcasts she did around the time such as this interview with David Runciman of Cambridge University.
Zuboff describes how this is fundamentally altering human nature. People are becoming addicted to and dependent on technology in ways that are completely unnecessary, to serve the interests of commerce. I've seen this over and over again, and it is just all really sad.
Sort of what I've been saying for ages. For instance, supermarkets getting the customer to do the job of scanning their items instead of employees. Saves the shop money because they don't have to employ so many people.
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
For these reasons three.
1. Leave voters don't trust Labour/Lib Dems not to reverse Brexit.
2. Remain voters are still bitter about the manner in which we left.
3. Brexit isn't done yet.
Interesting thanks. In the 1980s defence (i.e. the nuclear deterrent) was a massive driver of voting intention and then suddenly it became irrelevant. Surely Brexit is destined to go the same way. But when will this happen?
I'm in a trifling mood of triples, so I foresee three possible scenarios.
1. Revelation. Leave voters realise that they were duped, and the country is united in a desire to repair the damage.
2. Dissipation. Labour manages to convince Remain voters that a gradual approach is best, and Leave voters that none of the Brexit fundamentals will be messed with, and the country is united in never wanting to open that can of worms again, and concentrates on other issues.
3. Ossification. The Remain side can't abandon the desire to undo Brexit, whether in one go or in stages. The Leave side feel that their achievement is continually under threat. The country remains united in its division, and egregious failures of governance are excused because of the greater imperative to take sides of the Brexit divide.
Why is Scotland about to extend vaccine passports?
To do the opposite of England, probably.
Well, if what is done in England is the wrong thing in the circs, then there you are. Wales and now NI too are using passports.
And shortly that Mecca of the Covibertarians, Sweden. Shome mishtake..
Not having them might be quite correct for England for all I know - my 'circs' referred to Scotland. Though I see that Israel also requires vaxports (vaccination or recent infection certificate). (But I can't read this - paywalled).
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
It remains a strong predictor of VI. It is true identity politics.
And so the key to our future politics is whether and when leave voters come to realise that they were duped.
I suspect the answer to that is 'now'. When the best spin even the Boris government can put on Brexit is that it allows a few pence to be cut from the tax on English fizzy wine then you know the concept has issues. (I don't think the poor returns from Brexit will make many Leavers regret their vote, but I do think it will dissuade many of them from being grateful to those who implemented it.)
Why is Scotland about to extend vaccine passports?
To do the opposite of England, probably.
Well, if what is done in England is the wrong thing in the circs, then there you are. Wales and now NI too are using passports.
And shortly that Mecca of the Covibertarians, Sweden. Shome mishtake..
Not having them might be quite correct for England for all I know - my 'circs' referred to Scotland. Though I see that Israel also requires vaxports (vaccination or recent infection certificate). (But I can't read this - paywalled).
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
For these reasons three.
1. Leave voters don't trust Labour/Lib Dems not to reverse Brexit.
2. Remain voters are still bitter about the manner in which we left.
3. Brexit isn't done yet.
Interesting thanks. In the 1980s defence (i.e. the nuclear deterrent) was a massive driver of voting intention and then suddenly it became irrelevant. Surely Brexit is destined to go the same way. But when will this happen?
Irrelevant and unimportant are different. SKS presents no threat to our independent nuclear deterrence. Corbyn's astonishing elections involved 2 unelectable parties in 2017, in the middle of a Brexit furore, and 2019 was unique too.
The moment there was an election is normal circumstances (will there ever be?) and Labour was soft on nuclear it would suddenly come up again.
Especially with the USA unreliable and the EU rubbish on defence the need for UK deterrence remains strong.
Why is Scotland about to extend vaccine passports?
To do the opposite of England, probably.
Well, if what is done in England is the wrong thing in the circs, then there you are. Wales and now NI too are using passports.
What criteria are you using to determine what is the right or wrong thing to do?
I'm less interested, at least at this stage, of arguing about the merits of the case. I just want to know what the reasoning is. What is it expected to achieve? Why now? Until when? What alternatives were considered and why were they rejected?
Fair enough; it is evidently deemed desirable in the runup to winter.
Thanks for the links. It's very vague. There's a lot of talk about the infection rate, but much less about the strain on the health service, and there seems to be no estimate of how much improvement it's expected to create.
My worry is twofold. Firstly, that these sorts of emergency measures become permanent parts of life. Secondly, that the determination to reduce infection rates will mean that other restrictive measures will be introduced if these don't reduce infection rates (as, for example, continued mask use has failed to do so).
And I don't see the detail on the pressure on hospitals. I can't judge why they would think the vaccine passports are necessary when booster vaccinations should reduce the pressure on hospitals.
Why is Scotland about to extend vaccine passports?
To do the opposite of England, probably.
Well, if what is done in England is the wrong thing in the circs, then there you are. Wales and now NI too are using passports.
And shortly that Mecca of the Covibertarians, Sweden. Shome mishtake..
Not having them might be quite correct for England for all I know - my 'circs' referred to Scotland. Though I see that Israel also requires vaxports (vaccination or recent infection certificate). (But I can't read this - paywalled).
Shocking, all those countries and their petty desire to be different to England.
Indeed, and that side debate about whether Edinburgh is a suburb of Greater Glasgow or is on the contrary separated by an Empty Quarter explored by Lawrence, Stark, Philby and Thesiger.
Anyway off now. Pickled herring, freshly boiled beetroot and spuds for dinner tonight.
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
It remains a strong predictor of VI. It is true identity politics.
And so the key to our future politics is whether and when leave voters come to realise that they were duped.
I suspect the answer to that is 'now'. When the best spin even the Boris government can put on Brexit is that it allows a few pence to be cut from the tax on English fizzy wine then you know the concept has issues. (I don't think the poor returns from Brexit will make many Leavers regret their vote, but I do think it will dissuade many of them from being grateful to those who implemented it.)
I suspect not. I imagine it will take decades. It is identity politics and has become viscerally ingrained. Rather like in the 50's when class was reason enough to vote the way you did. "Because I voted Brexit" will be trotted out deep into the 2040's. Long term this doesn't benefit the Tories, but for now it will suffice in the absence of owt much else.
Marcus Fysh MP @MarcusFysh · 48m Scottish NHS vaccine passport app shares personal data with Amazon, Microsoft, Royal Mail, AI firms. We should not follow China / SNP into becoming a surveillance / crony state
Marcus Fysh MP @MarcusFysh · 48m Scottish NHS vaccine passport app shares personal data with Amazon, Microsoft, Royal Mail, AI firms. We should not follow China / SNP into becoming a surveillance / crony state
Does that mean it is built using AWS, Azure and with an address lookup?
Or does it mean Royal Mail get to know your vaccine status so that herbal supplement companies can target marketing to the unvaccinated?
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
You were also elected to deliver levelling up but you seem a lot less arsed about that
We were more elected to deliver Brexit north of Watford, that was the reason Leaver Boris got a majority in 2019 unlike Remainer May in 2017 despite the fact both promised levelling up.
In the South and seats we regained in London like Kensington we were elected with a majority more to beat Corbyn and not impose the dementia tax which cost May her majority in 2017
Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya · 40m 'A disease is endemic when disease rates are reduced to ‘a locally acceptable level’ and the disease becomes manageable. However, what level is considered manageable and acceptable, particularly for a new disease, is not defined by epidemiology.'
Has the Netherlands re-imposesed a full lockdown? or just tweaked the restrictions for the unvaccinated?
p.s. I do like the chap pushing a bicycle thought in the middle, very Dutch.
Woke up this morning to see the rioting in Rotterdam on the news. It appears to be a reaction to what is described as a "partial lockdown" that has been imposed on the whole population, allegedly for three weeks - although we all know what happened over here last year, where the Government tried to deploy one of these useless "circuit breakers" in November, lifted it again, and finally ended up imprisoning everybody from Christmas to Easter.
Once ministers impose these measures, previous experience shows that they find it very hard to let go of them, because of the rising case numbers and the panicked screaming from the boffins that follows as soon as they do so. The only thing that brings relief is warm weather: a lot of people in the countries that are finding themselves back in yet another cycle of lockdowns are probably terrified that they're going to be stuck in them for six months.
My gut instinct is that we are not very far behind, although this isn't reflected in the data as yet. Its a good time to get stuff done before the next lockdown.
Agreed. I may be suffering from some cognitive bias because my wife and I currently have it, but there seems to be a lot of it about, it's spreading really easily pretty much whenever people interact indoors. I know so many people getting it right now. I do feel a bit better this morning after a relatively good night. Adjusting for my wife's tendency to be more stoical than me I suspect she now has it worse. I'm going to go and make her a cup of tea.
I hope that, when you've made the tea and can settle down again to read this, you both continue to feel better. If you are doing so, then it's clear, that for Mr & Mrs OLB, This Thing Will Pass!
Best of!
Seconded. I’m more or less over the after effects, having been back at work for a week.
For your viewing pleasure, here is Zarah Sultana being tied up in knots by her own mini-brain. Note Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire's body language...
Where does the hard left find these utter morons like Sultana?
How on Earth can she not think of another word for 'dodgy?'
Admittedly I might have asked her to withdraw it on the grounds that called Grant Shapps 'dodgy' is something of an understatement, but surely 'inept,' 'dubious,' 'duplicitous,' 'lazy' and 'pig ignorant' would all have fitted the bill?
But then, she never was exactly with it.
Economical with the probity ?
I wonder if in her head Sultana regards the Speaker as "establishment to be resisted", like all other authority figures, for plucky activists.
If she’s the best the Labour left has, then the threat of their taking over the party again seems somewhat diminished.
Debbonaire seems very impressive. Great name (which she chose herself via deed poll, apparently), and a cellist of professional standard to boot.
Yes, Debbonaire comes over well. As for the 'left' in Labour, the problem imo is they're too weak not too strong. As usual you get overswing and it's happened here in response to Corbyn. The party leadership is extremely averse to anything which might conjur up memories of that man in the minds of floating voters. Hence, very very cagey on certain issues that for me they could be stronger on. But if one takes the view that winning an election is more important than pleasing me, as many will, then I reckon Starmer is playing things about right. Roll on those policies. Let's hope there's some killers.
When you hear Sultana on the subject of tuition fees or on the increased NI on the working ages, you do get a good idea of what should be a central Labour theme. She may not be the right vessel, but this is something that the Front bench should be pushing:
They should. In a populist age you handicap yourself if you shy away from it. Also a risk though in that Labour are vulnerable to 'class war' attacks when sounding radical. So they need to get across anger at the working poor being screwed but without looking like they have the affluent and those aspiring to be affluent in their cross hairs.
PS: You're an interesting poster. One of the most left wing on here on many things yet a staunch Lib Dem!
It is baffling Labour can't commit to a super elite wealth tax at a time when obviously new taxes are needed and this is the only new tax that polls well. Apparently no policies are allowed until the GE but it makes no sense to me. Potential Labour voters will be drifting off to greens, LDs or becoming non voters over the next 3 years, when they could be drawn in with a popular policy. Momentum is needed well ahead of the GE.
I get the caution, and BJ is being very helpful to the strategy, but I am hoping for some radical polices and that one, a wealth tax that raises a lot of money, is right at the top of the list. As I say, I think the political risk of it, despite the polls, is that it opens up the 'class war' line of attack or its cousin the 'politics of envy'. We know how the Tories and the media demonize anything Labour propose which smacks of that and we also know how effective it can be. Still, I agree with you. The big picture imo is we tax wealth or we drop the idea of the welfare state and good public services for all. So it's seize the moment. Not sure they will though.
We already have close to 40% of UK GDP taken by the UK Government in tax. We don't need a welfare state and public services for all either. The average earning voter and above does not need much if any welfare and the richest and highest earning 10% can use private healthcare and private education.
However I would not be surprised if Labour backed a wealth tax in 2023/24 even under Starmer as Ed Miliband and Corbyn both did
You have to be ahermit living on St Kilda not to use public services. We all use them.
As for the highet earning 10% - well whoopee-shit for them, what about the rest of us?
Not necessarily, most of the rich educated their children privately and probably most of them generally use private healthcare too and only go to the NHS if they have an emergency.
If you are rich or a high earner probably the only public services you directly benefit from are the police, fire service and rubbish collection and the former 2 only a very occasional basis if ever.
However the richest 10% still pay for state healthcare and education for the remaining 90% via their taxes
So why does your Tory Party currently adopt the policy of taxing the lower paid and poorer more harshly? Look at the social care reforms which penalise the poor peope who do try to save, and pamper your house-owning constituents in Epping.
Since coming into power in 2010 this Tory government has taken the lowest earners out of tax and raised the minimum wage.
The fact it has abandoned May's disastrous dementia tax plans which would have seen care costs consume the majority of the estate of most voters on death does not change that
I didn't express myself clearly. The new social care tax will take money from poorer decedents' estates rather than from wealthier decedents'. That is effectively a financial transfer from the poor to the richer (because a band of the richer don't pay their fair share). Haver a look at the graph in this rteport:
Given the average home is now worth well over £200k, the £86k cap means the average voter and up will be able to keep most of their estate immune from care costs and in the family actually. Whereas under May's dementia tax plan the average voter would have lost most of the value of their estate in care costs down to their last £100k as only estates up to £100k were immune from care costs for at home care as well as residential care costs (though of course you still have to pay living costs in care homes even now)
Trying to defend a crap policy on the grounds that Ms May's was (in your view) worse isn't a very convincing argument.
For the Tory base and most homeowners it is a good policy and it is the Tory base and most homeowners and their heirs we were elected in 2019 with a majority to deliver for
You were also elected to deliver levelling up but you seem a lot less arsed about that
We were more elected to deliver Brexit north of Watford, that was the reason Leaver Boris got a majority in 2019 unlike Remainer May in 2017 despite the fact both promised levelling up.
In the South and seats we regained in London like Kensington we were elected with a majority more to beat Corbyn and not impose the dementia tax which cost May her majority in 2017
So was the levelling up just lies or what
Of course it was.
Labour does eff all for the north, the Tories have shown they are liars. People in the north shouldn’t even bother voting.
Marcus Fysh MP @MarcusFysh · 48m Scottish NHS vaccine passport app shares personal data with Amazon, Microsoft, Royal Mail, AI firms. We should not follow China / SNP into becoming a surveillance / crony state
So is that true or just someone spouting off rubbish?
We keep hearing about the Leave-Remain ratios of these various seats, but I'd like to know why that is now even remotely relevant.
It remains a strong predictor of VI. It is true identity politics.
And so the key to our future politics is whether and when leave voters come to realise that they were duped.
I suspect the answer to that is 'now'. When the best spin even the Boris government can put on Brexit is that it allows a few pence to be cut from the tax on English fizzy wine then you know the concept has issues. (I don't think the poor returns from Brexit will make many Leavers regret their vote, but I do think it will dissuade many of them from being grateful to those who implemented it.)
You just carry on with your delusions Stark. The rest of us are carrying on with our lives.
Comments
We have a boiling water tap at home because the last owner put one in. Very expensive to maintain & we would never have paid to fit one ourselves.
But it is very convenient and you get in the habit… it was a real hassle when it broke this summer and we had to break out the kettle
For the first cup of tea in the morning, it saves about a minute, which seems like an eternity at that point in the morning. When cooking something like boiled eggs, it avoids me putting the pan on and having to wait five minutes before adding the eggs.
In the US, because it's all 110 volts (and therefore electric kettles take *weeks* to boil), the benefit is even greater.
If you read Lines in the Sand thought it’s clear. It’s all the fault of… the French
I have no objection to that but it is misleading to think there is an £86k limit on the costs.
https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1461847160253779974
In the South and seats we regained in London like Kensington we were elected with a majority more to beat Corbyn and not impose the dementia tax which cost May her majority in 2017
And when it rarely happens you do need them you get the tax you have paid many years over for what they provide and you will need them sometime no matter how rich you are.
PS I guess I come in what you would call the rich category. We do not have private health care. One of our children went to state school, the other was privately educated, but because of special circumstances otherwise he also would have gone to a state school.
Was a sign of the end for the DofE when he was transferred from a private hospital.
Should you not say mission accomplished let's have an election?
So if you are rich or a high earner and use private healthcare and educate your children in private schools you do not benefit directly from most state spending in the UK. I did not say however you did not benefit at all eg from the emergency services you would still derive benefit
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/11/09/public-attitudes-tax-distribution
“The two halves of the Conservative coalition, the only thing they agree on is ‘get Brexit done’,” said Ford. “Any policy that actually falls under the category ‘unleash Britain’s potential’ involves one half of that coalition paying for something the other half wants, or one half of that coalition getting it in the neck for something the other half doesn’t want.”
Very much so.
However a Tory government would still be better than a Labour led government from my perspective and we must fulfil the full term we were elected for
Not exactly reliable.
Why doesn't the authority just follow its own conviction and directly discriminate, rather than investing so much effort in figleaves?
Cos otherwise, I'm not sure what the answer is.
Hence as current polls show the next general election will likely look more like 2017 or 2015 or 2010 or 1992 than 2019.
However if Boris goes I think it will be even more difficult, note how many Redwall voters in 2019 said they were voting for Boris, they still could not bring themselves to say they were voting for the Tories
and was a fan of Kropotkin.
"Progress the ball?" R5L presenter's head exploding at the sheer linguistic complexity.
He must have read some Wittgenstein.
Wrong way round, do you think?
After all, if all your buying of private services and goods were to come only from either the rich, or those areas where no education at all was necessary, you would have a rather more limited way of life. The technological and engineering base of the country would be colossally lower, the number of people capable of becoming doctors, scientists, and engineers (and lawyers, for that matter) would, if restricted only to the scions of the rich, be vastly insufficient to support our way of life.
And private healthcare would be overstretched by the desperate middle-earners who need to somehow pay for their healthcare, and even more desperate poor people who could afford no care. It is very possible that in such a scenario, those rich people would need to avail themselves considerably more of the services of the police force.
Looking at itemised billing for how I, personally, benefit from x, y, and z spending on healthcare, education, and so forth, would be astonishingly short-sighted. Given that the entire economy from which I derive my income would be unrecognisable and highly likely to be much smaller and more limited.
Not only right, but why too. Poor defence.
We should also take into account the fact that boosters will nearly always be Pfizer or Moderna, which have a higher efficacy anyway than AstraZeneca.
I do sometimes wonder whether Parliament as compulsory jury duty would produce a better pool of legislators and leaders than we get lumbered with by the party system. It would be design be more representative of political mood than FPTP too.
So of Conservative seats won in 2019 you would still expect to see the biggest shift away from the Tories in Remain seats like Chesham and Amersham, not strong Leave seats like North Shropshire and Old Bexley and Sidcup
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/g8dunbfqqh/TheTimes_VI_211118_W.pdf
It is true identity politics.
1. Leave voters don't trust Labour/Lib Dems not to reverse Brexit.
2. Remain voters are still bitter about the manner in which we left.
3. Brexit isn't done yet.
As for the rest, it has to be seen in a historic context of massive depopulation - in fact, what we see today are far fewer populated bits than there used to be, and smaller populations in the bits that are still populated, on the groundfs of what was seen as efficiency by central government and rich landowners. Where does one draw the line? It has already been drawn further back, to so speak, and far more than would be accepted in say the Faroes or Norway.
I'm less interested, at least at this stage, of arguing about the merits of the case. I just want to know what the reasoning is. What is it expected to achieve? Why now? Until when? What alternatives were considered and why were they rejected?
Being the best board game ever invented must surely attract some of you?
Won't happen of course.
https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/scotland-considers-extension-vaccine-passport-scheme
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,scotland-faced-with-choice-between-vaccine-passport-extension-or-winter-restrictions
His jumping rustiness put him out of position. Maybe faster early pace would have helped him and other favourites too.
1. Revelation. Leave voters realise that they were duped, and the country is united in a desire to repair the damage.
2. Dissipation. Labour manages to convince Remain voters that a gradual approach is best, and Leave voters that none of the Brexit fundamentals will be messed with, and the country is united in never wanting to open that can of worms again, and concentrates on other issues.
3. Ossification. The Remain side can't abandon the desire to undo Brexit, whether in one go or in stages. The Leave side feel that their achievement is continually under threat. The country remains united in its division, and egregious failures of governance are excused because of the greater imperative to take sides of the Brexit divide.
https://www.ft.com/content/a1b2fd70-71b5-4e91-be0b-553b0e1e2639
I would still hug Song who did everything possible.
The moment there was an election is normal circumstances (will there ever be?) and Labour was soft on nuclear it would suddenly come up again.
Especially with the USA unreliable and the EU rubbish on defence the need for UK deterrence remains strong.
My worry is twofold. Firstly, that these sorts of emergency measures become permanent parts of life. Secondly, that the determination to reduce infection rates will mean that other restrictive measures will be introduced if these don't reduce infection rates (as, for example, continued mask use has failed to do so).
And I don't see the detail on the pressure on hospitals. I can't judge why they would think the vaccine passports are necessary when booster vaccinations should reduce the pressure on hospitals.
Anyway off now. Pickled herring, freshly boiled beetroot and spuds for dinner tonight.
Long term this doesn't benefit the Tories, but for now it will suffice in the absence of owt much else.
@MarcusFysh
·
48m
Scottish NHS vaccine passport app shares personal data with Amazon, Microsoft, Royal Mail, AI firms. We should not follow China / SNP into becoming a surveillance / crony state
Or does it mean Royal Mail get to know your vaccine status so that herbal supplement companies can target marketing to the unvaccinated?
@DrJBhattacharya
·
40m
'A disease is endemic when disease rates are reduced to ‘a locally acceptable level’ and the disease becomes manageable. However, what level is considered manageable and acceptable, particularly for a new disease, is not defined by epidemiology.'
(links to this article:
https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2021/08/the-end-of-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Labour does eff all for the north, the Tories have shown they are liars. People in the north shouldn’t even bother voting.