Thousands of New Year’s Eve revellers are expected to escape strict Covid-19 restrictions in Wales by hopping across the border to visit nightspots in English towns and cities.
Leaders of the nightlife industry in Wales are angry that they will lose trade to their counterparts in England because Welsh nightclubs have been ordered to shut and pubs told to put in social distancing measures.
But the Welsh government said on Tuesday that its restrictions were proportionate, with the latest seven-day coronavirus rate per 100,000 people rising to 1,004 – the highest since the pandemic began. About 6,000 new infections are being confirmed daily, the majority caused by the Omicron variant.
Question for Welsh readers: given that Welsh police officers were stationed along the border earlier in the pandemic, has Mr Drakeford revealed any new plans to try to stop his own people from absconding from his dreary territory to attend forbidden parties?
No - the borders are open and many will cross into England
Interesting if true. It's not in keeping with the Welsh authorities' previous behaviour, although I spy an ulterior motive.
Looking at the most recent 7-day case rates by specimen date, Wales's case rate is almost as bad as England's and is actually climbing more rapidly at the moment. Should the progress of the virus continues in this fashion, I wonder how long it'll take somebody from the Welsh Government to blame it on cross-border contagion - rather than being forced to concede the possibility that the extra restrictions they've chosen to impose might have been useless...?
If Boris decision is proven correct and Drakeford has overreacted again there will be no hiding place
No matter how hard you cling to the hope that Boris will come good in the end, it ain't happening Big_G.
You cannot have read my posts over the period since Paterson's debacle to even suggest I want Boris to come good
However, HMG decision for England is correct and I support it completely
His mps need to act ASAP to remove him
Big G was one of those who warned us what he was like, from the beginning.
If he hadn’t gone and voted for the numpty regardless, his credibility on here would be immense.
I did not vote for Boris in the membership vote
I supported Boris upto Paterson's debacle and subsequently sleaze and want him replaced
And as a matter of interest do the Lib Dems support HMG current position on covid regulations
Thousands of New Year’s Eve revellers are expected to escape strict Covid-19 restrictions in Wales by hopping across the border to visit nightspots in English towns and cities.
Leaders of the nightlife industry in Wales are angry that they will lose trade to their counterparts in England because Welsh nightclubs have been ordered to shut and pubs told to put in social distancing measures.
But the Welsh government said on Tuesday that its restrictions were proportionate, with the latest seven-day coronavirus rate per 100,000 people rising to 1,004 – the highest since the pandemic began. About 6,000 new infections are being confirmed daily, the majority caused by the Omicron variant.
Question for Welsh readers: given that Welsh police officers were stationed along the border earlier in the pandemic, has Mr Drakeford revealed any new plans to try to stop his own people from absconding from his dreary territory to attend forbidden parties?
No - the borders are open and many will cross into England
Interesting if true. It's not in keeping with the Welsh authorities' previous behaviour, although I spy an ulterior motive.
Looking at the most recent 7-day case rates by specimen date, Wales's case rate is almost as bad as England's and is actually climbing more rapidly at the moment. Should the progress of the virus continues in this fashion, I wonder how long it'll take somebody from the Welsh Government to blame it on cross-border contagion - rather than being forced to concede the possibility that the extra restrictions they've chosen to impose might have been useless...?
But park runs are cancelled in Wales....that will do the trick.
You mean, after everything we've learned about the way this virus does and does not transmit, and the importance of exercise to both physical and mental health during this whole tragedy, they've torpedoed parkrun - again?
It's at least gratifying to know that the Welsh administration is as full of dense fuckwits as the central government, I suppose.
The RNLI had to cancel their boxing day dip
Well, to play Devil's Advocate for just a moment, it's possible that the Welsh Government was so terrified of Omicron that they really wanted to have either a total lockdown, or a near-total lockdown with the schools allowed to stay open. Lacking, however, the resources for mass business closures, they simply banned some stuff it wouldn't cost them anything to ban, to disguise their fundamental weakness.
I believe that the structure of devolution is flawed and that the Welsh Government really ought to have enough of a devolved tax base and borrowing powers to be able to act independently in a situation such as this, without recourse to the UK Treasury, if it feels that strongly about an issue within its competence. If the consequence of that were to be, for arguments' sake, a 3p hike in all income tax bands and a substantial sum set aside each year to cover debt servicing costs - and the Welsh electorate were then happy to return the Government proposing such a thing - then fine.
Devolution really is a dog's breakfast - that is, you can argue all you like about the principle of the thing, but the way it's been implemented in practice is grossly incompetent. The New Labour Government and it's Tory successors all have much to answer for in this regard.
The United Kingdom in its current form no longer works. We have halfway house devolution where different nations get different powers. We have no devolution at all for England and non-English MPs voting on English only affairs. We have an absurd and unsustainable concentration of power and money in England and specifically SE England. It all needs to change and quickly.
If not? Well Scottish calls for independence are not going away. Northern Ireland, already cast out of the UK trading zone, may have a Sinn Fein government matching a Sinn Fein government in the south. And Wales is finding national voices suppressed for a millennia.
"We've always said this will be an evolution not a revolution"
Environment Secretary George Eustice tells @bbcnickrobinson the government will keep agriculture spending at the same level under the new subsidy system, while the old payments are phased out over 7 years
#R4Today
Has to be said there are lots of ways you could cut spending while maintaining farmers' incomes. An obvious one is you could provide farmers who meet certain environmental standards with a guaranteed minimum income any year their farming income fell below it, rather than the chaotic mess of the CAP where subsidies were too often linked to production.
That way, you would only pay up in bad years and only to farmers who accepted a level of environmental responsibility- and in my experience that would be a great many if not most of them.
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
Thousands of New Year’s Eve revellers are expected to escape strict Covid-19 restrictions in Wales by hopping across the border to visit nightspots in English towns and cities.
Leaders of the nightlife industry in Wales are angry that they will lose trade to their counterparts in England because Welsh nightclubs have been ordered to shut and pubs told to put in social distancing measures.
But the Welsh government said on Tuesday that its restrictions were proportionate, with the latest seven-day coronavirus rate per 100,000 people rising to 1,004 – the highest since the pandemic began. About 6,000 new infections are being confirmed daily, the majority caused by the Omicron variant.
Question for Welsh readers: given that Welsh police officers were stationed along the border earlier in the pandemic, has Mr Drakeford revealed any new plans to try to stop his own people from absconding from his dreary territory to attend forbidden parties?
No - the borders are open and many will cross into England
Interesting if true. It's not in keeping with the Welsh authorities' previous behaviour, although I spy an ulterior motive.
Looking at the most recent 7-day case rates by specimen date, Wales's case rate is almost as bad as England's and is actually climbing more rapidly at the moment. Should the progress of the virus continues in this fashion, I wonder how long it'll take somebody from the Welsh Government to blame it on cross-border contagion - rather than being forced to concede the possibility that the extra restrictions they've chosen to impose might have been useless...?
If Boris decision is proven correct and Drakeford has overreacted again there will be no hiding place
No matter how hard you cling to the hope that Boris will come good in the end, it ain't happening Big_G.
It is amazing though that Drakeford keeps defying gravity in the way he does.
Stripped of the verbiage, he is a fifth rate not very successful academic who owes his entire advancement to networking with a bunch of people of his own sort, whose views are stuck somewhere in 1885 and whose entire policy offering has been a disaster. He's a slightly more articulate version of Richard Burgon or Laura Pidcock. Heck, he's nearly as useless as Johnson and doesn't even have a sense of humour.
And yet he remains incredibly popular.
Just goes to show how parochial my fellow Welsh are. They'd rather have somebody like them rather than somebody vaguely capable.
Tbf, your compatriots only have to look over to Westminster to see how much worse things could be.
I would say Drakeford's government is actually somewhat worse than Johnson's.
And I don't say that out of starry eyed admiration for Johnson.
There are at least some vaguely sane people in the cabinet. I wouldn't go bail for the Welsh Executive.
The Welsh polls suggest your views are not widely shared.
So we come back to my earlier point - they prefer one of their own, regardless of how useless he is.
It does go a long way towards explaining why Wales is in such a mess.
But surely all the Welsh party leaders are, er... Welsh, and therefore one of your own?
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
We heard this from someone else on here yesterday.
I'm clear what you don't want but what DO you want? A freeze on all immigration - the forced repatriation of EU citizens within the UK?
As a Londoner, I don't pretend to understand "the red wall" though my Borough (Newham) is solid Labour. For what kind of political/financial settlement are you looking?
What I was alluding to yesterday was around why we need to constantly put London against the rest of the country? There is immense poverty in parts of London, people there need/want levelling up, just as the North needs it too.
I just don't like the idea a working class person in London isn't actually a working class person, that they're somehow actually part of the metropolitan elite and worthy of ridicule.
We've heard from two "red wall" voters claiming Labour did nothing for them for years and the Conservatives have done nothing for them.
I no more understand "Levelling Up" than I did "The Big Society". I genuinely don't know what people in parts of the Midlands and the North want - it's more than just having money thrown at them I think. It's more fundamental about how their communities work or don't work. There's a fair bit of scapegoating around immigration and migrant workers - the same could be said in London as well.
The problem is politicians recognise there's a problem, say they want to do "something" without really understand what the nature of the problem is let alone how and even if it can be resolved.
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
So. What ideas do you have for solving all this? It can't simply be "attract more private investment and well-paid jobs.'" Cos no one's managed that for decades.
Thousands of New Year’s Eve revellers are expected to escape strict Covid-19 restrictions in Wales by hopping across the border to visit nightspots in English towns and cities.
Leaders of the nightlife industry in Wales are angry that they will lose trade to their counterparts in England because Welsh nightclubs have been ordered to shut and pubs told to put in social distancing measures.
But the Welsh government said on Tuesday that its restrictions were proportionate, with the latest seven-day coronavirus rate per 100,000 people rising to 1,004 – the highest since the pandemic began. About 6,000 new infections are being confirmed daily, the majority caused by the Omicron variant.
Question for Welsh readers: given that Welsh police officers were stationed along the border earlier in the pandemic, has Mr Drakeford revealed any new plans to try to stop his own people from absconding from his dreary territory to attend forbidden parties?
No - the borders are open and many will cross into England
Interesting if true. It's not in keeping with the Welsh authorities' previous behaviour, although I spy an ulterior motive.
Looking at the most recent 7-day case rates by specimen date, Wales's case rate is almost as bad as England's and is actually climbing more rapidly at the moment. Should the progress of the virus continues in this fashion, I wonder how long it'll take somebody from the Welsh Government to blame it on cross-border contagion - rather than being forced to concede the possibility that the extra restrictions they've chosen to impose might have been useless...?
If Boris decision is proven correct and Drakeford has overreacted again there will be no hiding place
No matter how hard you cling to the hope that Boris will come good in the end, it ain't happening Big_G.
It is amazing though that Drakeford keeps defying gravity in the way he does.
Stripped of the verbiage, he is a fifth rate not very successful academic who owes his entire advancement to networking with a bunch of people of his own sort, whose views are stuck somewhere in 1885 and whose entire policy offering has been a disaster. He's a slightly more articulate version of Richard Burgon or Laura Pidcock. Heck, he's nearly as useless as Johnson and doesn't even have a sense of humour.
And yet he remains incredibly popular.
Just goes to show how parochial my fellow Welsh are. They'd rather have somebody like them rather than somebody vaguely capable.
Tbf, your compatriots only have to look over to Westminster to see how much worse things could be.
I would say Drakeford's government is actually somewhat worse than Johnson's.
And I don't say that out of starry eyed admiration for Johnson.
There are at least some vaguely sane people in the cabinet. I wouldn't go bail for the Welsh Executive.
The Welsh polls suggest your views are not widely shared.
So we come back to my earlier point - they prefer one of their own, regardless of how useless he is.
It does go a long way towards explaining why Wales is in such a mess.
But surely all the Welsh party leaders are, er... Welsh, and therefore one of your own?
'They'd rather have somebody like them' includes somebody who shares the frankly antediluvian views of many in the Valleys. Which is where most - not all - of Labour's strength is concentrated.
Although that said the Welsh Assembly Tories are a weird lot as well. The key difference between Andrew RT Davies and Drakeford as far as I can see is that Davies is a lot fatter.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
Thousands of New Year’s Eve revellers are expected to escape strict Covid-19 restrictions in Wales by hopping across the border to visit nightspots in English towns and cities.
Leaders of the nightlife industry in Wales are angry that they will lose trade to their counterparts in England because Welsh nightclubs have been ordered to shut and pubs told to put in social distancing measures.
But the Welsh government said on Tuesday that its restrictions were proportionate, with the latest seven-day coronavirus rate per 100,000 people rising to 1,004 – the highest since the pandemic began. About 6,000 new infections are being confirmed daily, the majority caused by the Omicron variant.
Question for Welsh readers: given that Welsh police officers were stationed along the border earlier in the pandemic, has Mr Drakeford revealed any new plans to try to stop his own people from absconding from his dreary territory to attend forbidden parties?
No - the borders are open and many will cross into England
Interesting if true. It's not in keeping with the Welsh authorities' previous behaviour, although I spy an ulterior motive.
Looking at the most recent 7-day case rates by specimen date, Wales's case rate is almost as bad as England's and is actually climbing more rapidly at the moment. Should the progress of the virus continues in this fashion, I wonder how long it'll take somebody from the Welsh Government to blame it on cross-border contagion - rather than being forced to concede the possibility that the extra restrictions they've chosen to impose might have been useless...?
If Boris decision is proven correct and Drakeford has overreacted again there will be no hiding place
No matter how hard you cling to the hope that Boris will come good in the end, it ain't happening Big_G.
It is amazing though that Drakeford keeps defying gravity in the way he does.
Stripped of the verbiage, he is a fifth rate not very successful academic who owes his entire advancement to networking with a bunch of people of his own sort, whose views are stuck somewhere in 1885 and whose entire policy offering has been a disaster. He's a slightly more articulate version of Richard Burgon or Laura Pidcock. Heck, he's nearly as useless as Johnson and doesn't even have a sense of humour.
And yet he remains incredibly popular.
Just goes to show how parochial my fellow Welsh are. They'd rather have somebody like them rather than somebody vaguely capable.
Tbf, your compatriots only have to look over to Westminster to see how much worse things could be.
I would say Drakeford's government is actually somewhat worse than Johnson's.
And I don't say that out of starry eyed admiration for Johnson.
There are at least some vaguely sane people in the cabinet. I wouldn't go bail for the Welsh Executive.
The Welsh polls suggest your views are not widely shared.
So we come back to my earlier point - they prefer one of their own, regardless of how useless he is.
It does go a long way towards explaining why Wales is in such a mess.
But surely all the Welsh party leaders are, er... Welsh, and therefore one of your own?
'They'd rather have somebody like them' includes somebody who shares the frankly antediluvian views of many in the Valleys. Which is where most - not all - of Labour's strength is concentrated.
Although that said the Welsh Assembly Tories are a weird lot as well. The key difference between Andrew RT Davies and Drakeford as far as I can see is that Davies is a lot fatter.
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
I agree with you about borrowing to invest. But in 1997 that simply wasn't an option politically. So the realistic options were expand Ken Clarke's PFI or let the schools and hospitals crumble further.
The challenge for the red wall is that whilst I entirely agree with you that tradition and manufacturing was replaced by transience and call centres, neither party have any solutions. These areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. They have now voted for the party who did the dismantling and amazingly enough we aren't seeing a renaissance in it. Brexit hampers manufacturing further, and the long-term strategic investment required is beyond both whats left of industry and government.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
So. What ideas do you have for solving all this? It can't simply be "attract more private investment and well-paid jobs.'" Cos no one's managed that for decades.
I want to see what labours offer is. My point is labour need to make a Concrete offer to the red wall rather than just rely on not being Tories. I’d like to see investment in transport and infrastructure but if I had all the answers I’d be lobbying Parliament. It can’t be do what we have done previously at it has not worked. I want to see what they propose
It's good to be able to choose meat with that extra added savour of ill treatment, right?
Good to see all that Scottish Nationalist hate for our Aussie cousins.
The Scottish Farmer is a Scottish Nationalist organ now?
Good to see you blithely accepting that your bunch of dislikeable, untrustworthy weaklings are losing natural Tory voters at a rate of knots. Eventually there'll only be a battered head left mouthing 'tis but a flesh wound' and 'the don't knows are right behind us'.
Farmers now have more markets to export to thanks to the new trade deals we have
That you can post this with a straight face demonstrates how clueless you are. DOn't worry, you aren't alone. The lickspittle David Duguid keeps telling local farmers and fishermen how much better off they now are. As they know (a) they are worse off and (b) he is a prannock the seat is now chalked up as an SNP gain next time.
You can say "more markets to export to" as much as you like. As it isn't true you *will* get caught out.
Fishermen now out of CFP as promised
Yes. And the purpose of leaving the CFP was....?
Find out why CAP and CFP were unpopular and you'll discover what farmers and fishermen were hoping to achieve by leaving things like the CFP.
I'll give you a clue. It isn't what you have given them. And patronising them by lines like "Fishermen now out of CFP as promised" will just make them more determined to vote you out of office.
Fishermen have control of their own waters, as they voted for ie to get out of the CFP and EU
Not so 'blessed are the cheesemakers' under Brexit, it seems:
I take what that specific individual says with a pound of salt. He is a long time anti-Brexit, anti-Tory ranter.
That isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers to exports like him, but he is first to be in the Graudian saying Brexit is absolutely the end of the world and the "Johnson Variant" is responsible. He is the Brexit equivalent of Zero Covid Pagel.
As the article says there are lots of factors, and as I said that isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers. You know I own a business in the EU right?
My point is that bloke is a billy bullshitter, but the Guardian swallow his claims regardless. He has this micro cheese business that has been going for 5+ years, but all of a sudden Brexit has costs his massive amounts of money. He is hardly flogging any cheese in the UK, such that it has 1 employee, but we are supposed to believe he is being inundated right after Brexit with all these massive orders that that damn Brexit has stopped him.
I must admit it is quite fun doing a bit of research and picking out the bullshit from these stories. This is not the first time the Guardian has featured this particular gentleman. Back in January he was splashed all over the paper making complaints.
2. I'm still waiting to hear all the massive export success stories.
Not disagreeing with you. I know loads of friends with tiny companies who are having problems. And loads of tiny companies start to add up both in terms of numbers/value and of opposition to Brexit if they all get the hump.
But the issue as I said is implementation. Getting rid of Johnson won't make it all rosy overnight but until he is gone we can do nothing to start to make Brexit work as it should.
What a laughable idea. If it was not for Boris leading the Leave campaign in 2016 rather than Farage or Gove, Remain would likely have narrowly won. If it was not for Boris winning a landslide in 2019 Brexit would never have got through Parliament.
As for whinging about 'making Brexit work as it should', the UK is now out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union. It is no longer subject to the ECJ, no longer pays large sums to the EU, is out of the CFP, has replaced free movement with a points system and does its own trade deals.
The likeliest replacement for Boris would likely be Starmer who would probably take the UK back into the customs union so no more trade deals and align more closely to single market regulations again
You never cease to amaze me with the depths of your ignorance. Matched only by your arrogance and fascist tendencies.
Starmer cannot take us back into the Customs Union. It is not in his purview to do so even should he want to. Membership of the Customs Union is dependent on membership of the EU. No non EU member can be a member of the Customs Union (bar a single microstate - Monaco). Indeed even if the EU wanted us as a member of the Customs Union they could not achieve that without rewriting the basic EU treaties.
If you do want to comment on such matters without looking a complete moron you might try actually learning the basics in the first place.
Wow, that's harsh. But fair.
I will admit that HYUFD brings out the worst in me. I can accept we may differ on basic political matters just as I do with many other PB regulars who I otherwise get along with extremely well. But almost uniquely on here I consider him to be what I would refer to as a 'bad' person. His willingness to support and advocate the use of force and violence against people he differs with politically puts him beyond the pale for me. Even if he is not entirely serious, his advocacy for such action makes him someone I believe worthy of utter contempt. It all goes back to the Spanish Grandmothers originally but that has set the tone for his more recent pronouncements and my responses.
Do I care? No, if Nationalists rioted and tried and declare UDI or hold an indyref without UK government consent the full force of the state would need to be used to stop them.
Anything else would be weak. Catalonia remains in Spain after Madrid took tough action to stop the Catalan separatists trying to break off in 2017
Thanks. It is nice to have my impressions reinforced. I am content with my fascist label for you. I think almost uniquely on PB as well.
I vote not guilty. On Umberto Eco's "definition" of fascism, I score HYUFD as 4/14, which is far below the level I would expect for the charge to stick
"The Cult of Tradition" - no. HYUFD is obsessed with aspects of the past, but has not revealed a reflexive rejection of new learning. "The Rejection of modernism" - probably not. HYUFD has been much less vocal about post-Enlightenment philosophy than many others, and sits on the mildly conservative part of that spectrum "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake" - no. HYUFD is often vocally in favour of inaction. "Disagreement Is Treason" - yes, this typifies a lot of HYUFD's madder output "Fear of Difference" - no "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class" - sometimes, but not unusually so "Obsession with a Plot" - occasionally. HYUFD sees treason much more readily than others. Enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." - no "Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy" - partially. HYUFD often plugs into tropes about internal and external treason. "Contempt for the Weak" - no, I think HYUFD tends to be fairly ignorant and uncaring about the weak, but doesn't go out of his way to look down on them. "Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero" - falls short. Militarist fantasies are not sufficient for this charge to stick. "Machismo" - partial. HYUFD strikes me as clearly sexist, but I haven't seen any homophobia. "Selective Populism" - definitely, but there's a lot of it about "Newspeak" - not really. The frequent abuse of statistics and deliberate logical evasions are not the same as deliberately impoverishing the language to prevent rational discourse.
Those are attributes of a fascist system and its leaders, not of an individual fascist. No fascist movement would ever have got off the ground if the rank and file adherents had to be capable of entertaining a minimum of 14 abstract beliefs.
It's not a bad list of the attributes of fascism. The Cult Of Action For Action's Sake.....
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
And yes, it seems like a very good choice. TBF there's rarely a poor lecture series.
Why the hell do they stick it away on BBC4, a channel for oldies, when this is for youngsters.
I believe under 18s are allowed to watch BBC4.
Every youngster i know barely watches broadcast telly, and they certainly aren't scrolling down the guide to check out the old fuddy channel. And remember BBC One and especially Two is rammed full of repeats.
It well known they stick something on BBC One compared to Two and they instantly get higher viewership. And BBC Four is the nobody watches channel.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
TBF, the rowers I know in Cambridge spend more time in the clubhouse gyms than on the water.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
There's that but there's also a horrible mentality that has inflicted some people that they genuinely don't want others to have any fun at all.
These people you mention would be the first to sign up to a British Taliban or Cromwell's Commonwealth trying to stamp out any enjoyment from other people's lives.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
And yes, it seems like a very good choice. TBF there's rarely a poor lecture series.
Why the hell do they stick it away on BBC4, a channel for oldies, when this is for youngsters.
I believe under 18s are allowed to watch BBC4.
Every youngster i know barely watches broadcast telly, and they certainly aren't scrolling down the guide to check out the old fuddy channel. And remember BBC One and especially Two is rammed full of repeats.
It well known they stick something on BBC One compared to Two and they instantly get higher viewership. And BBC Four is the nobody watches channel.
BTW, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures has just started on BBC Four. Professor Jonathan Can-Tam is giving a lecture on viruses and the immune system.
Is that the lesser known brother of JVT ;-)
That seems like a brilliant selection for the Christmas lecture series.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
Poshos do innit....like golf, that famously socially distance past time where you spend 4-5 hrs miles from every other sod, even the people you are supposedly to be playing with.
Remember the outrage at shooting sports being allowed to go ahead.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
Poshos do innit....like golf, that famously socially distance past time where you spend 4-5 hrs miles from every other sod, even the people you are supposedly to be playing with.
Remember the outrage at shooting sports being allowed to go ahead.
The funny bit is that rowing is the sport where if you manage to spend £500 a year on club membership*, people think you are spending a lot.
How crap a seat can you buy to *watch* one game of football for that.
*The actual equipment is owned by the club. You don't even need shoes....
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
I agree with you about borrowing to invest. But in 1997 that simply wasn't an option politically. So the realistic options were expand Ken Clarke's PFI or let the schools and hospitals crumble further.
The challenge for the red wall is that whilst I entirely agree with you that tradition and manufacturing was replaced by transience and call centres, neither party have any solutions. These areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. They have now voted for the party who did the dismantling and amazingly enough we aren't seeing a renaissance in it. Brexit hampers manufacturing further, and the long-term strategic investment required is beyond both whats left of industry and government.
It wasn’t just the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. Look what happened to manufacturing as a share of GDP and employment from 97-2010. New labour did little to arrest the decline and, at least, Osborne recognised we needed a manufacturing base. His reforms were insignificant and gave the north east a grade a plank as a metro mayor. I agree neither party has any solutions and the point I’m making is labour needs to get one rather than just saying ‘vote for us, we’re not Tories’ while holding these communities in a barely disguised contempt.
Thousands of New Year’s Eve revellers are expected to escape strict Covid-19 restrictions in Wales by hopping across the border to visit nightspots in English towns and cities.
Leaders of the nightlife industry in Wales are angry that they will lose trade to their counterparts in England because Welsh nightclubs have been ordered to shut and pubs told to put in social distancing measures.
But the Welsh government said on Tuesday that its restrictions were proportionate, with the latest seven-day coronavirus rate per 100,000 people rising to 1,004 – the highest since the pandemic began. About 6,000 new infections are being confirmed daily, the majority caused by the Omicron variant.
Question for Welsh readers: given that Welsh police officers were stationed along the border earlier in the pandemic, has Mr Drakeford revealed any new plans to try to stop his own people from absconding from his dreary territory to attend forbidden parties?
No - the borders are open and many will cross into England
Interesting if true. It's not in keeping with the Welsh authorities' previous behaviour, although I spy an ulterior motive.
Looking at the most recent 7-day case rates by specimen date, Wales's case rate is almost as bad as England's and is actually climbing more rapidly at the moment. Should the progress of the virus continues in this fashion, I wonder how long it'll take somebody from the Welsh Government to blame it on cross-border contagion - rather than being forced to concede the possibility that the extra restrictions they've chosen to impose might have been useless...?
If Boris decision is proven correct and Drakeford has overreacted again there will be no hiding place
No matter how hard you cling to the hope that Boris will come good in the end, it ain't happening Big_G.
It is amazing though that Drakeford keeps defying gravity in the way he does.
Stripped of the verbiage, he is a fifth rate not very successful academic who owes his entire advancement to networking with a bunch of people of his own sort, whose views are stuck somewhere in 1885 and whose entire policy offering has been a disaster. He's a slightly more articulate version of Richard Burgon or Laura Pidcock. Heck, he's nearly as useless as Johnson and doesn't even have a sense of humour.
And yet he remains incredibly popular.
Just goes to show how parochial my fellow Welsh are. They'd rather have somebody like them rather than somebody vaguely capable.
Tbf, your compatriots only have to look over to Westminster to see how much worse things could be.
I would say Drakeford's government is actually somewhat worse than Johnson's.
And I don't say that out of starry eyed admiration for Johnson.
There are at least some vaguely sane people in the cabinet. I wouldn't go bail for the Welsh Executive.
The Welsh polls suggest your views are not widely shared.
So we come back to my earlier point - they prefer one of their own, regardless of how useless he is.
It does go a long way towards explaining why Wales is in such a mess.
But surely all the Welsh party leaders are, er... Welsh, and therefore one of your own?
'They'd rather have somebody like them' includes somebody who shares the frankly antediluvian views of many in the Valleys. Which is where most - not all - of Labour's strength is concentrated.
Although that said the Welsh Assembly Tories are a weird lot as well. The key difference between Andrew RT Davies and Drakeford as far as I can see is that Davies is a lot fatter.
Andrew RT Davies is hopeless
RT won 16 AMs in May, the highest number of Conservative Senedd seats ever
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Losing weight is typically rather difficult and the majority of the entire UK population (around two-thirds of all adults are overweight) arguably falls into one or more of a variety of difficult to resolve groups: those who try to lose weight but fail; those who would like to lose weight but find it difficult or impossible due to medical conditions or disabilities; those who really know being fat is a bad idea, but nonetheless ignore it (because that's the easiest option) and simply lean on the NHS to put them right as their health disintegrates; those who really don't care about being fat at all; and those who are fat because they wallow in the slough of despond for various, usually wholly understandable, reasons and choose to self-medicate with food. Lockdown, and the general atmosphere of misery pervading much of the past two years, is liable to have cut the number of dieters and increased the total numbers covered by many of the other categories - even before you consider the physical activity problem. Whilst there are no shortage of noble exceptions, the country as a whole eschews exercise almost as enthusiastically as it embraces family size tins of Quality Street.
Amongst all of the other problems that we've had to contend with since this all kicked off, it's really no surprise that nobody has tried to get to grips with the tremendous question of the nation's waistline - and I don't expect that any serious effort will be devoted to the problem in future, either. I mean, would any of us want to be appointed Minister for Getting the Nation Fit? With the possible exception of Minister for Stopping the Boat People, it's probably the most forlorn and thankless task imaginable.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
I agree with you about borrowing to invest. But in 1997 that simply wasn't an option politically. So the realistic options were expand Ken Clarke's PFI or let the schools and hospitals crumble further.
The challenge for the red wall is that whilst I entirely agree with you that tradition and manufacturing was replaced by transience and call centres, neither party have any solutions. These areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. They have now voted for the party who did the dismantling and amazingly enough we aren't seeing a renaissance in it. Brexit hampers manufacturing further, and the long-term strategic investment required is beyond both whats left of industry and government.
It wasn’t just the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. Look what happened to manufacturing as a share of GDP and employment from 97-2010. New labour did little to arrest the decline and, at least, Osborne recognised we needed a manufacturing base. His reforms were insignificant and gave the north east a grade a plank as a metro mayor. I agree neither party has any solutions and the point I’m making is labour needs to get one rather than just saying ‘vote for us, we’re not Tories’ while holding these communities in a barely disguised contempt.
Part of the problem is/was the core belief by some in the Labour party that there was no manufacturing. I tried to talk to an MP, under Blair, and was told that multi-axis machine tools weren't important in the UK, because we had no industry.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
In Edinburgh some local group tried to ban running on the glorious dismantled railways that criss-cross the city. They thought we were spreading Covid that way.
If they'd pulled that off I wouldn't have made it through the first lockdown. Dicks.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
TBF, the rowers I know in Cambridge spend more time in the clubhouse gyms than on the water.
In normal times the gyms are ram packed - yes. They closed the rowing club gyms at the same time the other gyms closed, under the same advice/legal authority.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
In Edinburgh some local group tried to ban running on the glorious dismantled railways that criss-cross the city. They thought we were spreading Covid that way.
If they'd pulled that off I wouldn't have made it through the first lockdown. Dicks.
I've only ever done a couple of them, but Edinburgh is blessed to have those routes. I particularly like the ?Innocent Railway? and the tunnel under the flank of Arthur's Seat.
Now all I need is the opportunity to get back to Edinburgh ...
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
I agree with you about borrowing to invest. But in 1997 that simply wasn't an option politically. So the realistic options were expand Ken Clarke's PFI or let the schools and hospitals crumble further.
The challenge for the red wall is that whilst I entirely agree with you that tradition and manufacturing was replaced by transience and call centres, neither party have any solutions. These areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. They have now voted for the party who did the dismantling and amazingly enough we aren't seeing a renaissance in it. Brexit hampers manufacturing further, and the long-term strategic investment required is beyond both whats left of industry and government.
It wasn’t just the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. Look what happened to manufacturing as a share of GDP and employment from 97-2010. New labour did little to arrest the decline and, at least, Osborne recognised we needed a manufacturing base. His reforms were insignificant and gave the north east a grade a plank as a metro mayor. I agree neither party has any solutions and the point I’m making is labour needs to get one rather than just saying ‘vote for us, we’re not Tories’ while holding these communities in a barely disguised contempt.
Part of the problem is/was the core belief by some in the Labour party that there was no manufacturing. I tried to talk to an MP, under Blair, and was told that multi-axis machine tools weren't important in the UK, because we had no industry.
Which is why I said "these areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing". The economic reforms of the 80s demolished so much of what we had, New Labour thought it had all gone and focused on groovy alternatives, then the Coalition said industry couldn't have any of the cash it needed because Austerity.
It is a very British problem. We used to lead the world in industrial innovation, investment and long-term drive. Now? We own nothing, we think a quick profit is better than long term dominance, and we have this mindset that investment is communism.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." The logo is a clock set at 7:55. Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet many folk want them closed forthwith. They simply don't want to see people younger than them having fun in better places than they had.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
In Edinburgh some local group tried to ban running on the glorious dismantled railways that criss-cross the city. They thought we were spreading Covid that way.
If they'd pulled that off I wouldn't have made it through the first lockdown. Dicks.
I've only ever done a couple of them, but Edinburgh is blessed to have those routes. I particularly like the ?Innocent Railway? and the tunnel under the flank of Arthur's Seat.
Now all I need is the opportunity to get back to Edinburgh ...
You can run from my flat along them all the way to Cramond. I think the council will open up a new one soon as the line to powderhall closes.
It's good to be able to choose meat with that extra added savour of ill treatment, right?
Good to see all that Scottish Nationalist hate for our Aussie cousins.
The Scottish Farmer is a Scottish Nationalist organ now?
Good to see you blithely accepting that your bunch of dislikeable, untrustworthy weaklings are losing natural Tory voters at a rate of knots. Eventually there'll only be a battered head left mouthing 'tis but a flesh wound' and 'the don't knows are right behind us'.
Farmers now have more markets to export to thanks to the new trade deals we have
That you can post this with a straight face demonstrates how clueless you are. DOn't worry, you aren't alone. The lickspittle David Duguid keeps telling local farmers and fishermen how much better off they now are. As they know (a) they are worse off and (b) he is a prannock the seat is now chalked up as an SNP gain next time.
You can say "more markets to export to" as much as you like. As it isn't true you *will* get caught out.
Fishermen now out of CFP as promised
Yes. And the purpose of leaving the CFP was....?
Find out why CAP and CFP were unpopular and you'll discover what farmers and fishermen were hoping to achieve by leaving things like the CFP.
I'll give you a clue. It isn't what you have given them. And patronising them by lines like "Fishermen now out of CFP as promised" will just make them more determined to vote you out of office.
Fishermen have control of their own waters, as they voted for ie to get out of the CFP and EU
Not so 'blessed are the cheesemakers' under Brexit, it seems:
I take what that specific individual says with a pound of salt. He is a long time anti-Brexit, anti-Tory ranter.
That isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers to exports like him, but he is first to be in the Graudian saying Brexit is absolutely the end of the world and the "Johnson Variant" is responsible. He is the Brexit equivalent of Zero Covid Pagel.
As the article says there are lots of factors, and as I said that isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers. You know I own a business in the EU right?
My point is that bloke is a billy bullshitter, but the Guardian swallow his claims regardless. He has this micro cheese business that has been going for 5+ years, but all of a sudden Brexit has costs his massive amounts of money. He is hardly flogging any cheese in the UK, such that it has 1 employee, but we are supposed to believe he is being inundated right after Brexit with all these massive orders that that damn Brexit has stopped him.
I must admit it is quite fun doing a bit of research and picking out the bullshit from these stories. This is not the first time the Guardian has featured this particular gentleman. Back in January he was splashed all over the paper making complaints.
2. I'm still waiting to hear all the massive export success stories.
Not disagreeing with you. I know loads of friends with tiny companies who are having problems. And loads of tiny companies start to add up both in terms of numbers/value and of opposition to Brexit if they all get the hump.
But the issue as I said is implementation. Getting rid of Johnson won't make it all rosy overnight but until he is gone we can do nothing to start to make Brexit work as it should.
What a laughable idea. If it was not for Boris leading the Leave campaign in 2016 rather than Farage or Gove, Remain would likely have narrowly won. If it was not for Boris winning a landslide in 2019 Brexit would never have got through Parliament.
As for whinging about 'making Brexit work as it should', the UK is now out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union. It is no longer subject to the ECJ, no longer pays large sums to the EU, is out of the CFP, has replaced free movement with a points system and does its own trade deals.
The likeliest replacement for Boris would likely be Starmer who would probably take the UK back into the customs union so no more trade deals and align more closely to single market regulations again
You never cease to amaze me with the depths of your ignorance. Matched only by your arrogance and fascist tendencies.
Starmer cannot take us back into the Customs Union. It is not in his purview to do so even should he want to. Membership of the Customs Union is dependent on membership of the EU. No non EU member can be a member of the Customs Union (bar a single microstate - Monaco). Indeed even if the EU wanted us as a member of the Customs Union they could not achieve that without rewriting the basic EU treaties.
If you do want to comment on such matters without looking a complete moron you might try actually learning the basics in the first place.
Wow, that's harsh. But fair.
I will admit that HYUFD brings out the worst in me. I can accept we may differ on basic political matters just as I do with many other PB regulars who I otherwise get along with extremely well. But almost uniquely on here I consider him to be what I would refer to as a 'bad' person. His willingness to support and advocate the use of force and violence against people he differs with politically puts him beyond the pale for me. Even if he is not entirely serious, his advocacy for such action makes him someone I believe worthy of utter contempt. It all goes back to the Spanish Grandmothers originally but that has set the tone for his more recent pronouncements and my responses.
Do I care? No, if Nationalists rioted and tried and declared UDI or held an indyref without UK government consent the full force of the state would need to be used to stop them.
Anything else would be weak. Catalonia remains in Spain after Madrid took tough action to stop the Catalan separatists trying to break off in 2017.
I may agree with you on a few things like grammar schools but otherwise in my view you are an extreme libertarian whose opinion of me does not bother me at all
Just as a matter of interest, would it have been right for the British government to use "the full force of the state" to deter independence movements (via ample use of body bags) in the former Empire?
And can you give me a couple of examples of where forcing people to remain part of a country has worked out well for either group?
Independence movements are not always virtuous, and do not always represent the will of the people.
There are a large proportion of the Scottish population that are opposed to Independence. It is not too difficult to foresee a situation where the use of force would be justified, to uphold the integrity of the state and due process. Otherwise you are potentially allowing mob rule.
That all said, on the subject of Scotland, the argument that independence was sorted out for a generation in 2014 is not convincing; mainly because of Brexit. It is obviously a material change in circumstance that justifies revisiting the question, in another referendum. The reluctance of the SNP to do so is interesting.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet folk want them closed forthwith.
I don't get this kind of negativity. Stockton-on-Tees gets widespread acclaim for its regeneration of the town centre. "Come see what they are doing" says expert Bill Grimes. But what do the local naysayers and Tory councillors say?
Don't rebuild the high street - waste of money. Building a hotel? Will be a disaster (its a roaring success) Rebuilt the theatre? Whats the point (its booming) Demolishing the empty shops that nobody wants? A disaster!
It's good to be able to choose meat with that extra added savour of ill treatment, right?
Good to see all that Scottish Nationalist hate for our Aussie cousins.
The Scottish Farmer is a Scottish Nationalist organ now?
Good to see you blithely accepting that your bunch of dislikeable, untrustworthy weaklings are losing natural Tory voters at a rate of knots. Eventually there'll only be a battered head left mouthing 'tis but a flesh wound' and 'the don't knows are right behind us'.
Farmers now have more markets to export to thanks to the new trade deals we have
That you can post this with a straight face demonstrates how clueless you are. DOn't worry, you aren't alone. The lickspittle David Duguid keeps telling local farmers and fishermen how much better off they now are. As they know (a) they are worse off and (b) he is a prannock the seat is now chalked up as an SNP gain next time.
You can say "more markets to export to" as much as you like. As it isn't true you *will* get caught out.
Fishermen now out of CFP as promised
Yes. And the purpose of leaving the CFP was....?
Find out why CAP and CFP were unpopular and you'll discover what farmers and fishermen were hoping to achieve by leaving things like the CFP.
I'll give you a clue. It isn't what you have given them. And patronising them by lines like "Fishermen now out of CFP as promised" will just make them more determined to vote you out of office.
Fishermen have control of their own waters, as they voted for ie to get out of the CFP and EU
Not so 'blessed are the cheesemakers' under Brexit, it seems:
I take what that specific individual says with a pound of salt. He is a long time anti-Brexit, anti-Tory ranter.
That isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers to exports like him, but he is first to be in the Graudian saying Brexit is absolutely the end of the world and the "Johnson Variant" is responsible. He is the Brexit equivalent of Zero Covid Pagel.
As the article says there are lots of factors, and as I said that isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers. You know I own a business in the EU right?
My point is that bloke is a billy bullshitter, but the Guardian swallow his claims regardless. He has this micro cheese business that has been going for 5+ years, but all of a sudden Brexit has costs his massive amounts of money. He is hardly flogging any cheese in the UK, such that it has 1 employee, but we are supposed to believe he is being inundated right after Brexit with all these massive orders that that damn Brexit has stopped him.
I must admit it is quite fun doing a bit of research and picking out the bullshit from these stories. This is not the first time the Guardian has featured this particular gentleman. Back in January he was splashed all over the paper making complaints.
2. I'm still waiting to hear all the massive export success stories.
Not disagreeing with you. I know loads of friends with tiny companies who are having problems. And loads of tiny companies start to add up both in terms of numbers/value and of opposition to Brexit if they all get the hump.
But the issue as I said is implementation. Getting rid of Johnson won't make it all rosy overnight but until he is gone we can do nothing to start to make Brexit work as it should.
What a laughable idea. If it was not for Boris leading the Leave campaign in 2016 rather than Farage or Gove, Remain would likely have narrowly won. If it was not for Boris winning a landslide in 2019 Brexit would never have got through Parliament.
As for whinging about 'making Brexit work as it should', the UK is now out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union. It is no longer subject to the ECJ, no longer pays large sums to the EU, is out of the CFP, has replaced free movement with a points system and does its own trade deals.
The likeliest replacement for Boris would likely be Starmer who would probably take the UK back into the customs union so no more trade deals and align more closely to single market regulations again
You never cease to amaze me with the depths of your ignorance. Matched only by your arrogance and fascist tendencies.
Starmer cannot take us back into the Customs Union. It is not in his purview to do so even should he want to. Membership of the Customs Union is dependent on membership of the EU. No non EU member can be a member of the Customs Union (bar a single microstate - Monaco). Indeed even if the EU wanted us as a member of the Customs Union they could not achieve that without rewriting the basic EU treaties.
If you do want to comment on such matters without looking a complete moron you might try actually learning the basics in the first place.
Wow, that's harsh. But fair.
I will admit that HYUFD brings out the worst in me. I can accept we may differ on basic political matters just as I do with many other PB regulars who I otherwise get along with extremely well. But almost uniquely on here I consider him to be what I would refer to as a 'bad' person. His willingness to support and advocate the use of force and violence against people he differs with politically puts him beyond the pale for me. Even if he is not entirely serious, his advocacy for such action makes him someone I believe worthy of utter contempt. It all goes back to the Spanish Grandmothers originally but that has set the tone for his more recent pronouncements and my responses.
Do I care? No, if Nationalists rioted and tried and declared UDI or held an indyref without UK government consent the full force of the state would need to be used to stop them.
Anything else would be weak. Catalonia remains in Spain after Madrid took tough action to stop the Catalan separatists trying to break off in 2017.
I may agree with you on a few things like grammar schools but otherwise in my view you are an extreme libertarian whose opinion of me does not bother me at all
Just as a matter of interest, would it have been right for the British government to use "the full force of the state" to deter independence movements (via ample use of body bags) in the former Empire?
And can you give me a couple of examples of where forcing people to remain part of a country has worked out well for either group?
Independence movements are not always virtuous, and do not always represent the will of the people.
There are a large proportion of the Scottish population that are opposed to Independence. It is not too difficult to foresee a situation where the use of force would be justified, to uphold the integrity of the state and due process. Otherwise you are potentially allowing mob rule.
That all said, on the subject of Scotland, the argument that independence was sorted out for a generation in 2014 is not convincing; mainly because of Brexit. It is obviously a material change in circumstance that justifies revisiting the question, in another referendum. The reluctance of the SNP to do so is interesting.
How are they reluctant? I read on here that they don't want to, yet Sturgeon says "as soon as Covid passes we're on it"
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
Thing is, US states get effectively very sweeping local powers, but AIUI some of them are nonetheless bailed out by being net recipients of money from the federal government, and the traditional manufacturing and mining regions suffer just as badly from the collapse of those industries as ours have. So I'm not convinced that having the decisions made locally will help much (though I'm happy to go for it on other grounds).
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
What do the Tories offer other than more broken levelling up promises?
What a stupid counterpoint. Typical of the labour mentality that the red wall needs to return home. Labour need to offer something. Not being the Tories isn’t enough. Labour need to enthuse people to vote for them and, as @RochdalePioneers said a few threads back, people may just choose not to bother.
It isn't a stupid counterpoint and you know too well that my own vote isn't guaranteed to go to Labour in any event.
Regardless, Tories not bothering to vote will return a majority of the red wall to Labour anyway.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet folk want them closed forthwith.
I don't get this kind of negativity. Stockton-on-Tees gets widespread acclaim for its regeneration of the town centre. "Come see what they are doing" says expert Bill Grimes. But what do the local naysayers and Tory councillors say?
Don't rebuild the high street - waste of money. Building a hotel? Will be a disaster (its a roaring success) Rebuilt the theatre? Whats the point (its booming) Demolishing the empty shops that nobody wants? A disaster!
The saga of Workington Sports Village is instructive in this regard.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
The Sunderland arm of the Metro was a complete waste of time and money
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
And it is football, to an extent.
In my experience, Newcastle supporters from Gateshead, South Tyneside, etc. generally are accepting of being part of Greater Newcastle whereas Sunderland supporters from Gateshead etc. refuse to entertain the thought.
I live in a red wall seat and Labour offer me nothing. Correct Horse Battery was simply on another planet saying New Labour did more for people like me between 1997 and 2010 really? Free movement reducing wages in return for more sure start buildings the hall mark of New Labour between 1997 and 2010. What is Starmers offer? Vote Labour get more free movement?
I assume that wages rose a tad. Poverty fell, schools and hospitals rebuilt etc etc. I know it wasn't enough but "nothing" just demonstrates that you are of the Don't Look Up mentality ignoring what is in front of you.
Wages may have rose a tad and relative poverty may have fallen but in comparison to the south and London it was negligible. The gap accelerated. Hospitals and schools rebuilt. All PFI which we will be paying for years. It’s merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Wages grew a lot - the days of £2.20 an hour are the past. Absolute grinding poverty fell away. And the hospitals and schools that were literally crumbling away needed replacing - its not as if borrowing to do so was on the agenda. So what was the alternative?
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Wages grew a lot if you were earning well under minimum wage but that was nowhere near what many people earned minimum wage not only dragged wages up but also dragged some down. How many people earned £2.20 an hour when labour came to power. I was doing bar work then and earned more than that. What they do for productivity ? It didn’t really improve. Economic growth was based on consumer spending and manufacturing suffered catastrophic job losses and factory closures. Still, we got a few call centres.
It would have been more cost effective to borrow so why not. If it’s better than saddling us with punitive debt and repayments then they should have had the courage to do to.
I agree with you about borrowing to invest. But in 1997 that simply wasn't an option politically. So the realistic options were expand Ken Clarke's PFI or let the schools and hospitals crumble further.
The challenge for the red wall is that whilst I entirely agree with you that tradition and manufacturing was replaced by transience and call centres, neither party have any solutions. These areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. They have now voted for the party who did the dismantling and amazingly enough we aren't seeing a renaissance in it. Brexit hampers manufacturing further, and the long-term strategic investment required is beyond both whats left of industry and government.
It wasn’t just the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. Look what happened to manufacturing as a share of GDP and employment from 97-2010. New labour did little to arrest the decline and, at least, Osborne recognised we needed a manufacturing base. His reforms were insignificant and gave the north east a grade a plank as a metro mayor. I agree neither party has any solutions and the point I’m making is labour needs to get one rather than just saying ‘vote for us, we’re not Tories’ while holding these communities in a barely disguised contempt.
Part of the problem is/was the core belief by some in the Labour party that there was no manufacturing. I tried to talk to an MP, under Blair, and was told that multi-axis machine tools weren't important in the UK, because we had no industry.
This from the party of the working man and woman. Sad
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
In Edinburgh some local group tried to ban running on the glorious dismantled railways that criss-cross the city. They thought we were spreading Covid that way.
If they'd pulled that off I wouldn't have made it through the first lockdown. Dicks.
I briefly considered setting up a business to market t-shirt etc with the following slogan -
Some of which will be with covid rather than due to covid (not that this is benign, there are major risks of anaesthesia in covid, so hip fracture and asymptomatic covid could be bad news indeed).
This is broadly to be expected in a high prevalence situation, as those due to covid generally require a few days to a week before they get ill.
I would caution over interpreting these stats as they are likely to be incomplete due to the holidays etc.
Incomplete and/or distorted by the holiday effects, presumably?
Some of the UK numbers that BigG has just quoted down thread are badly backdated as they're reported at the speed of the slowest contributing nation. The English admissions and total patient data are both now current and show a substantial rise over the last few days, but as you say we have no indication from these figures as to what percentage of those patients are sick from Covid or merely carrying it, and these numbers tell us nothing about the severity of the actual Covid cases - we'll presumably have to wait and see if the admissions feed through into a rise in ventilator bed occupancy to gauge that? - or whether the amount of time the less difficult cases are spending in hospital is falling.
This will all be very frustrating to the pro and anti restriction factions alike, but it looks as though we still need more data - which, presumably, is what the UK Government has elected to keep waiting for?
It'll also be interesting to see if the unvaccinated continue to account for a very high proportion of the most seriously ill. If the hospital situation does get a lot more difficult then the Government may soon be confronted with awkward choices about whether to impose more Covid crap on everyone, or to go easy on most of the population and opt for Draconian curbs on the refusers.
No it's option 3, deprioritise COVID treatment for vaccine refusers but don't say anything. Even if they go to the media about not getting NHS treatment there will be little sympathy for people who have refused the vaccine.
I have some sympathy for your frustration with the buggers, but hospital doctors are not going to euthanise them by stealth. They've consistently prioritised Covid care over everything else *and* shown no inclination to treat people in any way differently depending on vaccination status. The NHS is perfectly happy to hook refusers up to ventilators whilst abandoning other seriously ill people to die to make room for them.
If the Government wants refusers wheeled off into a tent in the hospital car park and put down then it will have to issue explicit orders to that effect, which the medical profession will disobey and the courts would most likely strike down in any event.
There are only two ways to approach the refuser problem: persist with gentle persuasion, which is agonizingly slow and probably won't do very much good, or find ways to make their lives so difficult that they give in. Except that measures so extreme that they would have the desired effect - basically stripping refusers of the right to work without vaccine certification - would almost certainly be vetoed by an alliance of Opposition parties and Tory libertarians.
So we're back to persuasion, or persuasion plus useless gestures like vaxports for restaurants, which will only provoke more heel digging without really hurting the refusers and, therefore, make the situation worse rather than better. Sadly, I think that patiently listening to their "concerns" and/or talking them out of their apathy is all we've got.
In the first wave there was a minor kerfuffle over a triage scorecard determining who would receive treatment for Covid. You would get points for various factors on an infirmity scale, and the higher your score the more likely it would be that you would not be treated, if there was someone more likely to benefit from treatment (with a lower score).
Pretty sure it would be possible for the government and NHS to put together a similar set of triage guidelines that would prioritise care for cancer, and heart disease over Covid care for vaccine refusers, on the basis that the former were more likely to benefit from treatment that those who reject modern medical science. Also, if you were to open some specific standalone Covid wards (whether in a car park tent or not) then it's a simple matter of moving people to the appropriate wards and providing more resources to other wards in the hospital.
The NHS has always operated by rationing care with a system of queueing. It would not be difficult to change the prioritisation order for the queue to prioritise other patients above Covid patients. It's been done before to prioritise speedy cancer diagnostics and treatment ahead of other conditions. How many people will be demanding that vaccine refusers jump ahead of them in the queue for hospital treatment?
It undermines one of the founding principles of the NHS
If you're trying to imply that prioritisation and care rationing would undermine those principles then you are way, way too late. Leaving aside the plain fact that there have always been waiting lists, postcode lotteries, and that people have always been denied some treatments on the grounds of value for money, prioritisation and care rationing are both basic features of the NHS approach to Covid care. Covid patients are prioritised and care for many other conditions is rationed as a consequence.
As to the specific case of deprioritising treatment for vaccine refusers, there is ample precedent for this as well. Patients suffering from a variety of conditions are routinely denied surgery until they lose a prescribed amount of weight, and let's not even get started on alcoholics and liver transplants...
Or is it your contention that it's the responsibility of the state to save one particular group of its citizens from all the consequences of their bad decisions, regardless of the fact that so doing heaps misery and death upon others? Each intensive care bed blocked by a refuser could mean permanent disability or death for people whose treatment is delayed as a result. And then there's the enormous burden of emergency panic restrictions if the hospitals start to buckle under the weight of Covid patients - the sickest of whom are now predominantly unvaccinated.
So, why should we regard the welfare of the refusers as sacrosanct, whilst breezily dismissing the collateral damage caused to everybody else by their choices?
It's good to be able to choose meat with that extra added savour of ill treatment, right?
Good to see all that Scottish Nationalist hate for our Aussie cousins.
The Scottish Farmer is a Scottish Nationalist organ now?
Good to see you blithely accepting that your bunch of dislikeable, untrustworthy weaklings are losing natural Tory voters at a rate of knots. Eventually there'll only be a battered head left mouthing 'tis but a flesh wound' and 'the don't knows are right behind us'.
Farmers now have more markets to export to thanks to the new trade deals we have
That you can post this with a straight face demonstrates how clueless you are. DOn't worry, you aren't alone. The lickspittle David Duguid keeps telling local farmers and fishermen how much better off they now are. As they know (a) they are worse off and (b) he is a prannock the seat is now chalked up as an SNP gain next time.
You can say "more markets to export to" as much as you like. As it isn't true you *will* get caught out.
Fishermen now out of CFP as promised
Yes. And the purpose of leaving the CFP was....?
Find out why CAP and CFP were unpopular and you'll discover what farmers and fishermen were hoping to achieve by leaving things like the CFP.
I'll give you a clue. It isn't what you have given them. And patronising them by lines like "Fishermen now out of CFP as promised" will just make them more determined to vote you out of office.
Fishermen have control of their own waters, as they voted for ie to get out of the CFP and EU
Not so 'blessed are the cheesemakers' under Brexit, it seems:
I take what that specific individual says with a pound of salt. He is a long time anti-Brexit, anti-Tory ranter.
That isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers to exports like him, but he is first to be in the Graudian saying Brexit is absolutely the end of the world and the "Johnson Variant" is responsible. He is the Brexit equivalent of Zero Covid Pagel.
As the article says there are lots of factors, and as I said that isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers. You know I own a business in the EU right?
My point is that bloke is a billy bullshitter, but the Guardian swallow his claims regardless. He has this micro cheese business that has been going for 5+ years, but all of a sudden Brexit has costs his massive amounts of money. He is hardly flogging any cheese in the UK, such that it has 1 employee, but we are supposed to believe he is being inundated right after Brexit with all these massive orders that that damn Brexit has stopped him.
I must admit it is quite fun doing a bit of research and picking out the bullshit from these stories. This is not the first time the Guardian has featured this particular gentleman. Back in January he was splashed all over the paper making complaints.
2. I'm still waiting to hear all the massive export success stories.
Not disagreeing with you. I know loads of friends with tiny companies who are having problems. And loads of tiny companies start to add up both in terms of numbers/value and of opposition to Brexit if they all get the hump.
But the issue as I said is implementation. Getting rid of Johnson won't make it all rosy overnight but until he is gone we can do nothing to start to make Brexit work as it should.
What a laughable idea. If it was not for Boris leading the Leave campaign in 2016 rather than Farage or Gove, Remain would likely have narrowly won. If it was not for Boris winning a landslide in 2019 Brexit would never have got through Parliament.
As for whinging about 'making Brexit work as it should', the UK is now out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union. It is no longer subject to the ECJ, no longer pays large sums to the EU, is out of the CFP, has replaced free movement with a points system and does its own trade deals.
The likeliest replacement for Boris would likely be Starmer who would probably take the UK back into the customs union so no more trade deals and align more closely to single market regulations again
You never cease to amaze me with the depths of your ignorance. Matched only by your arrogance and fascist tendencies.
Starmer cannot take us back into the Customs Union. It is not in his purview to do so even should he want to. Membership of the Customs Union is dependent on membership of the EU. No non EU member can be a member of the Customs Union (bar a single microstate - Monaco). Indeed even if the EU wanted us as a member of the Customs Union they could not achieve that without rewriting the basic EU treaties.
If you do want to comment on such matters without looking a complete moron you might try actually learning the basics in the first place.
Wow, that's harsh. But fair.
I will admit that HYUFD brings out the worst in me. I can accept we may differ on basic political matters just as I do with many other PB regulars who I otherwise get along with extremely well. But almost uniquely on here I consider him to be what I would refer to as a 'bad' person. His willingness to support and advocate the use of force and violence against people he differs with politically puts him beyond the pale for me. Even if he is not entirely serious, his advocacy for such action makes him someone I believe worthy of utter contempt. It all goes back to the Spanish Grandmothers originally but that has set the tone for his more recent pronouncements and my responses.
Do I care? No, if Nationalists rioted and tried and declared UDI or held an indyref without UK government consent the full force of the state would need to be used to stop them.
Anything else would be weak. Catalonia remains in Spain after Madrid took tough action to stop the Catalan separatists trying to break off in 2017.
I may agree with you on a few things like grammar schools but otherwise in my view you are an extreme libertarian whose opinion of me does not bother me at all
Just as a matter of interest, would it have been right for the British government to use "the full force of the state" to deter independence movements (via ample use of body bags) in the former Empire?
And can you give me a couple of examples of where forcing people to remain part of a country has worked out well for either group?
Independence movements are not always virtuous, and do not always represent the will of the people.
There are a large proportion of the Scottish population that are opposed to Independence. It is not too difficult to foresee a situation where the use of force would be justified, to uphold the integrity of the state and due process. Otherwise you are potentially allowing mob rule.
That all said, on the subject of Scotland, the argument that independence was sorted out for a generation in 2014 is not convincing; mainly because of Brexit. It is obviously a material change in circumstance that justifies revisiting the question, in another referendum. The reluctance of the SNP to do so is interesting.
How are they reluctant? I read on here that they don't want to, yet Sturgeon says "as soon as Covid passes we're on it"
We are 5+ years on from Brexit, and there is no urgency at all on the part of the SNP, despite the fervour of its supporters. Excuses, excuses. Of course, the underlying problem that they have is that their position is not certain, it is 50/50 and could go either way; and this really would settle the matter for a generation. But the deeper issue is that whilst Brexit justifies a referendum, it also creates a whole load of more problems about how such a seperation would be administered; as the EU provided ready made solutions to problems such as what would happen to the border, freedom of movement for jobs, and on the trading relationship between the two countries post independence. So there would be more issues that, when examined by voters in the campaign, may ultimately deter them from voting for independence come election day.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." The logo is a clock set at 7:55. Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet many folk want them closed forthwith. They simply don't want to see people younger than them having fun in better places than they had.
They are still waiting for the steelworks to reopen, probably.
It's a common thing - the river authority in London used to spend all its time trying to stop the Thames being used for transport and leisure. Needed to keep it clear for when the vast fleets of Tea Clippers arrive.... Pointing out that the only commercial traffic on the river was (pretty much) garbage barges was described as "rude".
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
So,where would durham go ? North durham has more in common with Newcastle and Gateshead. Rural parts of west durham have.more in common with Cumbria or, in the case of blanchland and that area Northumberland,
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
So,where would durham go ? North durham has more in common with Newcastle and Gateshead. Rural parts of west durham have.more in common with Cumbria or, in the case of blanchland and that area Northumberland,
Logically (and the best for the region), it should be:
Newcastle + North Tyneside + South Tyneside + Gateshead
Northumberland
Co. Durham + Sunderland
However realistically it will remain how it is now, which is basically just the old Northumberland/Co. Durham split.
Northumberland + North Tyneside + Newcastle
Co. Durham + Sunderland + South Tyneside + Gateshead.
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
Inevitable though given that something like 1 in 10 people in the UK currently have Covid. There's no evidence that they are being admitted because of Covid.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
So,where would durham go ? North durham has more in common with Newcastle and Gateshead. Rural parts of west durham have.more in common with Cumbria or, in the case of blanchland and that area Northumberland,
Why do places need to "go" with others on the basis of similarity? Sounds like a recipe for ghetto politics to me.
It's good to be able to choose meat with that extra added savour of ill treatment, right?
Good to see all that Scottish Nationalist hate for our Aussie cousins.
The Scottish Farmer is a Scottish Nationalist organ now?
Good to see you blithely accepting that your bunch of dislikeable, untrustworthy weaklings are losing natural Tory voters at a rate of knots. Eventually there'll only be a battered head left mouthing 'tis but a flesh wound' and 'the don't knows are right behind us'.
Farmers now have more markets to export to thanks to the new trade deals we have
That you can post this with a straight face demonstrates how clueless you are. DOn't worry, you aren't alone. The lickspittle David Duguid keeps telling local farmers and fishermen how much better off they now are. As they know (a) they are worse off and (b) he is a prannock the seat is now chalked up as an SNP gain next time.
You can say "more markets to export to" as much as you like. As it isn't true you *will* get caught out.
Fishermen now out of CFP as promised
Yes. And the purpose of leaving the CFP was....?
Find out why CAP and CFP were unpopular and you'll discover what farmers and fishermen were hoping to achieve by leaving things like the CFP.
I'll give you a clue. It isn't what you have given them. And patronising them by lines like "Fishermen now out of CFP as promised" will just make them more determined to vote you out of office.
Fishermen have control of their own waters, as they voted for ie to get out of the CFP and EU
Not so 'blessed are the cheesemakers' under Brexit, it seems:
I take what that specific individual says with a pound of salt. He is a long time anti-Brexit, anti-Tory ranter.
That isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers to exports like him, but he is first to be in the Graudian saying Brexit is absolutely the end of the world and the "Johnson Variant" is responsible. He is the Brexit equivalent of Zero Covid Pagel.
As the article says there are lots of factors, and as I said that isn't to say Brexit hasn't placed extra barriers. You know I own a business in the EU right?
My point is that bloke is a billy bullshitter, but the Guardian swallow his claims regardless. He has this micro cheese business that has been going for 5+ years, but all of a sudden Brexit has costs his massive amounts of money. He is hardly flogging any cheese in the UK, such that it has 1 employee, but we are supposed to believe he is being inundated right after Brexit with all these massive orders that that damn Brexit has stopped him.
I must admit it is quite fun doing a bit of research and picking out the bullshit from these stories. This is not the first time the Guardian has featured this particular gentleman. Back in January he was splashed all over the paper making complaints.
2. I'm still waiting to hear all the massive export success stories.
Not disagreeing with you. I know loads of friends with tiny companies who are having problems. And loads of tiny companies start to add up both in terms of numbers/value and of opposition to Brexit if they all get the hump.
But the issue as I said is implementation. Getting rid of Johnson won't make it all rosy overnight but until he is gone we can do nothing to start to make Brexit work as it should.
What a laughable idea. If it was not for Boris leading the Leave campaign in 2016 rather than Farage or Gove, Remain would likely have narrowly won. If it was not for Boris winning a landslide in 2019 Brexit would never have got through Parliament.
As for whinging about 'making Brexit work as it should', the UK is now out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union. It is no longer subject to the ECJ, no longer pays large sums to the EU, is out of the CFP, has replaced free movement with a points system and does its own trade deals.
The likeliest replacement for Boris would likely be Starmer who would probably take the UK back into the customs union so no more trade deals and align more closely to single market regulations again
You never cease to amaze me with the depths of your ignorance. Matched only by your arrogance and fascist tendencies.
Starmer cannot take us back into the Customs Union. It is not in his purview to do so even should he want to. Membership of the Customs Union is dependent on membership of the EU. No non EU member can be a member of the Customs Union (bar a single microstate - Monaco). Indeed even if the EU wanted us as a member of the Customs Union they could not achieve that without rewriting the basic EU treaties.
If you do want to comment on such matters without looking a complete moron you might try actually learning the basics in the first place.
Wow, that's harsh. But fair.
I will admit that HYUFD brings out the worst in me. I can accept we may differ on basic political matters just as I do with many other PB regulars who I otherwise get along with extremely well. But almost uniquely on here I consider him to be what I would refer to as a 'bad' person. His willingness to support and advocate the use of force and violence against people he differs with politically puts him beyond the pale for me. Even if he is not entirely serious, his advocacy for such action makes him someone I believe worthy of utter contempt. It all goes back to the Spanish Grandmothers originally but that has set the tone for his more recent pronouncements and my responses.
Do I care? No, if Nationalists rioted and tried and declared UDI or held an indyref without UK government consent the full force of the state would need to be used to stop them.
Anything else would be weak. Catalonia remains in Spain after Madrid took tough action to stop the Catalan separatists trying to break off in 2017.
I may agree with you on a few things like grammar schools but otherwise in my view you are an extreme libertarian whose opinion of me does not bother me at all
Just as a matter of interest, would it have been right for the British government to use "the full force of the state" to deter independence movements (via ample use of body bags) in the former Empire?
And can you give me a couple of examples of where forcing people to remain part of a country has worked out well for either group?
Independence movements are not always virtuous, and do not always represent the will of the people.
There are a large proportion of the Scottish population that are opposed to Independence. It is not too difficult to foresee a situation where the use of force would be justified, to uphold the integrity of the state and due process. Otherwise you are potentially allowing mob rule.
That all said, on the subject of Scotland, the argument that independence was sorted out for a generation in 2014 is not convincing; mainly because of Brexit. It is obviously a material change in circumstance that justifies revisiting the question, in another referendum. The reluctance of the SNP to do so is interesting.
How are they reluctant? I read on here that they don't want to, yet Sturgeon says "as soon as Covid passes we're on it"
We are 5+ years on from Brexit, and there is no urgency at all on the part of the SNP, despite the fervour of its supporters. Excuses, excuses. Of course, the underlying problem that they have is that their position is not certain, it is 50/50 and could go either way; and this really would settle the matter for a generation. But the deeper issue is that whilst Brexit justifies a referendum, it also creates a whole load of more problems about how such a seperation would be administered; as the EU provided ready made solutions to problems such as what would happen to the border, freedom of movement for jobs, and on the trading relationship between the two countries post independence. So there would be more issues that, when examined by voters in the campaign, may ultimately deter them from voting for independence come election day.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
1,700,156 people are currently predicted to have symptomatic COVID-19 in the UK, up by 82,377. Yesterday was 1,617,779 (+5%) and last Tuesday was 1,268,585 (+34%).
188,516 daily cases in the UK, up by 4,924. Yesterday was 183,592 (+3%) and last Tuesday was 137,067 (+38%).
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
So,where would durham go ? North durham has more in common with Newcastle and Gateshead. Rural parts of west durham have.more in common with Cumbria or, in the case of blanchland and that area Northumberland,
Logically (and the best for the region), it should be:
Newcastle + North Tyneside + South Tyneside + Gateshead
Northumberland
Co. Durham + Sunderland
However realistically it will remain how it is now, which is basically just the old Northumberland/Co. Durham split.
Northumberland + North Tyneside + Newcastle
Co. Durham + Sunderland + South Tyneside + Gateshead.
I'm happy with both options to be honest.
North of the river/south of the river. Makes sense but.....Newcastle/Gateshead do so much together in terms of trying to get the nighttime economy going as well as other things.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
That is so sad and chimes with many
Mental health is a very real and ever expanding issue and covid lockdowns are not helping
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." The logo is a clock set at 7:55. Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet many folk want them closed forthwith. They simply don't want to see people younger than them having fun in better places than they had.
They are still waiting for the steelworks to reopen, probably.
It's a common thing - the river authority in London used to spend all its time trying to stop the Thames being used for transport and leisure. Needed to keep it clear for when the vast fleets of Tea Clippers arrive.... Pointing out that the only commercial traffic on the river was (pretty much) garbage barges was described as "rude".
What's doubly annoying is this is a local entrepreneur in his thirties. Actually putting summat back. Course, he lives in one of the biggest houses, and therefore, obviously, "thinks he's better than us." Course. He could have bought up houses and rented them in poor condition. He could have not bothered taking the risk and done exactly the same in Manchester. And lived in the same house. That would have been fine, apparently.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." The logo is a clock set at 7:55. Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet many folk want them closed forthwith. They simply don't want to see people younger than them having fun in better places than they had.
They are still waiting for the steelworks to reopen, probably.
It's a common thing - the river authority in London used to spend all its time trying to stop the Thames being used for transport and leisure. Needed to keep it clear for when the vast fleets of Tea Clippers arrive.... Pointing out that the only commercial traffic on the river was (pretty much) garbage barges was described as "rude".
What's doubly annoying is this is a local entrepreneur in his thirties. Actually putting summat back. Course, he lives in one of the biggest houses, and therefore, obviously, "thinks he's better than us." Course. He could have bought up houses and rented them in poor condition. He could have not bothered taking the risk and done exactly the same in Manchester. And lived in the same house. That would have been fine, apparently.
They've been suppressing Delta relatively successfully for some months, then Omicron has rocked up and negated the effort. A guess on my part, but feels like a reasonable one.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
Sorry to hear that Leon. One of my wife’s co workers lost her husband last year for the same reason.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
That's very sad - sorry to hear that. It's going to hit your friend hard, no doubt.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
Sorry to hear that Leon. One of my wife’s co workers lost her husband last year for the same reason.
I reckon the ill-effects on mental health, from Covid, could become a bigger story than the physical effects of ill-health, quite soon. And they will ripple down the years, even the decades, in ways we do not know, but we can predict they will often be very sad.
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Yup, you’re right. Look at the north of Tyne mayor. Original Plan was to include Gateshead, Sunderland, S Shields and Durham but they squabbled and couldn’t come to an agreement. But will Sunderland and Newcastle ever accept they have more in common as opposed to being divided due to bloody footballl.
It’s not football - it’s a fear that if Newcastle is within the region, Gateshead and Sunderland will never see a penny.
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
So,where would durham go ? North durham has more in common with Newcastle and Gateshead. Rural parts of west durham have.more in common with Cumbria or, in the case of blanchland and that area Northumberland,
That’s the problem - County Durham makes no sense logically, it’s 4 different areas with completely different business centres (Durham and north County Durham has Newcastle, the east has Sunderland, the sputh Teesside and the west Cumbria).
Not to turn this into a love-in with @HYUFD but at least he doesn't pretend to not be anything other than a Tory unlike some others who seem to spend their whole time trying to pretend they're not, or that they're just about to quit the party for the third time this week...
Anyway, I just thought @HYUFD deserved some support, I really wish people would stop jumping on him. We don't hear a lot about him beyond his political POV (something which I respect) but there is somebody behind that keyboard and it can't be easy to have sometimes a lot of abuse coming your way.
I'm leaving this topic to one side, I have a delicious bolognese that is on the menu for this evening
Thanks, of course your first paragraph certainly does not apply to BigG at all, no connection whatsoever....
It cannot apply to me as I have already quit the party and demanded from my mp that he seeks the replacement of Boris
If I got a pound for the amount of times you have said you have quit the party and will not vote for it again, then come back and done so, I would be a millionaire
And then you'd almost be able to pay for your own tank force...
To be fair, Carson’s Ulster Volunteers had its own Air Force and tanks, although that was funded by public subscription rather than personally
I do agree that the economy is heavily imbalanced to the SE. The problem is that nobody is offering a solution. The Tories are demonstrating that "levelling up" doesn't really extend beyond window dressing and a slogan. Brexit has made it worse not better for manufacturing. So what else is there?
The sad reality is that in England there seems to be no idea - none at all - about how to fix the structural problems. As an advocate for federalism and regionalism I can see how it could be done, but neither option for government is interested so the decline will continue.
Personally I incline to the pessimistic take that nobody knows a solution for the regional imbalance and that this is because there may well not be one. This is an extension of my opinion that the global economy and finance system is a massive and chaotic one that nobody can or does comprehend[*], but to which we have for better or worse yoked all our livelihoods. [*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
It’ll take a brave individual to go against the centralisation of power.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
A significant problem that needs fixing is the lack of pride and identity. Regions that were defined by mining or shipbuilding or steel production or cars have nothing particular left to define them. So regions and regional mayors have a place when the region is one they recognise.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
Spot on about the first. My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers. The reaction hasn't been positive at all. Wine bars? Only snobs drink there. Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas. Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." The logo is a clock set at 7:55. Apparently, other people will laugh at us. Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet many folk want them closed forthwith. They simply don't want to see people younger than them having fun in better places than they had.
They are still waiting for the steelworks to reopen, probably.
It's a common thing - the river authority in London used to spend all its time trying to stop the Thames being used for transport and leisure. Needed to keep it clear for when the vast fleets of Tea Clippers arrive.... Pointing out that the only commercial traffic on the river was (pretty much) garbage barges was described as "rude".
What's doubly annoying is this is a local entrepreneur in his thirties. Actually putting summat back. Course, he lives in one of the biggest houses, and therefore, obviously, "thinks he's better than us." Course. He could have bought up houses and rented them in poor condition. He could have not bothered taking the risk and done exactly the same in Manchester. And lived in the same house. That would have been fine, apparently.
If I were him, I would worry about late night cooking accidents after the pub.
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
Sorry to hear that Leon. One of my wife’s co workers lost her husband last year for the same reason.
I reckon the ill-effects on mental health, from Covid, could become a bigger story than the physical effects of ill-health, quite soon. And they will ripple down the years, even the decades, in ways we do not know, but we can predict they will often be very sad.
A lot of damaged kids, for a start
Whilst acknowledging that for some the effects of lockdown have been literally tragic, I'd caution about assuming too much will 'ripple down the years'.
Humans are incredibly resilient overall. Look at how people recovered after the deprivations of WW2.
The park run thing. I'm still pissed off we didn't have a big national effort to get more people below BMI 25, given how important it is as a comorbidity.
Closing the gyms I understand. But outdoor sport is just counter-productive.
Take a look at pictures of the people making the decisions.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside - your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
In Edinburgh some local group tried to ban running on the glorious dismantled railways that criss-cross the city. They thought we were spreading Covid that way.
If they'd pulled that off I wouldn't have made it through the first lockdown. Dicks.
I've only ever done a couple of them, but Edinburgh is blessed to have those routes. I particularly like the ?Innocent Railway? and the tunnel under the flank of Arthur's Seat.
Now all I need is the opportunity to get back to Edinburgh ...
Some elderly family friends of ours had a house facing onto Arthur's Seat and with the garden backing onto the terminus, then a shunting yard/freight and coal terminal, which I remember in its last few years. It must be one of those in the distance at 0:10
COVID: More than 500 children admitted to hospital with coronavirus in England in week to Boxing Day
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
Regarding mental health - I think the biggest problem comes with lockdowns. And, to some degree, enforced self isolation - effectively a form of house arrest. Forcing people to stay indoors, in each others company, in bad relationships. This is something that is very, very bad for mental health. Then there is just the continuing depression associated with events you were looking forward to being cancelled, or being made virtual instead. And people around you going mad because of Covid, in various ways.
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
Sorry to hear that Leon. One of my wife’s co workers lost her husband last year for the same reason.
I reckon the ill-effects on mental health, from Covid, could become a bigger story than the physical effects of ill-health, quite soon. And they will ripple down the years, even the decades, in ways we do not know, but we can predict they will often be very sad.
A lot of damaged kids, for a start
We discussed this before and noted the oddly low rates of suicide during the pandemic.
I mentioned this to a mental health professional I know following that convo and she reckoned it was because a lot of people actually do better during a lockdown (social anxiety?).
The other brutal reason was that a lot of men do it spontaneously following a break up or after alcohol abuse, and there have been fewer opportunities for that.
Not to turn this into a love-in with @HYUFD but at least he doesn't pretend to not be anything other than a Tory unlike some others who seem to spend their whole time trying to pretend they're not, or that they're just about to quit the party for the third time this week...
Anyway, I just thought @HYUFD deserved some support, I really wish people would stop jumping on him. We don't hear a lot about him beyond his political POV (something which I respect) but there is somebody behind that keyboard and it can't be easy to have sometimes a lot of abuse coming your way.
I'm leaving this topic to one side, I have a delicious bolognese that is on the menu for this evening
Yes, I have more respect for the consistent tribalism of HYUFD TBH than the behaviour of a lot of other PB commentators. I find his loyalty to Johnson/the Tories quite admirable in a funny way TBH. He is taking the rough with the smooth. I find a lot of so called centre/centre right commentators on Politicalbetting rather hypocritical and irritating TBH.
Most of his predictions/analysis since 2019 has been pretty reasonable on GB politics at least even he talks nonsense about some other countries like Germany.
Hi Gary, hope you are keeping well.
HYUFD is one of the few people here to not have underestimated Starmer from the day he was elected. That has to mean something.
Underestimated Starmer? Are you selling some sort of story that Boris has fallen into SKS's cunning trap? All Starmer has done is maintain a constant position at 87 in the charts, while Johnson has plummeted from No 1 to no 100. He had one good PMQ and that's it.
That’s a better analogy than your apartment block one. I never quite understood what you were aiming at (apart from the pavement, obviously)
Friend of a very close friend committed suicide this week. 28 years old. A young woman, in France, despairing of ever having a life again, because of Covid
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
Sorry to hear that Leon. One of my wife’s co workers lost her husband last year for the same reason.
I reckon the ill-effects on mental health, from Covid, could become a bigger story than the physical effects of ill-health, quite soon. And they will ripple down the years, even the decades, in ways we do not know, but we can predict they will often be very sad.
A lot of damaged kids, for a start
Whilst acknowledging that for some the effects of lockdown have been literally tragic, I'd caution about assuming too much will 'ripple down the years'.
Humans are incredibly resilient overall. Look at how people recovered after the deprivations of WW2.
You can’t compare a plague to a war. Plagues are worse. Plagues just bring a lot of purposeless suffering and terrible isolation, there is no no uplifting heroism or victory. Merely a slow, bitter end
Schools and pubs didn’t shut in WW2, for example
That said, if I had to compare Covid to any war it would be World War One, the intense futility, the sense of idiotic waste
And I do think the Great War ramified down the ages, generally in grisly ways (tho it can be argued that ultimately it broke ossified class structures in the West, etc)
Comments
I supported Boris upto Paterson's debacle and subsequently sleaze and want him replaced
And as a matter of interest do the Lib Dems support HMG current position on covid regulations
If not? Well Scottish calls for independence are not going away. Northern Ireland, already cast out of the UK trading zone, may have a Sinn Fein government matching a Sinn Fein government in the south. And Wales is finding national voices suppressed for a millennia.
That way, you would only pay up in bad years and only to farmers who accepted a level of environmental responsibility- and in my experience that would be a great many if not most of them.
And yes, it seems like a very good choice. TBF there's rarely a poor lecture series.
We've heard from two "red wall" voters claiming Labour did nothing for them for years and the Conservatives have done nothing for them.
I no more understand "Levelling Up" than I did "The Big Society". I genuinely don't know what people in parts of the Midlands and the North want - it's more than just having money thrown at them I think. It's more fundamental about how their communities work or don't work. There's a fair bit of scapegoating around immigration and migrant workers - the same could be said in London as well.
The problem is politicians recognise there's a problem, say they want to do "something" without really understand what the nature of the problem is let alone how and even if it can be resolved.
It can't simply be "attract more private investment and well-paid jobs.'"
Cos no one's managed that for decades.
Although that said the Welsh Assembly Tories are a weird lot as well. The key difference between Andrew RT Davies and Drakeford as far as I can see is that Davies is a lot fatter.
[*] Some people have managed to identify points in the system where they can siphon off money, but deliberately predicting and adjusting the system to achieve productive ends is harder.
The challenge for the red wall is that whilst I entirely agree with you that tradition and manufacturing was replaced by transience and call centres, neither party have any solutions. These areas didn't recover after the 1980s dismantling of manufacturing. They have now voted for the party who did the dismantling and amazingly enough we aren't seeing a renaissance in it. Brexit hampers manufacturing further, and the long-term strategic investment required is beyond both whats left of industry and government.
Do they look like someone who goes for a run or participates in outdoor sport?
My favourite in lockdown, in London, was when a councillor was demanding that the rowing clubs be completely shut. At this point, the only people going out were single sculling, or couples in doubles....
So you have a sport that is
- completely outside
- your are double digit meters away from others at all times, unless you hold a rave on the pontoon....
The bloke in question looked like a whale.
It well known they stick something on BBC One compared to Two and they instantly get higher viewership. And BBC Four is the nobody watches channel.
These people you mention would be the first to sign up to a British Taliban or Cromwell's Commonwealth trying to stamp out any enjoyment from other people's lives.
I agree, though, that federalism and regional “areas” are the way to go, particularly in England. I just can’t see a Tory leader ever wanting to go that route.
Remember the whole regional devolution agenda in England? Has gone very quiet..particularly as some of the existing mayors have been vocal against Westminster
for those Down Wiv De Kidz
Remember the outrage at shooting sports being allowed to go ahead.
How crap a seat can you buy to *watch* one game of football for that.
*The actual equipment is owned by the club. You don't even need shoes....
Amongst all of the other problems that we've had to contend with since this all kicked off, it's really no surprise that nobody has tried to get to grips with the tremendous question of the nation's waistline - and I don't expect that any serious effort will be devoted to the problem in future, either. I mean, would any of us want to be appointed Minister for Getting the Nation Fit? With the possible exception of Minister for Stopping the Boat People, it's probably the most forlorn and thankless task imaginable.
When big bad Westminster is seen as a significant problem then yes of course power and money has to be devolved. But as you say neither Labour nor Tory governments will want to accept that they aren't the answer...
If they'd pulled that off I wouldn't have made it through the first lockdown. Dicks.
Now all I need is the opportunity to get back to Edinburgh ...
It is a very British problem. We used to lead the world in industrial innovation, investment and long-term drive. Now? We own nothing, we think a quick profit is better than long term dominance, and we have this mindset that investment is communism.
My small home town has recently seen two nice wine bars open, a hipster dessert place and a swish steak bar. Amongst the main street of convenience shops, pubs, bookies, charity shops and hairdressers.
The reaction hasn't been positive at all.
Wine bars? Only snobs drink there.
Dessert place? Neon signs? It belongs in Las Vegas.
Steak place is bringing the tone of the area down. Why? It's name is a pun on the local accent "Summat to Eight." The logo is a clock set at 7:55. Apparently, other people will laugh at us.
Needless to say, they are the only thriving businesses on the Main Street. Yet many folk want them closed forthwith.
They simply don't want to see people younger than them having fun in better places than they had.
There are a large proportion of the Scottish population that are opposed to Independence. It is not too difficult to foresee a situation where the use of force would be justified, to uphold the integrity of the state and due process. Otherwise you are potentially allowing mob rule.
That all said, on the subject of Scotland, the argument that independence was sorted out for a generation in 2014 is not convincing; mainly because of Brexit. It is obviously a material change in circumstance that justifies revisiting the question, in another referendum. The reluctance of the SNP to do so is interesting.
Don't rebuild the high street - waste of money.
Building a hotel? Will be a disaster (its a roaring success)
Rebuilt the theatre? Whats the point (its booming)
Demolishing the empty shops that nobody wants? A disaster!
And past form shows that Sunderland is right given how long it took to get the metro there given the original plans.
Equally newton Aycliffe has more in common with Teesside than Newcastle.
Regardless, Tories not bothering to vote will return a majority of the red wall to Labour anyway.
A total of 512 children were admitted to hospital with COVID in England in the week leading up to Boxing Day, figures have revealed.
The numbers, released on the government's coronavirus dashboard, also show that 59 children under five were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in the same age bracket were admitted in the 24 hours prior.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-more-than-500-children-admitted-to-hospital-with-coronavirus-in-england-in-week-to-boxing-day-12505306
In my experience, Newcastle supporters from Gateshead, South Tyneside, etc. generally are accepting of being part of Greater Newcastle whereas Sunderland supporters from Gateshead etc. refuse to entertain the thought.
Holds the region back
Same Shit
Different Assholes
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
As to the specific case of deprioritising treatment for vaccine refusers, there is ample precedent for this as well. Patients suffering from a variety of conditions are routinely denied surgery until they lose a prescribed amount of weight, and let's not even get started on alcoholics and liver transplants...
Or is it your contention that it's the responsibility of the state to save one particular group of its citizens from all the consequences of their bad decisions, regardless of the fact that so doing heaps misery and death upon others? Each intensive care bed blocked by a refuser could mean permanent disability or death for people whose treatment is delayed as a result. And then there's the enormous burden of emergency panic restrictions if the hospitals start to buckle under the weight of Covid patients - the sickest of whom are now predominantly unvaccinated.
So, why should we regard the welfare of the refusers as sacrosanct, whilst breezily dismissing the collateral damage caused to everybody else by their choices?
It's a common thing - the river authority in London used to spend all its time trying to stop the Thames being used for transport and leisure. Needed to keep it clear for when the vast fleets of Tea Clippers arrive.... Pointing out that the only commercial traffic on the river was (pretty much) garbage barges was described as "rude".
Newcastle + North Tyneside + South Tyneside + Gateshead
Northumberland
Co. Durham + Sunderland
However realistically it will remain how it is now, which is basically just the old Northumberland/Co. Durham split.
Northumberland + North Tyneside + Newcastle
Co. Durham + Sunderland + South Tyneside + Gateshead.
I'm happy with both options to be honest.
I do not seek personal sympathy. I never knew her (tho she was very close to MY friend, as I say)
Just illustrating that, even tho the epidemic seems to ebb in some ways, it is quietly doing some devastating damage to mental health, everywhere. By all accounts this woman was not the suicidal type beforehand, but prolonged separation from friends, family, and future did her in
RIP
188,516 daily cases in the UK, up by 4,924. Yesterday was 183,592 (+3%) and last Tuesday was 137,067 (+38%).
Link (Today’s Data): https://covid.joinzoe.com/data/.
Link (Nation/Region Charts): https://covid.joinzoe.com/your-contribution?utm_source=App.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/rqgplx/281221_zoe_covid19_study_update/
I hope them not learning to live with cases in the summer doesn't come back to bite them too hard now.
Mental health is a very real and ever expanding issue and covid lockdowns are not helping
Course, he lives in one of the biggest houses, and therefore, obviously, "thinks he's better than us."
Course. He could have bought up houses and rented them in poor condition. He could have not bothered taking the risk and done exactly the same in Manchester. And lived in the same house.
That would have been fine, apparently.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1475889284192165891?t=FRv9Xi_Mtf1nu5TCIRIVsQ&s=19
Leicester scored against the run of play.
A lot of damaged kids, for a start
Leicester 1 up v Liverpool
For The Greater Good.
Humans are incredibly resilient overall. Look at how people recovered after the deprivations of WW2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBqfcMXL4Bw
Here's a movie of what the railway used to be like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVRPmdUCwH4
I mentioned this to a mental health professional I know following that convo and she reckoned it was because a lot of people actually do better during a lockdown (social anxiety?).
The other brutal reason was that a lot of men do it spontaneously following a break up or after alcohol abuse, and there have been fewer opportunities for that.
Schools and pubs didn’t shut in WW2, for example
That said, if I had to compare Covid to any war it would be World War One, the intense futility, the sense of idiotic waste
And I do think the Great War ramified down the ages, generally in grisly ways (tho it can be argued that ultimately it broke ossified class structures in the West, etc)