What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
Not running deficits at the top of an obviously overheating boom economy whilst giving speeches about how you've abolished boom and bust would be a good start.
Laughable to pretend people weren't saying it at the time either - his errors were obvious at the time and ever since, however much you try to play the niave, 'what did he do wrong' card.
I recall that people who raised the matter of the derivatives bubble were described as "talking down Britain" by Gordon & friends.
Is there any particularly reason why, in a thread about Yvette Cooper, the PB Tories have started discussing her husband? I can only assume millions of posts about Hips are soon to be with us.
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
Even before that; it was Macmillan who first applied.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
Frankly that is a stupid comment. Quantity is meaningless. The FSA had 4,000 staff and lots of regulation to enforce. It was completely bloody useless.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
This was not less or more regulation. It was ensuring that no one was watching the baby because everyone thought someone else was doing it and no one had the big picture regulation.
Yvette Cooper is useless because she is married to a man who was responsible* for making the GFC worse.
*He was not responsible
Feeble stuff.
Hey, that's not actually what happened. Someone claimed association with Balls was in Cooper's "plus" column. Our favourite reactionary right-winger begged to differ.
I'm firmly in the "who cares either way" camp on this, by the way. Cooper's one of Labour's best assets and I'm not entirely sure why she's been stuck on the backbenches since Starmer took over. I dislike her husband a fair bit, but wouldn't hold that against her.
Is there any particularly reason why, in a thread about Yvette Cooper, the PB Tories have started discussing her husband? I can only assume millions of posts about Hips are soon to be with us.
Because of Topping's post that introduced [total] Balls to the conversation.
Burnham was such a flop in the 2015 Leadership Election garnering only 80,462 votes
Formidable Cooper got a stonking 71,928 votes showing how formidable she is.
I think a @Sunil_Prasannan or LibDem style bar chart is needed here.
She has high recognition, part of credentialising today's Labour Party, is not as far as anyone can make out an unreconstructed Trot, and is married to someone who distinguished himself on a popular TV variety show was arguably one of the more sensible politicians Labour has ever had.
Is there any particularly reason why, in a thread about Yvette Cooper, the PB Tories have started discussing her husband? I can only assume millions of posts about Hips are soon to be with us.
You missed that earlier. Not so much as you might expect mind you.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
So overfinancialisation. I'm not sure I understand the bit about excluding home ownership costs from inflation. Are you saying the say inflation was measured should have included some costs that it didn't? What costs?
Inflation should properly include housing costs - and used to do so. House prices going up is inflation, not wealth.
Since Brown became Chancellor we've had house prices go up by compounded 6.2% per annum, devastating the young especially, but that wasn't counted as "inflation".
On topic, this looks like one of those bets to short for several reasons:
1. Cooper’s seat is not safe anyway and there is a risk further demographic trends means she loses it at the next election;
2. I’m sure she is very nice in private but she comes across in public as quite hectoring, a “I know best / you Brexiteers are stupid” middle class lefty. Not sure that would work;
3. On immigration (which is another hot topic), Yvette’s views are, let’s say, out of touch with many of the Red Wall voters.
On the last point, I think SKS appointing Cooper as SHS is a particularly stupid move. If you think immigration is going to become more of a hot topic given the channel crossings (which it probably will), it might not be a good idea to have Labour’s main spokesperson who is so obviously sympathetic to the idea that you let everyone in.
If Labour wants someone who could viably talk to their lost voters, then look for a Dan Jarvis type. But none of the three mentioned above.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
I suspect he's not keen – he has got a successful media career, a newfound reputation as an absolutely excellent TV cook, and (I assume) a fairly relaxed life outside politics. One shadow minister in the house is probably enough for them.
But yes, I agree, he's a class act and a big miss from the political scene.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
He shouldn't have hubristically believed he had abolished "Tory boom and bust".
We should have gone into the crisis running a budget surplus rather than a deficit.
He should have listened to those who warned about the vandalism of removing Bank of England supervision of the financial sector.
Technically, what happened in the GFC wasn't Tory boom and bust. By losing the 2010 election he did however open the door to Tory boom and bust returning, so I guess we can blame him for that
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
This was not less or more regulation. It was ensuring that no one was watching the baby because everyone thought someone else was doing it and no one had the big picture regulation.
But the Tories weren't offering this. My point is that the idea the Tories would have put us in a better position than Brown did is nonsense.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
So overfinancialisation. I'm not sure I understand the bit about excluding home ownership costs from inflation. Are you saying the say inflation was measured should have included some costs that it didn't? What costs?
He changed the inflation measure to CPI from RPI which meant that housing costs (mortgage interest payments, council tax) were excluded from the official inflation figures and hence the bubble was fuelled.
Is there any particularly reason why, in a thread about Yvette Cooper, the PB Tories have started discussing her husband? I can only assume millions of posts about Hips are soon to be with us.
Because of Topping's post that introduced [total] Balls to the conversation.
Burnham was such a flop in the 2015 Leadership Election garnering only 80,462 votes
Formidable Cooper got a stonking 71,928 votes showing how formidable she is.
I think a @Sunil_Prasannan or LibDem style bar chart is needed here.
She has high recognition, part of credentialising today's Labour Party, is not as far as anyone can make out an unreconstructed Trot, and is married to someone who distinguished himself on a popular TV variety show was arguably one of the more sensible politicians Labour has ever had.
So that is all in the plus column.
I bet you want Dan and Nadiya to win Strictly don't you.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
Frankly that is a stupid comment. Quantity is meaningless. The FSA had 4,000 staff and lots of regulation to enforce. It was completely bloody useless.
And would have been just as useless under the Tories. There is no evidence they would have done a better job at preventing the crisis than Brown
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The Tories copied Brown's plans and wanted less regulation, the crisis would have only been worse under them. And yet this is never acknowledged.
I was very politically disengaged during the time Brown was chancellor, but I do have the vague impression that the Conservatives were consistently recommending lower regulations during that time. Whether that was a unified party line, or there was significant dissent, I don't know. But it's easy to escape the blame when you aren't in power. The Conservatives aren't the only party ever to benefit from that.
I'm not saying Brown didn't get it wrong, evidently regulation failed but the idea the Tories - the Tories! - would have done a better job is nonsense. They consistently wanted less regulation and they matched Labour's spending "Pound for Pound" so the idea the deficit would have been lower under them is also absurd.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The Tories copied Brown's plans and wanted less regulation, the crisis would have only been worse under them. And yet this is never acknowledged.
I was very politically disengaged during the time Brown was chancellor, but I do have the vague impression that the Conservatives were consistently recommending lower regulations during that time. Whether that was a unified party line, or there was significant dissent, I don't know. But it's easy to escape the blame when you aren't in power. The Conservatives aren't the only party ever to benefit from that.
It's entirely fair to say the Tories wanted less regulation. That does not in anyway mean that Brown's changes to financial and banking regulation were any good. It's the sort of argument a small child makes, "he did it first", "he is worse", but they are still in the wrong themself. The creation of the FSA is quite simply one of the worst things the Labour governments of Blair and Brown did.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
Frankly that is a stupid comment. Quantity is meaningless. The FSA had 4,000 staff and lots of regulation to enforce. It was completely bloody useless.
And would have been just as useless under the Tories. There is no evidence they would have done a better job at preventing the crisis than Brown
I suspect that's probably right. What I find more objectionable is the anti-austerity bullshit that Labour then peddled. They completely opened the taps in 2009-10 and ran a deficit of £150bn in their last year in power. And then argued that we should spend our way out of a deficit. Completely nuts and they've got what they deserved since.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
Frankly that is a stupid comment. Quantity is meaningless. The FSA had 4,000 staff and lots of regulation to enforce. It was completely bloody useless.
And would have been just as useless under the Tories. There is no evidence they would have done a better job at preventing the crisis than Brown
So the argument for doing it is it’s what the Tories would have done?
Yvette Copper was indeed pretty useless when she was Housing Minister, both in policy terms (the brain-dead HIPs), and even more so in presentation, where she was always completely robotic in getting out the approved Labour lines, as if controlled by a computer programmed by Alastair Campbell.
But that was 13 years ago. Since then, she has grown in stature and experience enormously. She gained relevant experience in the last years of the Brown government as Chief Sec to the Treasury. She's been a very effective Committee chair, and her interventions in the Commons are effective and articulate. She does her homework, and she's good at pinning down ministers when they obfuscate (i.e. all the time). She'll be a very good Shadow Home Sec, and probably a good actual Home Sec if there's a Starmer government.
Probably not leadership material, but good ministerial material.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
So overfinancialisation. I'm not sure I understand the bit about excluding home ownership costs from inflation. Are you saying the say inflation was measured should have included some costs that it didn't? What costs?
He changed the inflation measure to CPI from RPI which meant that housing costs (mortgage interest payments, council tax) were excluded from the official inflation figures and hence the bubble was fuelled.
Sorry for the silly questions, but I have another. How did that change to RPI fuel the bubble? I can understand that the headline inflation rate would have looked different by discounting housing costs, but I'm not sure of the mechanism that takes you from that to bubble inflation.
The Bank of England had been given the task of managing inflation. By taking house prices out the of the inflation measure(s) they were tasked to monitor, this excluded house price inflation from triggering anti-inflationary actions.
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
Didn't Labour 1983 stand on a "pull out of the EEC" platform? (A mere 8 years after the previous referendum, if anyone is counting). As in this corker of a poster;
The implication from the people who go "Labour caused the GFC and Brown was responsible for the crisis" is that the Tories would have done better, as the people saying it always seem to be Tories.
But as I keep saying, there is no evidence they would have done. Unless somebody wants to provide some...
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
So overfinancialisation. I'm not sure I understand the bit about excluding home ownership costs from inflation. Are you saying the say inflation was measured should have included some costs that it didn't? What costs?
He changed the inflation measure to CPI from RPI which meant that housing costs (mortgage interest payments, council tax) were excluded from the official inflation figures and hence the bubble was fuelled.
Sorry for the silly questions, but I have another. How did that change to RPI fuel the bubble? I can understand that the headline inflation rate would have looked different by discounting housing costs, but I'm not sure of the mechanism that takes you from that to bubble inflation.
Well because if inflation looks like it's ticking up then the BoE might act to rein it back. As the official inflation numbers didn't look as high as they would have with housing costs there was no "official" need to act.
Blaming Labour for the GFC is like blaming the Tories for COVID
Indeed.
OT, I see that in Greece, to go with Austria, vaccines have been made mandatory for the over-60's. That will infuriate some of Mitsotakis's supporters in the socially more libertarian strongholds of Crete and Athens.
Blaming Labour for the GFC is like blaming the Tories for COVID
Indeed, and blaming Brown for the fact the the GFC hit us so badly is just as correct as pointing out that Boris is responsible for the fact that Covid hit us badly.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
He shouldn't have hubristically believed he had abolished "Tory boom and bust".
We should have gone into the crisis running a budget surplus rather than a deficit.
He should have listened to those who warned about the vandalism of removing Bank of England supervision of the financial sector.
Technically, what happened in the GFC wasn't Tory boom and bust. By losing the 2010 election he did however open the door to Tory boom and bust returning, so I guess we can blame him for that
I don't know how tongue in cheek you're being, but that was actually the justification he gave. ('No, I said I'd abolish TORY boom and bust'.) And I think he believed it. Because he was a committed tribalist, and whatever his side did was the right thing, and whatever the other side did was the wrong thing.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
Frankly that is a stupid comment. Quantity is meaningless. The FSA had 4,000 staff and lots of regulation to enforce. It was completely bloody useless.
And would have been just as useless under the Tories. There is no evidence they would have done a better job at preventing the crisis than Brown
So what? I'm not saying they the Tories would have done a good job. I'm simply laughing at Labour supporters who still seek to defend Brown as a good chancellor, when their 'best' argument is "the Tories would have been worse". Both sides would likely have been useless, and it would take some doing by any person of any party to do worse than Brown actually did.
Blaming Labour for the GFC is like blaming the Tories for COVID
Indeed, and blaming Brown for the fact the the GFC hit us so badly is just as correct as pointing out that Boris is responsible for the fact that Covid hit us badly.
And the rebuttal on COVID is always that Labour would have done no better, seems like this is consistent with the GFC where the Tories would have also done no better.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The big one was the tripartite regulation. Totally ballsed up (!) UK financial services regulation.
Presumably the Tories would have done better? Oh wait, they wanted less regulation
Frankly that is a stupid comment. Quantity is meaningless. The FSA had 4,000 staff and lots of regulation to enforce. It was completely bloody useless.
And would have been just as useless under the Tories. There is no evidence they would have done a better job at preventing the crisis than Brown
So what? I'm not saying they the Tories would have done a good job. I'm simply laughing at Labour supporters who still seek to defend Brown as a good chancellor, when their 'best' argument is "the Tories would have been worse". Both sides would likely have been useless, and it would take some doing by any person of any party to do worse than Brown actually did.
I think Brown was a good Chancellor as he ran a strong economy and genuinely levelled up the country, virtually eliminating homelessness and rebuilding schools and hospitals. Did he make mistakes, heck yes.
The implication from the people who go "Labour caused the GFC and Brown was responsible for the crisis" is that the Tories would have done better, as the people saying it always seem to be Tories.
But as I keep saying, there is no evidence they would have done. Unless somebody wants to provide some...
No one is saying that, so I’m not sure why you are using quotation marks. What they are saying is that his reforms made the UK less prepared for it when it did come. Whether or not the Tories would have done the same is whataboutism, they weren’t in power at the time.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
The Tories copied Brown's plans and wanted less regulation, the crisis would have only been worse under them. And yet this is never acknowledged.
I was very politically disengaged during the time Brown was chancellor, but I do have the vague impression that the Conservatives were consistently recommending lower regulations during that time. Whether that was a unified party line, or there was significant dissent, I don't know. But it's easy to escape the blame when you aren't in power. The Conservatives aren't the only party ever to benefit from that.
It's entirely fair to say the Tories wanted less regulation. That does not in anyway mean that Brown's changes to financial and banking regulation were any good. It's the sort of argument a small child makes, "he did it first", "he is worse", but they are still in the wrong themself. The creation of the FSA is quite simply one of the worst things the Labour governments of Blair and Brown did.
Anecdotal - All two staffed and three out of four staff masked up when I got my lunch 20 minutes ago from the Tesco Fuel shop. Complete 180 compared to last time I went in.
Never like doing it but sometimes you have to so i broke the law today by not wearing a facemask over my face in a shop. Glad somebody else in there with me was also doing. The state has no right to impose dictaks like this and especially so that is has next to no consequence in controlling a pandemic
If you have Covid, and someone in the shop gets sick and dies as a result of you being in there, it could be that you've killed them.
You really are sanctimonious aren't you.
The common cold can kill, the flu can kill. If you get behind the wheel and are in an accident it can kill. If you're riding a bus, that can kill.
There's risk in life. Is your solution we all develop agoraphobia and live off Amazon for the rest of our lives?
No, my solution is that we start with the science that masks work, and that for most people wearing them in a shop is no real imposition at all. You might save a life by doing it, so it's worth considering. I'm not the one putting spotty teenage libertarian ideology over the lives of strangers, and what I have said is exactly true. If you give someone Covid because Ideology Says No, and they die, then you killed them. Can you live with that? That's up to you. But as a statement of fact, it's true.
Do you accept that every single person is going to get COVID, yes or no?
Almost certainly , yes.
That doesn't mean that we should seek it out. There are effective drugs such as proteases on the way, as well as 2nd generation vaccines. The prognosis gets better all the time.
With potentially fatal diseases, I find procrastination a great strategy.
That's an endless cycle though, Foxy, and requires a permanent behavioural change. Kicking infections into the future every time there's some variant or other seems like the nation will forever be trapped in this kind of half life of wondering whether lockdowns will come back.
And we're not only going to get COVID once, we're highly likely to all get it multiple times as it mutates and evades our immunity by some small degree every year. Where does it end? We're not going eliminate COVID.
Hardly. I think here we're talking a matter of weeks, so we can make an informed decision on how much to panic - or if we don't need to panic at all, for this particular variant. There are many ways in which future mutations are likely to be less of a problem.
Sure, but if it's a matter of weeks what will the 0.05-0.1 R reduction for masks with Delta/Omicron really do? We know masks specifically aren't very useful and most give low to no protection for the wearer or those around them. If you're saying we need NPIs against Omicron in advance of it spreading then you're talking about the high value R reductions of lockdown and closing schools which will kick a lot of infections into the future for some as yet unnamed reason.
Future mutations are less of an issue because we will all have had COVID by the time they arrive, our immune systems will be better trained at fending it off.
In short, Labour should be less Tory on the economy, especially and including the big banks who clearly cannot be trusted. I am glad we're making socialists out of the Tory Party at last
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
And then the era of mortgage offers falling out of your cornflakes box. And excluding home ownership costs from inflation.
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
So overfinancialisation. I'm not sure I understand the bit about excluding home ownership costs from inflation. Are you saying the say inflation was measured should have included some costs that it didn't? What costs?
He changed the inflation measure to CPI from RPI which meant that housing costs (mortgage interest payments, council tax) were excluded from the official inflation figures and hence the bubble was fuelled.
Sorry for the silly questions, but I have another. How did that change to RPI fuel the bubble? I can understand that the headline inflation rate would have looked different by discounting housing costs, but I'm not sure of the mechanism that takes you from that to bubble inflation.
Well because if inflation looks like it's ticking up then the BoE might act to rein it back. As the official inflation numbers didn't look as high as they would have with housing costs there was no "official" need to act.
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
They all were in favour of FOM with the A8?! I hadn’t realised, let alone considered it
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
The implication from the people who go "Labour caused the GFC and Brown was responsible for the crisis" is that the Tories would have done better, as the people saying it always seem to be Tories.
But as I keep saying, there is no evidence they would have done. Unless somebody wants to provide some...
No one is saying that, so I’m not sure why you are using quotation marks. What they are saying is that his reforms made the UK less prepared for it when it did come. Whether or not the Tories would have done the same is whataboutism, they weren’t in power at the time.
It's quite clear that they wouldn't have done the same, since Maude explicitly and very clearly warned Brown about the blunder he was making.
I think Brown was a good Chancellor as he ran a strong economy and genuinely levelled up the country, virtually eliminating homelessness and rebuilding schools and hospitals. Did he make mistakes, heck yes.
I think he made a right mess of UK public finances, did little to fix some of the major propblems the UK economy has, completely screwed up financial regulation, and effectively left his successors little room to manoeuvre. He is without a doubt the worst Chancellor of my lifetime and maybe is tied for worst PM with the current one.
I'd take the Labour Party a damn sight more seriously if it wasn't full of people who still defend Gordon Brown.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
It's all set out in Hansard in the debate on the Bank of England Bill 1998. It could not be clearer.
Peppa Pig super fan up in 20 mins to probably cause confusion over the exact details of the booster program, and to take 20 questions from the media about nativity plays and Christmas parties.
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
They all were in favour of FOM with the A8?! I hadn’t realised, let alone considered it
Well as UKIP wasn't popular enough to force a referendum all the while until five years ago then the answer is yes.
A bit like if I hate a Labour govt (or Conservative govt) policy it doesn't mean that that policy is undemocratic.
Anecdotal - All two staffed and three out of four staff masked up when I got my lunch 20 minutes ago from the Tesco Fuel shop. Complete 180 compared to last time I went in.
Never like doing it but sometimes you have to so i broke the law today by not wearing a facemask over my face in a shop. Glad somebody else in there with me was also doing. The state has no right to impose dictaks like this and especially so that is has next to no consequence in controlling a pandemic
If you have Covid, and someone in the shop gets sick and dies as a result of you being in there, it could be that you've killed them.
You really are sanctimonious aren't you.
The common cold can kill, the flu can kill. If you get behind the wheel and are in an accident it can kill. If you're riding a bus, that can kill.
There's risk in life. Is your solution we all develop agoraphobia and live off Amazon for the rest of our lives?
No, my solution is that we start with the science that masks work, and that for most people wearing them in a shop is no real imposition at all. You might save a life by doing it, so it's worth considering. I'm not the one putting spotty teenage libertarian ideology over the lives of strangers, and what I have said is exactly true. If you give someone Covid because Ideology Says No, and they die, then you killed them. Can you live with that? That's up to you. But as a statement of fact, it's true.
Do you accept that every single person is going to get COVID, yes or no?
Almost certainly , yes.
That doesn't mean that we should seek it out. There are effective drugs such as proteases on the way, as well as 2nd generation vaccines. The prognosis gets better all the time.
With potentially fatal diseases, I find procrastination a great strategy.
Hope you mean in relation to contracting the disease, not getting the vaccine.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Well said. I just can not get my head round their way of thinking.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
They would have had Zloth the Slayer come down to smite any CDS trader before the GFC got going.
The point is we don't know what the Tories *would* have done; we know what Lab *did*. And that was to cock up the UK regulatory regime. As pointed out at the time by....The Tories!
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
They all were in favour of FOM with the A8?! I hadn’t realised, let alone considered it
Well as UKIP wasn't popular enough to force a referendum all the while until five years ago then the answer is yes.
A bit like if I hate a Labour govt (or Conservative govt) policy it doesn't mean that that policy is undemocratic.
Well the effect of mass immigration from the A8 only started to be noticed in the late 2000s, so it only took them two GEs to force it, and I’m being ludicrously generous by including 2010
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Indeed.
At around that time, I was working with a very Old Labour friend (Old Labour famous family)
He was greatly upset at my suggestion that a great deal of the regulation was bollox.
Then, with me, he got inducted into a bank to work on a project there. After a day of the bullshit seminars on how not to commit financial crime*, he told me I was right.
I'm utterly certain that every single CDO was bought and sold by people who all had photocopies of their passports lodged with HR, and had completed all the courses on how not to commit bank robbery while wearing a strippy jumper and carry a bag marked "SWAG"......
*Sample question -"Someone asks you to help them sell a metric ton of gold without telling anyone" - do you (a) do it, (b) ask for a bigger cut, (c) call compliance.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
They would have had Zloth the Slayer come down to smite any CDS trader before the GFC got going.
The point is we don't know what the Tories *would* have done; we know what Lab *did*. And that was to cock up the UK regulatory regime. As pointed out at the time by....The Tories!
I think it is lunacy that the Tories would have regulated any better.
But regardless, I completely agree that Labour got regulation wrong, going forward they should be less "Tory" on the economy and more Labour, as clearly free marketism is not a good solution, more social democracy, less neoliberalism. Glad we agree
It'll be interesting to see what price Lammy shortens to over time. In my view he certainly will shorten. Shadow Foreign Sec is a pretty straightforwards job.
I backed him in a fiver at 48/50 yday to be next leader. I think he should be around 25 now and expect him to shorten over time.
So that actually leaves us with the small but not negligible possibility that he really could be the next leader!
Who'd have imagined that a few years ago! (I quite like him but thought he was hopeless until quite recently. He's improved massively.)
Burnham's price looks increasingly Brian Rose, but yes I am talking my book.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
Not taking capital regulation away from the Bank of England. Peter Lilley spoke about it at length and said it would end in the exact disaster that occurred, banks would overstretch their balance sheets and no one would notice.
Peppa Pig super fan up in 20 mins to probably cause confusion over the exact details of the booster program, and to take 20 questions from the media about nativity plays and Christmas parties.
What decisions should Brown have made as chancellor that would have mitigated the later financial crisis?
He shouldn't have hubristically believed he had abolished "Tory boom and bust".
We should have gone into the crisis running a budget surplus rather than a deficit.
He should have listened to those who warned about the vandalism of removing Bank of England supervision of the financial sector.
Technically, what happened in the GFC wasn't Tory boom and bust. By losing the 2010 election he did however open the door to Tory boom and bust returning, so I guess we can blame him for that
I don't know how tongue in cheek you're being, but that was actually the justification he gave. ('No, I said I'd abolish TORY boom and bust'.) And I think he believed it. Because he was a committed tribalist, and whatever his side did was the right thing, and whatever the other side did was the wrong thing.
Heh, really? Ok, I am Gordo and you can have your £5 (minus various stealth taxes)
*Sample question -"Someone asks you to help them sell a metric ton of gold without telling anyone" - do you (a) do it, (b) ask for a bigger cut, (c) call compliance.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
They would have had Zloth the Slayer come down to smite any CDS trader before the GFC got going.
The point is we don't know what the Tories *would* have done; we know what Lab *did*. And that was to cock up the UK regulatory regime. As pointed out at the time by....The Tories!
I think it is lunacy that the Tories would have regulated any better.
But regardless, I completely agree that Labour got regulation wrong, going forward they should be less "Tory" on the economy and more Labour, as clearly free marketism is not a good solution, more social democracy, less neoliberalism. Glad we agree
Yet apparently the evidence is right there, with the various warnings about what would (and did) happen.
Peppa Pig super fan up in 20 mins to probably cause confusion over the exact details of the booster program, and to take 20 questions from the media about nativity plays and Christmas parties.
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
They all were in favour of FOM with the A8?! I hadn’t realised, let alone considered it
Well as UKIP wasn't popular enough to force a referendum all the while until five years ago then the answer is yes.
A bit like if I hate a Labour govt (or Conservative govt) policy it doesn't mean that that policy is undemocratic.
Well the effect of mass immigration from the A8 only started to be noticed in the late 2000s, so it only took them two GEs to force it, and I’m being ludicrously generous by including 2010
Yes absolutely. Well done democracy. No one cared until they cared. Thank goodness we were sovereign so as to be able to leave when we wanted.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
Peppa Pig super fan up in 20 mins to probably cause confusion over the exact details of the booster program, and to take 20 questions from the media about nativity plays and Christmas parties.
Both of which would be valid lines of questioning, as lots of people are either organising and/or attending plays and parties even if Francis Urquhart Esq is not.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
Not taking capital regulation away from the Bank of England. Peter Lilley spoke about it at length and said it would end in the exact disaster that occurred, banks would overstretch their balance sheets and no one would notice.
People did notice, but they were told "this time it's different". As a rule of thumb whenever someone says "this time it's different" start RUNNING.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
This guy gets a lot of mentions all over the place (not just here). Other than a bloke who owns a pub, is he a "somebody"? I genuinely don't know.
The reason I was so keen to leave the EU was that before we didn’t have a choice whoever won the election - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all agreed with the 48%
Well, yes, and with all the previous party leaders since Harold Wilson.
Have you ever considered that there might be a very good reason for that?
They all were in favour of FOM with the A8?! I hadn’t realised, let alone considered it
Well as UKIP wasn't popular enough to force a referendum all the while until five years ago then the answer is yes.
A bit like if I hate a Labour govt (or Conservative govt) policy it doesn't mean that that policy is undemocratic.
Well the effect of mass immigration from the A8 only started to be noticed in the late 2000s, so it only took them two GEs to force it, and I’m being ludicrously generous by including 2010
Yes absolutely. Well done democracy. No one cared until they cared. Thank goodness we were sovereign so as to be able to leave when we wanted.
It's been quite a good 'news' day today in terms of expert talking heads – even if we don't yet have hard data. Did you read the FT piece I posted earlier?
It'll be interesting to see what price Lammy shortens to over time. In my view he certainly will shorten. Shadow Foreign Sec is a pretty straightforwards job.
I backed him in a fiver at 48/50 yday to be next leader. I think he should be around 25 now and expect him to shorten over time.
So that actually leaves us with the small but not negligible possibility that he really could be the next leader!
Who'd have imagined that a few years ago! (I quite like him but thought he was hopeless until quite recently. He's improved massively.)
Burnham's price looks increasingly Brian Rose, but yes I am talking my book.
Agree on Burnham (I originally typed Butnham), although he’s not as bad as Rose!!
Lammy? That’s a good price and probably a good trading bet. Would he win in this environment? Not sure, the culture wars are rapidly driving voting patterns and he has a few back quotes that would cause him issues.
On topic, I don't think Yvette will run for leader again.
I don't think too much should be read into her coming 3rd In 2015. There was a desire then for a break with New Labour and for fresh faces, but enough time now to have some distance and perspective or even nostalgia for New Labour.
SKS seems to be installing a competent team around himself, with no real threat to his position from them.
Agree. I don't see her as a future leader but it's a mistake to read 2015 as meaning she'd be bound to flop if she went for it. That was a very special (in the wrong sense) time. The party was traumatized by losing an election they entered with a poll lead and a platform dripping with moderation. The mood was 'roll the dice, may as well' and this was cemented by the fact that all candidates bar JC had backed austerity.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
Is there any particularly reason why, in a thread about Yvette Cooper, the PB Tories have started discussing her husband? I can only assume millions of posts about Hips are soon to be with us.
Because of Topping's post that introduced [total] Balls to the conversation.
Burnham was such a flop in the 2015 Leadership Election garnering only 80,462 votes
Formidable Cooper got a stonking 71,928 votes showing how formidable she is.
I think a @Sunil_Prasannan or LibDem style bar chart is needed here.
She has high recognition, part of credentialising today's Labour Party, is not as far as anyone can make out an unreconstructed Trot, and is married to someone who distinguished himself on a popular TV variety show was arguably one of the more sensible politicians Labour has ever had.
So that is all in the plus column.
I bet you want Dan and Nadiya to win Strictly don't you.
I couldn't care less.
I have never watched Strictly. I couldn't tell you who the Strictly contestants are.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
They would have had Zloth the Slayer come down to smite any CDS trader before the GFC got going.
The point is we don't know what the Tories *would* have done; we know what Lab *did*. And that was to cock up the UK regulatory regime. As pointed out at the time by....The Tories!
I think it is lunacy that the Tories would have regulated any better.
But regardless, I completely agree that Labour got regulation wrong, going forward they should be less "Tory" on the economy and more Labour, as clearly free marketism is not a good solution, more social democracy, less neoliberalism. Glad we agree
I'd say what Gordon mainly got wrong was running at a massive deficit through economically benign times between 01 and 07 (would the Tories have been any better? Ken Clarke era, perhaps. Not the current lot) . Had they run a surplus, when the crash hit, it would have hit much less hard.
Spending within our means (or not) used to be quite a bone of contention on here. I remember Tim (I think - the farmer from Cheshire/wine merchant, possibly) arguing quite forcibly that doing so was foolish. Strange how times have changed - economic was once almost all we found to fall out about. (And Europe, naturally.) I'd almost forgotten I cared about it.
It's been quite a good 'news' day today in terms of expert talking heads – even if we don't yet have hard data. Did you read the FT piece I posted earlier?
All of this is good news for my predictions posted around 10am this morning.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
Not taking capital regulation away from the Bank of England. Peter Lilley spoke about it at length and said it would end in the exact disaster that occurred, banks would overstretch their balance sheets and no one would notice.
People did notice, but they were told "this time it's different". As a rule of thumb whenever someone says "this time it's different" start RUNNING.
Indeed, the worst one was RBS operating at 70:1 leverage and instead of ringing alarm bells at No 10/11 they got a nice pat on the back from the two dickheads for beating Barclays to the purchase ABN Amro which required an absolutely gigantic premium.
Ed "the grown up" "flatlining" Balls, showing off his flatlining balls.
It's pretty idiotic that the DM waited for him to fall over in a football match so they could make the flatlining joke, and write a story about him falling over.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
Not taking capital regulation away from the Bank of England. Peter Lilley spoke about it at length and said it would end in the exact disaster that occurred, banks would overstretch their balance sheets and no one would notice.
People did notice, but they were told "this time it's different". As a rule of thumb whenever someone says "this time it's different" start RUNNING.
The day that Ed Balls announced that they'd abolished boon and bust, I was walking back to the bank I was working at.
A former derivatives trader I was working with was outside smoking. I told him, jokingly, what Ed had said. He went pale, said that was the top of the market, everyone was f&*ked and ran inside to start dumping his personal investments....
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
Indeed. Absolute stupidity from Harries.
She always has Johnson's back. I am surprised she was so badly briefed.
Looking forward to four o'clock: Another 333 down on yesterday's seven day average cases? Another encouraging decline in 7-day average deaths/hospitalisations?
It's been quite a good 'news' day today in terms of expert talking heads – even if we don't yet have hard data. Did you read the FT piece I posted earlier?
Yes there is a bit of a problem with that analysis though, as a posted on the previous thread. It is a bit apples and oranges comparisons going on.
Omicron is currently mostly in 10-30 year olds, a demographic who are vaccinated or who have had COVID before, apparently big spread from universities. The previous wave at this stage this wasn't true, very few vaccinated or previously infected.
The SA academic who has looked at the figures said, everything points to much more infectious and immune escape. Hospitalizations are mostly among the unvaccinated, but, you can't say anything from the hospitalization figures at the moment compared to previous waves one way or another.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
This guy gets a lot of mentions all over the place (not just here). Other than a bloke who owns a pub, is he a "somebody"? I genuinely don't know.
Obviously a distinguished immunologist who writes
There is no science that backs up a healthy person having anywhere near four injections a year, for something they have antibodies already for. None at all. I so wish I’d loaded up of Pfizer shares last year, they cannot now lose, for like …forever. sCiENcE
It's been quite a good 'news' day today in terms of expert talking heads – even if we don't yet have hard data. Did you read the FT piece I posted earlier?
All of this is good news for my predictions posted around 10am this morning.
Indeed. That was a bold gambit. I guess we'll see.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
Not taking capital regulation away from the Bank of England. Peter Lilley spoke about it at length and said it would end in the exact disaster that occurred, banks would overstretch their balance sheets and no one would notice.
People did notice, but they were told "this time it's different". As a rule of thumb whenever someone says "this time it's different" start RUNNING.
Indeed, the worst one was RBS operating at 70:1 leverage and instead of ringing alarm bells at No 10/11 they got a nice pat on the back from the two dickheads for beating Barclays to the purchase ABN Amro which required an absolutely gigantic premium.
Better yet, the government was actively pushing the line that Barclays were somehow irrational/evil/insane for walking away because of "not at that price".
Fascinating big poll from Public First on levelling up and the red wall.
C2DE voters who backed Tories in 2019 and Brexit in 2016 rate immigration as their top priority - 26pts ahead of state of the NHS. Rest of public puts health service #1
Looking forward to four o'clock: Another 333 down on yesterday's seven day average cases? Another encouraging decline in 7-day average deaths/hospitalisations?
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
That's fine Richard - but I would just like an example of better regulation the Tories proposed at the time.
Not taking capital regulation away from the Bank of England. Peter Lilley spoke about it at length and said it would end in the exact disaster that occurred, banks would overstretch their balance sheets and no one would notice.
People did notice, but they were told "this time it's different". As a rule of thumb whenever someone says "this time it's different" start RUNNING.
The day that Ed Balls announced that they'd abolished boon and bust, I was walking back to the bank I was working at.
A former derivatives trader I was working with was outside smoking. I told him, jokingly, what Ed had said. He went pale, said that was the top of the market, everyone was f&*ked and ran inside to start dumping his personal investments....
Indeed.
And still people here argue that "there but for the financial crisis" the economy would have been fine under Brown. 🙄
One of the key duties of the Treasury should always be to make sure we are as prepared as possible for the next crisis.
The point is that economic cycles happen for a reason. If you're borrowing heavily in the growth years, you're screwed when the next crisis comes along. If you're hubristic enough to think there's not going to be a next crisis . . . then you're royally fucked next time there's a crisis. Which is what happened and we all had to live with the consequences of that arrogance.
For the zillionth time (does this really need repeating??) more regulation is not synonymous with better regulation. It's one of the most bizarre features of people on the Left that they seem to be totally incapable of getting their heads around this simplest of propositions. And I think it's a genuine intellectual failure in them, not just the obvious one of seeking to excuse a Labour Chancellor for the catastrophic dog's breakfast he made of financial regulation.
Semi agreed. The regime put in place was rubbish and failed but there is no way on this earth that the old one, let alone any the Cons (who were fully signed up to 'light touch') would conceivably have implemented, could have headed off the crash of 08 or mitigated its impact on us to any significant degree.
Is there any particularly reason why, in a thread about Yvette Cooper, the PB Tories have started discussing her husband? I can only assume millions of posts about Hips are soon to be with us.
Because of Topping's post that introduced [total] Balls to the conversation.
Burnham was such a flop in the 2015 Leadership Election garnering only 80,462 votes
Formidable Cooper got a stonking 71,928 votes showing how formidable she is.
I think a @Sunil_Prasannan or LibDem style bar chart is needed here.
She has high recognition, part of credentialising today's Labour Party, is not as far as anyone can make out an unreconstructed Trot, and is married to someone who distinguished himself on a popular TV variety show was arguably one of the more sensible politicians Labour has ever had.
So that is all in the plus column.
I bet you want Dan and Nadiya to win Strictly don't you.
I couldn't care less.
I have never watched Strictly. I couldn't tell you who the Strictly contestants are.
If you look up from typing on PB this Saturday around 7.30pm at the television (that box in the corner of the room that the other members of your family are staring at) then all will be revealed.
Fascinating big poll from Public First on levelling up and the red wall.
C2DE voters who backed Tories in 2019 and Brexit in 2016 rate immigration as their top priority - 26pts ahead of state of the NHS. Rest of public puts health service #1
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
This guy gets a lot of mentions all over the place (not just here). Other than a bloke who owns a pub, is he a "somebody"? I genuinely don't know.
Obviously a distinguished immunologist who writes
There is no science that backs up a healthy person having anywhere near four injections a year, for something they have antibodies already for. None at all. I so wish I’d loaded up of Pfizer shares last year, they cannot now lose, for like …forever. sCiENcE
Comments
Oh he messed up. But my point about Ed Balls is that whatever hand he had in all of that, he is now undoubtedly a big Lab beast and would do the Party a lot of good if he returned.
Unvaccinated travellers over the age of 12 barred from planes and trains as of today
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/unvaccinated-travellers-rules-1.6267648
I'm firmly in the "who cares either way" camp on this, by the way. Cooper's one of Labour's best assets and I'm not entirely sure why she's been stuck on the backbenches since Starmer took over. I dislike her husband a fair bit, but wouldn't hold that against her.
Since Brown became Chancellor we've had house prices go up by compounded 6.2% per annum, devastating the young especially, but that wasn't counted as "inflation".
1. Cooper’s seat is not safe anyway and there is a risk further demographic trends means she loses it at the next election;
2. I’m sure she is very nice in private but she comes across in public as quite hectoring, a “I know best / you Brexiteers are stupid” middle class lefty. Not sure that would work;
3. On immigration (which is another hot topic), Yvette’s views are, let’s say, out of touch with many of the Red Wall voters.
On the last point, I think SKS appointing Cooper as SHS is a particularly stupid move. If you think immigration is going to become more of a hot topic given the channel crossings (which it probably will), it might not be a good idea to have Labour’s main spokesperson who is so obviously sympathetic to the idea that you let everyone in.
If Labour wants someone who could viably talk to their lost voters, then look for a Dan Jarvis type. But none of the three mentioned above.
But yes, I agree, he's a class act and a big miss from the political scene.
But that was 13 years ago. Since then, she has grown in stature and experience enormously. She gained relevant experience in the last years of the Brown government as Chief Sec to the Treasury. She's been a very effective Committee chair, and her interventions in the Commons are effective and articulate. She does her homework, and she's good at pinning down ministers when they obfuscate (i.e. all the time). She'll be a very good Shadow Home Sec, and probably a good actual Home Sec if there's a Starmer government.
Probably not leadership material, but good ministerial material.
But as I keep saying, there is no evidence they would have done. Unless somebody wants to provide some...
OT, I see that in Greece, to go with Austria, vaccines have been made mandatory for the over-60's. That will infuriate some of Mitsotakis's supporters in the socially more libertarian strongholds of Crete and Athens.
And I think he believed it. Because he was a committed tribalist, and whatever his side did was the right thing, and whatever the other side did was the wrong thing.
So I think we're all square and agreed, Richard.
Hope you are otherwise well.
Future mutations are less of an issue because we will all have had COVID by the time they arrive, our immune systems will be better trained at fending it off.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-consumer-price-index-cpi-united-kingdom-uk/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices
I'd take the Labour Party a damn sight more seriously if it wasn't full of people who still defend Gordon Brown.
A bit like if I hate a Labour govt (or Conservative govt) policy it doesn't mean that that policy is undemocratic.
The point is we don't know what the Tories *would* have done; we know what Lab *did*. And that was to cock up the UK regulatory regime. As pointed out at the time by....The Tories!
At around that time, I was working with a very Old Labour friend (Old Labour famous family)
He was greatly upset at my suggestion that a great deal of the regulation was bollox.
Then, with me, he got inducted into a bank to work on a project there. After a day of the bullshit seminars on how not to commit financial crime*, he told me I was right.
I'm utterly certain that every single CDO was bought and sold by people who all had photocopies of their passports lodged with HR, and had completed all the courses on how not to commit bank robbery while wearing a strippy jumper and carry a bag marked "SWAG"......
*Sample question -"Someone asks you to help them sell a metric ton of gold without telling anyone" - do you (a) do it, (b) ask for a bigger cut, (c) call compliance.
But regardless, I completely agree that Labour got regulation wrong, going forward they should be less "Tory" on the economy and more Labour, as clearly free marketism is not a good solution, more social democracy, less neoliberalism. Glad we agree
I backed him in a fiver at 48/50 yday to be next leader. I think he should be around 25 now and expect him to shorten over time.
So that actually leaves us with the small but not negligible possibility that he really could be the next leader!
Who'd have imagined that a few years ago! (I quite like him but thought he was hopeless until quite recently. He's improved massively.)
Burnham's price looks increasingly Brian Rose, but yes I am talking my book.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-unlikely-to-cause-severe-illness-in-vaccinated-people-biontech-founder-says-11638286176?mod=hp_lead_pos2
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-59475547
@EssexPR
·
2h
I’m getting cancellations at both pubs for coming weeks, when people like Jenny Harries goes full on rogue and tells people not to socialise, it has consequences for the economy, jobs and mental health of the nation.
Lammy? That’s a good price and probably a good trading bet. Would he win in this environment? Not sure, the culture wars are rapidly driving voting patterns and he has a few back quotes that would cause him issues.
Indeed. Absolute stupidity from Harries.
I have never watched Strictly. I couldn't tell you who the Strictly contestants are.
Spending within our means (or not) used to be quite a bone of contention on here. I remember Tim (I think - the farmer from Cheshire/wine merchant, possibly) arguing quite forcibly that doing so was foolish. Strange how times have changed - economic was once almost all we found to fall out about. (And Europe, naturally.) I'd almost forgotten I cared about it.
It's pretty idiotic that the DM waited for him to fall over in a football match so they could make the flatlining joke, and write a story about him falling over.
His flatlining hand-gag was rather stupid too, so I do think he deserves to be shown falling over.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2428954/Never-mind-economy-Ed-Balls-flat-lining-Shadow-chancellor-takes-tumble-Labour-slumps-defeat-grudge-match-journalists.html
A former derivatives trader I was working with was outside smoking. I told him, jokingly, what Ed had said. He went pale, said that was the top of the market, everyone was f&*ked and ran inside to start dumping his personal investments....
Omicron is currently mostly in 10-30 year olds, a demographic who are vaccinated or who have had COVID before, apparently big spread from universities. The previous wave at this stage this wasn't true, very few vaccinated or previously infected.
The SA academic who has looked at the figures said, everything points to much more infectious and immune escape. Hospitalizations are mostly among the unvaccinated, but, you can't say anything from the hospitalization figures at the moment compared to previous waves one way or another.
There is no science that backs up a healthy person having anywhere near four injections a year, for something they have antibodies already for. None at all. I so wish I’d loaded up of Pfizer shares last year, they cannot now lose, for like …forever. sCiENcE
https://mobile.twitter.com/EssexPR/status/1465695319295815686?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
I hope both his businesses fold
Brexit was not about hating immigrants...
Fascinating big poll from Public First on levelling up and the red wall.
C2DE voters who backed Tories in 2019 and Brexit in 2016 rate immigration as their top priority - 26pts ahead of state of the NHS. Rest of public puts health service #1
https://www.publicfirst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Levelling_Up_Poll.pdf
And still people here argue that "there but for the financial crisis" the economy would have been fine under Brown. 🙄
One of the key duties of the Treasury should always be to make sure we are as prepared as possible for the next crisis.
The point is that economic cycles happen for a reason. If you're borrowing heavily in the growth years, you're screwed when the next crisis comes along. If you're hubristic enough to think there's not going to be a next crisis . . . then you're royally fucked next time there's a crisis. Which is what happened and we all had to live with the consequences of that arrogance.