Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
And he's had a previous spell in the department, so learning curve isn't an excuse.
I've not yet figured out whether he is a politician of substance, or just a facile operator.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
New Labours record on manufacturing was nothing to shout home about, for sure. Happy for those job to wither on the vine and not really do anything to replace them.
I am curious to see the governments response to fuel bills doubling/trebling over the coming weeks. There must be a political dimension to folks having to find up to 300 pounds extra per month.
It’s perhaps the biggest issue facing the government in the first half of the year.
By imposing caps, rather than letting the market do its thing, people are now going to blame government when the price rises, rather than greedy utilities and bad Mr Putin.
I would think that the Brexit-enabled dividend of dropping VAT of energy is a no-brainer before April.
Cutting vat will cut bills by 5%, if they’ve risen by 200-300% that will not be seen as an adequate response.
Not ideal conditions for a Tory revival.
Oh, it will indeed be a drop in the ocean, but at least it’s an acknowledgement towards the problem.
The biggest mistake was imposing the price cap in the first place.
So wind the clock back and look at why the price cap was even considered - the perfect storm of endlessly rising bills and endlessly rising profits. The companies wouldn't behave so the regulated market intervened.
Except that the price cap wasn't anything to do with endlessly rising bills and profits. It was an attempt to do something about the way in which the market did over customers who didn't switch, in favour of those who did.
Those of us who understood how the system worked prior to the cap did very badly out of it (my energy bills pretty much doubled) as all the good deals promptly evaporated.
The creators of the cap (being politicians in search of a quick fix, and therefore stupid) never considered what would happen if the cost of wholesale energy doubled or trippled overnight, so set the cap up with a fairly slow review process, which is fine if wholesale trends move slowly. It was never intended to be used to make suppliers supply for long periods at a loss as currently is occurring.
It would have been very politically difficult to deal with a sudden price rise of the current scales before the price cap, but now via the laws of unintended consequences its going to be a massive political football when the price cap is next reset.
Comparing the graphs of coal spot prices to gas spot prices, if we had any real opposition they'd be crucifying the government over the closing of coal fired baseload generation in favour of gas - whilst the coal price has risen, its gone up around 50% rather than 300%.
This is just basic economics. If a country or the EU imposes a price cap they will run out of people prepared to sell them gas at that price. If they have longer term contracts they may be able to force supply for a time, until their supplier goes bust but that is it.
We are clearly more vulnerable to the spot price than many EU counties but this has little or nothing to do with the market being regulated. It is because most EU countries have strategic stores of gas that can be used to deflate the market at a spot peak and we don't.
Turns out closing storage facilities has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Whilst it is a problem elsewhere we are uniquely hard hit thanks to having minimal storage and having chosen to be unprotected against spot prices.
As for the lowest incomes yes I absolutely agree. But the political pain will be from the squeezed middle, ineligible for any support but really struggling to keep up with soaring bills just as the big tax rises kick in.
Spanish electricity & fuel prices are through the roof [and the former was pretty expensive before!] despite some help for the poorest. As a result inflation is currently running at nearly 7% and rising. Any idea that this is uniquely British is simply absurd.
Where have I said that this is uniquely British? I said "it is a problem elsewhere" - and a big one. What is unique to us is that we have none of the protections that even hard-hit places like Spain has.
Each country as a different set-up with energy markets so prices will start at different levels and will move at different speeds. What is different about Britain is that we are so utterly exposed to spot price moves. If the price doubles and we have to buy then we have to pay. Spain isn't the same - that isn't to say no exposure to the huge price increases, but no direct exposure to spot prices like we do.
You keep saying Spain is protected - all the time I've lived here electricity has been much more expensive than the UK - the daily spot prices are daily headline news here and there is no sign of things improving. The UK has probably now caught up but the reality at best is that they are still relaitively more expensive. Where I live in Andalucia salaries average at net around £12k pa.
You have your own issues - poor interconnectivity to electricity markets. I know, and as I don;t live there and you do I'm not going to do a HYUFD and try and talk over your experience with my own lack of experience.
What doesn't change though is that the UK government were explicitly warned what would happen if they both left the regulated market and removed gas storage. That is unique to the UK even if countries like Spain are being battered by factors we are protected from like interconnectivity.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Things don't have to be a zero-sum game. Investments that (for instance) decrease the unemployment rate may cost initially, but the reduction in unemployment is a positive benefit to the area in a number of ways, and the wider economy as a whole.
The problem is that levelling up is really hard to do: if it wasn't, then it would have been done yonks ago. But at least these areas, so long forgotten by their Labour masters, are getting some attention. We're talking about the 'Red Wall', rather than just forgetting about them.
Yes, but redistribution implies tinkering with the market, thereby in right wing thinking making it less efficient. After all, if the market was going to level up on its own then it wouldn't be nessecary.
Now there are different government interventions, from outright subsidy to various regions or industries, to tax breaks that come to the same thing, but they all interfere in the free market.
Redistribution is intrinsically anti-market. For some of us that isn't really an issue, as a core part of Social Democrat philosophy is that capitalism is good, but needs mitigating for the social good of the country. It is right wing ideologues like Thatcher who have a problem with it. The Levelling up agenda is a fundamental repudiation of Thatcherism.
Social Democracy does not believe capitalism is good, it believes in watered down socialism.
No I don't think that is right. Social Democracy is in direct opposition to socialism. That's why socialists hate it to much. Socialism seeks the dismantling of capitalism whereas social democrats seek to use it to ameliorate economic inequalities and see that as a key role for government. Socialists aside, we are all social democrats. It's just a question of degree.
No it isn't, Ayn Rand libertarianism and Thatcherite free market economics are in direct opposition to socialism. Social democracy is just watered down socialism like Christian democracy and One Nation Toryism is watered down capitalism. Social Democrats accept the role of the market unlike socialists but they still want a government led and big state, high tax and high spend and high regulation economy
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Someone who is already wealthy would say that, whether it is true or not? Cf MRD.
MRD?
Mandy Rice-Davies. Profumo Affair. He would say that, wouldn't he. Normally PB-ified as MRDA (MRD applies).
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Whilst it is a problem elsewhere we are uniquely hard hit thanks to having minimal storage and having chosen to be unprotected against spot prices.
As for the lowest incomes yes I absolutely agree. But the political pain will be from the squeezed middle, ineligible for any support but really struggling to keep up with soaring bills just as the big tax rises kick in.
Spanish electricity & fuel prices are through the roof [and the former was pretty expensive before!] despite some help for the poorest. As a result inflation is currently running at nearly 7% and rising. Any idea that this is uniquely British is simply absurd.
Where have I said that this is uniquely British? I said "it is a problem elsewhere" - and a big one. What is unique to us is that we have none of the protections that even hard-hit places like Spain has.
Each country as a different set-up with energy markets so prices will start at different levels and will move at different speeds. What is different about Britain is that we are so utterly exposed to spot price moves. If the price doubles and we have to buy then we have to pay. Spain isn't the same - that isn't to say no exposure to the huge price increases, but no direct exposure to spot prices like we do.
You keep saying Spain is protected - all the time I've lived here electricity has been much more expensive than the UK - the daily spot prices are daily headline news here and there is no sign of things improving. The UK has probably now caught up but the reality at best is that they are still relaitively more expensive. Where I live in Andalucia salaries average at net around £12k pa.
You have your own issues - poor interconnectivity to electricity markets. I know, and as I don;t live there and you do I'm not going to do a HYUFD and try and talk over your experience with my own lack of experience.
What doesn't change though is that the UK government were explicitly warned what would happen if they both left the regulated market and removed gas storage. That is unique to the UK even if countries like Spain are being battered by factors we are protected from like interconnectivity.
Hindsight has always provided the best government system known to man...
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
It just shows how useless the government is. A year on from the last winter wave and bugger all done about school (and other crowded indoor space) ventilation. Sweet FA on preventing hospital acquired covid either, even though effective measures for each exist that don't impinge on freedoms or economy.
I suspect it is hugely expensive and complex in older school buildings and virtually impossible / prohibitive in schools built under New Labour’s crappy PFI contracts.
Question. How are New Labour's crappy PFI contracts different to Ken Clarke's brilliant PFI contracts or George Osborne's superb PFI contracts?
Either PFI is crappy or it is not. The notion that it was only crap under one party defies realities about how the civil service works. The notion that PFI was only under one party is laughable revisionism that is beneath you.
As for Labour-specific PFI my response for a long time has been "what was the alternative". 18 month waits to see a specialist to join the waiting list for actual treatment. Schools and hospitals literally crumbing around you. Public infrastructure unsafe and uncared for. Your party did not spend any money to "fix the roof when the sun was shining" hence the huge backlog.
Personally I would have borrowed to invest but politically that was impossible as people were so paranoid about spending money on anything even as they sent their kids into schools held up by steel endoskeletons.
"Either PFI is crappy or it is not."
That's utterly wrong. PFI is a tool. There are places where it is a perfectly acceptable tool to use: DBFO on roads, for instance. And there are places where it is a terrible tool - I'd argue that the more complex something is to run, the less applicable PFI is.
Hence roads are generally good for PFI (*). Schools can be difficult, but the tool may work. Hospitals are a poor fit IMO.
PFI-style projects first came under my radar in the late 1980s for road projects, then for a power station we were involved with in the early 1990s. Labour accelerated the number and scale of schemes for schools and hospitals, where IMV PFI is a much poorer fit.
Use the tool where it is appropriate.
(*) It depends on the contract, of course, but that's always the case.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Only if you assume the economy is a zero sum game. Which is pure nonsense.
It is - but so is Reagan's 'trickle down', giving tax breaks for business and the rich and expecting everyone else to benefit without actually doing anything to distribute the benefits.
Agreed. Any real 'levelling up' would require substantial investment. And would take more than one Parliament.
I am curious to see the governments response to fuel bills doubling/trebling over the coming weeks. There must be a political dimension to folks having to find up to 300 pounds extra per month.
It’s perhaps the biggest issue facing the government in the first half of the year.
By imposing caps, rather than letting the market do its thing, people are now going to blame government when the price rises, rather than greedy utilities and bad Mr Putin.
I would think that the Brexit-enabled dividend of dropping VAT of energy is a no-brainer before April.
Cutting vat will cut bills by 5%, if they’ve risen by 200-300% that will not be seen as an adequate response.
Not ideal conditions for a Tory revival.
Oh, it will indeed be a drop in the ocean, but at least it’s an acknowledgement towards the problem.
The biggest mistake was imposing the price cap in the first place.
So wind the clock back and look at why the price cap was even considered - the perfect storm of endlessly rising bills and endlessly rising profits. The companies wouldn't behave so the regulated market intervened.
Except that the price cap wasn't anything to do with endlessly rising bills and profits. It was an attempt to do something about the way in which the market did over customers who didn't switch, in favour of those who did.
Those of us who understood how the system worked prior to the cap did very badly out of it (my energy bills pretty much doubled) as all the good deals promptly evaporated.
The creators of the cap (being politicians in search of a quick fix, and therefore stupid) never considered what would happen if the cost of wholesale energy doubled or trippled overnight, so set the cap up with a fairly slow review process, which is fine if wholesale trends move slowly. It was never intended to be used to make suppliers supply for long periods at a loss as currently is occurring.
It would have been very politically difficult to deal with a sudden price rise of the current scales before the price cap, but now via the laws of unintended consequences its going to be a massive political football when the price cap is next reset.
Comparing the graphs of coal spot prices to gas spot prices, if we had any real opposition they'd be crucifying the government over the closing of coal fired baseload generation in favour of gas - whilst the coal price has risen, its gone up around 50% rather than 300%.
This is just basic economics. If a country or the EU imposes a price cap they will run out of people prepared to sell them gas at that price. If they have longer term contracts they may be able to force supply for a time, until their supplier goes bust but that is it.
We are clearly more vulnerable to the spot price than many EU counties but this has little or nothing to do with the market being regulated. It is because most EU countries have strategic stores of gas that can be used to deflate the market at a spot peak and we don't.
Turns out closing storage facilities has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
True, but in a world that seemed awash with American gas it was probably a rational decision at the time. The impact of lockdown and Covid on American production has been severe but it will eventually recover.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Someone who is already wealthy would say that, whether it is true or not? Cf MRD.
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
And he's had a previous spell in the department, so learning curve isn't an excuse.
I've not yet figured out whether he is a politician of substance, or just a facile operator.
I see he's claiming a study of 123 schools concluded mask wearing cut transmission.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of this. Has it been published? If so does anyone have a link? Or is he just talking about that study in California last year?
Still waiting on that report from Scotland as well, if anyone knows about that.
May proposed and repeatedly legislated for Brexit. Parliament blocked her. The notions that she both failed to deliver and that she wouldn't deliver are wrong.
She refused an Irish border.
"No British PM could agree to this"...
Yes. Refusing an Irish border is not refusing Brexit. She proposed a settlement which absolutely would have seen Britain leave the EU. The opposite of what you said.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
There is your real Tory speaking , as long as "I am all right Jack" you peasants can F off. There will never be levelling up under the Tories , they are too selfish and greedy.
I am curious to see the governments response to fuel bills doubling/trebling over the coming weeks. There must be a political dimension to folks having to find up to 300 pounds extra per month.
It’s perhaps the biggest issue facing the government in the first half of the year.
By imposing caps, rather than letting the market do its thing, people are now going to blame government when the price rises, rather than greedy utilities and bad Mr Putin.
I would think that the Brexit-enabled dividend of dropping VAT of energy is a no-brainer before April.
Cutting vat will cut bills by 5%, if they’ve risen by 200-300% that will not be seen as an adequate response.
Not ideal conditions for a Tory revival.
Oh, it will indeed be a drop in the ocean, but at least it’s an acknowledgement towards the problem.
The biggest mistake was imposing the price cap in the first place.
So wind the clock back and look at why the price cap was even considered - the perfect storm of endlessly rising bills and endlessly rising profits. The companies wouldn't behave so the regulated market intervened.
Except that the price cap wasn't anything to do with endlessly rising bills and profits. It was an attempt to do something about the way in which the market did over customers who didn't switch, in favour of those who did.
Those of us who understood how the system worked prior to the cap did very badly out of it (my energy bills pretty much doubled) as all the good deals promptly evaporated.
The creators of the cap (being politicians in search of a quick fix, and therefore stupid) never considered what would happen if the cost of wholesale energy doubled or trippled overnight, so set the cap up with a fairly slow review process, which is fine if wholesale trends move slowly. It was never intended to be used to make suppliers supply for long periods at a loss as currently is occurring.
It would have been very politically difficult to deal with a sudden price rise of the current scales before the price cap, but now via the laws of unintended consequences its going to be a massive political football when the price cap is next reset.
Comparing the graphs of coal spot prices to gas spot prices, if we had any real opposition they'd be crucifying the government over the closing of coal fired baseload generation in favour of gas - whilst the coal price has risen, its gone up around 50% rather than 300%.
This is just basic economics. If a country or the EU imposes a price cap they will run out of people prepared to sell them gas at that price. If they have longer term contracts they may be able to force supply for a time, until their supplier goes bust but that is it.
We are clearly more vulnerable to the spot price than many EU counties but this has little or nothing to do with the market being regulated. It is because most EU countries have strategic stores of gas that can be used to deflate the market at a spot peak and we don't.
Turns out closing storage facilities has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
It’s not even as if those in charge weren’t warned.
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Whilst it is a problem elsewhere we are uniquely hard hit thanks to having minimal storage and having chosen to be unprotected against spot prices.
As for the lowest incomes yes I absolutely agree. But the political pain will be from the squeezed middle, ineligible for any support but really struggling to keep up with soaring bills just as the big tax rises kick in.
Spanish electricity & fuel prices are through the roof [and the former was pretty expensive before!] despite some help for the poorest. As a result inflation is currently running at nearly 7% and rising. Any idea that this is uniquely British is simply absurd.
Where have I said that this is uniquely British? I said "it is a problem elsewhere" - and a big one. What is unique to us is that we have none of the protections that even hard-hit places like Spain has.
Each country as a different set-up with energy markets so prices will start at different levels and will move at different speeds. What is different about Britain is that we are so utterly exposed to spot price moves. If the price doubles and we have to buy then we have to pay. Spain isn't the same - that isn't to say no exposure to the huge price increases, but no direct exposure to spot prices like we do.
You keep saying Spain is protected - all the time I've lived here electricity has been much more expensive than the UK - the daily spot prices are daily headline news here and there is no sign of things improving. The UK has probably now caught up but the reality at best is that they are still relaitively more expensive. Where I live in Andalucia salaries average at net around £12k pa.
You have your own issues - poor interconnectivity to electricity markets. I know, and as I don;t live there and you do I'm not going to do a HYUFD and try and talk over your experience with my own lack of experience.
What doesn't change though is that the UK government were explicitly warned what would happen if they both left the regulated market and removed gas storage. That is unique to the UK even if countries like Spain are being battered by factors we are protected from like interconnectivity.
The only useful thing there is storage facilities. Everything else you've said is unadulterated bullshit. The EU is more exposed to this gas crisis than we are because they have singularly refused to invest in LNG importation facilities and instead relied solely on Russian gas, additionally there's a very big chunk of Europe that is much colder than the UK and gas is still the primary heating method for basically all of northern and eastern Europe. Having marginally lower electricity prices (and I'm not even sure that's true right now) will be of little comfort to those Germans, Poles and Finns whose boilers use gas.
You seem to believe that high gas prices can be regulated away, they can't. We're stuck with them until we spend money on an alternative or keep our fingers crossed that America will come to the rescue. That's as true here as it is across the EU.
I am curious to see the governments response to fuel bills doubling/trebling over the coming weeks. There must be a political dimension to folks having to find up to 300 pounds extra per month.
It’s perhaps the biggest issue facing the government in the first half of the year.
By imposing caps, rather than letting the market do its thing, people are now going to blame government when the price rises, rather than greedy utilities and bad Mr Putin.
I would think that the Brexit-enabled dividend of dropping VAT of energy is a no-brainer before April.
Cutting vat will cut bills by 5%, if they’ve risen by 200-300% that will not be seen as an adequate response.
Not ideal conditions for a Tory revival.
Oh, it will indeed be a drop in the ocean, but at least it’s an acknowledgement towards the problem.
The biggest mistake was imposing the price cap in the first place.
So wind the clock back and look at why the price cap was even considered - the perfect storm of endlessly rising bills and endlessly rising profits. The companies wouldn't behave so the regulated market intervened.
Except that the price cap wasn't anything to do with endlessly rising bills and profits. It was an attempt to do something about the way in which the market did over customers who didn't switch, in favour of those who did.
Those of us who understood how the system worked prior to the cap did very badly out of it (my energy bills pretty much doubled) as all the good deals promptly evaporated.
The creators of the cap (being politicians in search of a quick fix, and therefore stupid) never considered what would happen if the cost of wholesale energy doubled or trippled overnight, so set the cap up with a fairly slow review process, which is fine if wholesale trends move slowly. It was never intended to be used to make suppliers supply for long periods at a loss as currently is occurring.
It would have been very politically difficult to deal with a sudden price rise of the current scales before the price cap, but now via the laws of unintended consequences its going to be a massive political football when the price cap is next reset.
Comparing the graphs of coal spot prices to gas spot prices, if we had any real opposition they'd be crucifying the government over the closing of coal fired baseload generation in favour of gas - whilst the coal price has risen, its gone up around 50% rather than 300%.
This is just basic economics. If a country or the EU imposes a price cap they will run out of people prepared to sell them gas at that price. If they have longer term contracts they may be able to force supply for a time, until their supplier goes bust but that is it.
We are clearly more vulnerable to the spot price than many EU counties but this has little or nothing to do with the market being regulated. It is because most EU countries have strategic stores of gas that can be used to deflate the market at a spot peak and we don't.
Turns out closing storage facilities has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
True, but in a world that seemed awash with American gas it was probably a rational decision at the time. The impact of lockdown and Covid on American production has been severe but it will eventually recover.
It was a classic example of typical British short-term thinking. One of the whole points of having storage is to help you deal with unexpected problems with supply, so the fact that no-one could anticipate that Covid would come along and disrupt gas supplies is neither here nor there.
Secondly, one of the possible future uses for gas storage is as a means of storing excess wind energy, by converting it to gas - but again the government isn't doing enough to prepare for future anticipated changes in energy supply.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Black children are also now more than twice as likely to be growing up poor as white children, according to the Labour party research, which was based on government figures for households that have a “relative low income” – defined as being below 60% of the median, the standard definition for poverty.
No it absolutely isn't. It is a metric of an academic term for what is called relative poverty, that is a very different thing and which the originator of such a term has said wasn't meant to misused in this way as a catch all term for people who are living in actual poverty.
Hang on.
While you might argue about what defines poverty, their point was that "black children are twice as likely as white children to grow up in poorer homes." Now, you can say that isn't true poverty - and it certainly isn't compared to the 1930s or even the 1960s - but that point seems largely inarguable.
Like the rest of them they can make any numbers mean exactly what they want when they want. Regardless if correct or not they would do nothing to fix it once they got their snouts in the trough.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
If she wanted to 'remove industry', why did she work like the devil to bring the big car manufacturers and other industries in? I think the story is much more nuanced than you claim.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
Yes, that is the key distinction. Previous governments had struggled to prevent de-industrialisation, while Thatcher gloried in it. Post 1979 industrial policy was a fundamental change, and still not truly reversed. That is why Thatcher is so associated with factory closures, she saw them as the nessecary effects of globalisation.
She, and later Blair, saw globalisation as a good thing. New Labour was more redistributive though, with its spending policies creating new opportunities in the North, admittingly mostly via the public sector, universities, consumerism and the night time economy, so concentrated in particular major cities.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
New Labours record on manufacturing was nothing to shout home about, for sure. Happy for those job to wither on the vine and not really do anything to replace them.
No it wasn't, but to an extent the ship had already sailed.
Here in South Wales in the late 1980s and early 1990s European Social Fund money brought us Ford, Bosch, TRW, Allied Signal, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and many many more. When the Social fund money stopped they upped sticks and went East (and not to Norfolk).
I know everything is all New Labour's fault but one of Mrs Thatcher's grave errors was allowing foreign shareholding and ownership of British manufacturing. I understand the reasoning, foreign investment to bolster British companies to avoid Government having to bail them out. In places, it worked. It also allowed asset syripping by our foreign competitors.
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Is that 300 pounds per year or per month? It seems like a joke, but an extra 300 pounds per month is what EDF offered me to fix my energy bills.
It is an annual payment for pensioners over 80 and £200 for those born between September 1941 and September 1955
It is expected energy bills will rise from £1200 to £2000 average by April - it is an issue that needs to be ameliorated
The only good thing about that is most people use hardly any gas between May and October. At least I don't - 8-10 units a month, as opposed to 30-50 in the winter. Will this just push the problem down the road to next autumn? Of course what will happen is that people won't be in credit by as much over the summer. And electricity will go up as well, as much of it is generated by gas. On the other hand, I have a green electricity account so I'm not sure if that will be effective.
In preparation I have reduced the thermostat by 1° (and may go further) and reduced the boiler output and hot water temperatures as advised by Octopus.
My house is never heated beyond 18 degrees except when I light the stove (and asthat's an expensive form of heating I do it because I like a nice warm fire rather than to save money).
It's no coincidence my energy bills are quite low.
I'd never get away with lower than 20 degrees C in the winter.
Mine is now on 20, but the thermostat is in the living room next to the kitchen so probably the warmest place in the house. Certainly my presence, and cooking scrambled eggs for breakfast, has rained the temperature by half a degree. It is starting to feel chilly when I get out of bed though, and in the bathroom when I have a shower. During the day, when I am active, it is fine.
I'm thinking that if I end up working from home again it will be worth using the emergency electric radiator in the spare room rather than turning the heating up.
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas ---------------- Ayn Rand libertarianism and Thatcherite free market economics are in direct opposition to socialism. Social democracy is just watered down socialism like Christian democracy and One Nation Toryism is watered down capitalism. Social Democrats accept the role of the market unlike socialists but they still want a government led and big state, high tax and high spend and high regulation economy --------------
It's alarming how often I agree with you, HYUFD - I think both those statements are right (though I also think that Canada will stay Canada and that labels are of limited use as a guide to what people think). Your last sentence pretty much sums me up.
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
It just shows how useless the government is. A year on from the last winter wave and bugger all done about school (and other crowded indoor space) ventilation. Sweet FA on preventing hospital acquired covid either, even though effective measures for each exist that don't impinge on freedoms or economy.
I suspect it is hugely expensive and complex in older school buildings and virtually impossible / prohibitive in schools built under New Labour’s crappy PFI contracts.
Question. How are New Labour's crappy PFI contracts different to Ken Clarke's brilliant PFI contracts or George Osborne's superb PFI contracts?
Either PFI is crappy or it is not. The notion that it was only crap under one party defies realities about how the civil service works. The notion that PFI was only under one party is laughable revisionism that is beneath you.
As for Labour-specific PFI my response for a long time has been "what was the alternative". 18 month waits to see a specialist to join the waiting list for actual treatment. Schools and hospitals literally crumbing around you. Public infrastructure unsafe and uncared for. Your party did not spend any money to "fix the roof when the sun was shining" hence the huge backlog.
Personally I would have borrowed to invest but politically that was impossible as people were so paranoid about spending money on anything even as they sent their kids into schools held up by steel endoskeletons.
"Either PFI is crappy or it is not."
That's utterly wrong. PFI is a tool. There are places where it is a perfectly acceptable tool to use: DBFO on roads, for instance. And there are places where it is a terrible tool - I'd argue that the more complex something is to run, the less applicable PFI is.
Hence roads are generally good for PFI (*). Schools can be difficult, but the tool may work. Hospitals are a poor fit IMO.
PFI-style projects first came under my radar in the late 1980s for road projects, then for a power station we were involved with in the early 1990s. Labour accelerated the number and scale of schemes for schools and hospitals, where IMV PFI is a much poorer fit.
Use the tool where it is appropriate.
(*) It depends on the contract, of course, but that's always the case.
I wonder about PFI on roads. Yes, with current interest rates it's a way of bringing forward due maintenance in an apparently affordable way. But it delivers a large wodge of £ upfront, and my own observation suggests that this sudden abundance of cash is easy to waste on peripheral projects, especially with councils keen to please their electors and PFI contractors eager to find more work.
And of course the money for maintenance will run out well before the end of the PFI 'mortgage' term, so what happens then? The idea that all the maintenance will be 'done' and hence there'll then be little more demand for spending on roads for the next ten or more years seems somewhat optimistic.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
There is your real Tory speaking , as long as "I am all right Jack" you peasants can F off. There will never be levelling up under the Tories , they are too selfish and greedy.
You must not attack his entitlement to a one million pound tax free inheritance Malc
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Strange post. A couple of questions:
Equality of opportunity - how does private education square with that?
Extra investment - where does the money come from?
Equality of opportunity- improving education for everyone so that most current users of private education don’t feel they need to
Extra investment - there’s a vast amount of government money sloshing around the system. Not all of it well spent. It’s about choices not just increasing taxes to spend more.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
If she wanted to 'remove industry', why did she work like the devil to bring the big car manufacturers and other industries in? I think the story is much more nuanced than you claim.
If I remember rightly (which I might not because I can't find it) Sir Geoffrey Howe's memoirs indicate even he wondered if they were going too far.
It’s actually a reason to bet against him staying on too long as PM: at some point he’s going to really need the book advance and the speaking fees, and can’t keep hiding loans from old friends. Even Theresa May has managed to bank a couple of million as a speaker, since she stood down from the top job.
He could get a million quid advance on a book deal tomorrow if he wanted one. He's going nowhere as he and NutNut enjoy the trappings of high office to which they feel they are entitled.
The only possible wildcard is he gets tired of firing into that busted out twat and they split up. Then anything could happen.
Bit too much detailed information over breakfast there.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
If she wanted to 'remove industry', why did she work like the devil to bring the big car manufacturers and other industries in? I think the story is much more nuanced than you claim.
That was to break the traditional industrial unions, and of course to export to the EU Single Market.
Leaving aside the debate on whether Covid was a lab leak, this is a really well-written article on what might happen next - sometime. Leon will be fascinated, but I think we'll all be interested.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
Morning all! Have been enjoying the darts, some brilliant matches at the world championships. Its obvious that the crowd have been getting lairy for the past few days but I hadn't realised just how bad - some of the time they have been pretty hushed.
Turns out that Sky have been muting the crowd due to endless have been chanting "you're a sheep shagging bastard" at the Welsh and "stand up if you hate Scotland" during the all-Scotland Wright - Anderson semi.
If *that* crowd are also singing - endlessly - "stand up if you hate Boris" then he really is in trouble.
Yes Jim, we feel the love.
Hate to point out your hubris, but almost all political careers end in failure and disdain. Ask your former fave Handy Alex how life is. I do wave when I drive past his house...
Sure with the amount of w**kers like you passing his house , he will have long given up laughing at the state of them and treat you like the to**er you are.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to them all apart from Wyoming and just cannot believe the rubbish @HYUFD comes up with
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
It's a sterile debate, since the answer is obviously that you have to do both - generate more growth, and use taxation and government spending to ensure that the benefits are widely distributed.
Just boosting incentives for growth without any effort at redistribution is an argument advanced by the rich to avoid having to face the question of fairness and redistribition.
Just taxing and spending without any effort at stimulating the economy is an argument advanced by those who don't want to have to consider policies to create an environment friendly to business.
The uniqueness of our current position is that we have a government that is both determined to make the environment less business-friendly at the same time as avoiding doing much to address the significant and growing inequalities, whether of individual wealth or between regions and generations.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
I said in 2019 that Johnson and Corbyn were two cheeks of the same arse.
I get a lovely warm smug feeling now everyone agrees with me.
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Is that 300 pounds per year or per month? It seems like a joke, but an extra 300 pounds per month is what EDF offered me to fix my energy bills.
It is an annual payment for pensioners over 80 and £200 for those born between September 1941 and September 1955
It is expected energy bills will rise from £1200 to £2000 average by April - it is an issue that needs to be ameliorated
The only good thing about that is most people use hardly any gas between May and October. At least I don't - 8-10 units a month, as opposed to 30-50 in the winter. Will this just push the problem down the road to next autumn? Of course what will happen is that people won't be in credit by as much over the summer. And electricity will go up as well, as much of it is generated by gas. On the other hand, I have a green electricity account so I'm not sure if that will be effective.
In preparation I have reduced the thermostat by 1° (and may go further) and reduced the boiler output and hot water temperatures as advised by Octopus.
My house is never heated beyond 18 degrees except when I light the stove (and asthat's an expensive form of heating I do it because I like a nice warm fire rather than to save money).
It's no coincidence my energy bills are quite low.
That's how I do it, burning wood keeps you warm and demonstrates the mastery of man over the tree. Also it's free [*].
* Except for the stove, the chimney, cleaning the chimney, cutting down branches around the chimney, petrol for the wood splitter, repairs to the wood splitter, the chainsaw, electricity for the chainsaw, the truck, petrol for the truck, insurance for the truck, repairs to the truck, terms and conditions may apply
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
No, there is no point staying in power for its own sake if it means not pursuing conservatism but pursuing social democracy and high taxes on your core vote to do so. Better to rebuild in opposition.
Winning the redwall was useful to get Brexit done and through Parliament but if keeping it means pursuing high tax social democracy no thanks, better to go into opposition than that
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Is that 300 pounds per year or per month? It seems like a joke, but an extra 300 pounds per month is what EDF offered me to fix my energy bills.
It is an annual payment for pensioners over 80 and £200 for those born between September 1941 and September 1955
It is expected energy bills will rise from £1200 to £2000 average by April - it is an issue that needs to be ameliorated
The only good thing about that is most people use hardly any gas between May and October. At least I don't - 8-10 units a month, as opposed to 30-50 in the winter. Will this just push the problem down the road to next autumn? Of course what will happen is that people won't be in credit by as much over the summer. And electricity will go up as well, as much of it is generated by gas. On the other hand, I have a green electricity account so I'm not sure if that will be effective.
In preparation I have reduced the thermostat by 1° (and may go further) and reduced the boiler output and hot water temperatures as advised by Octopus.
My house is never heated beyond 18 degrees except when I light the stove (and asthat's an expensive form of heating I do it because I like a nice warm fire rather than to save money).
It's no coincidence my energy bills are quite low.
That's how I do it, burning wood keeps you warm and demonstrates the mastery of man over the tree. Also it's free [*].
* Except for the stove, the chimney, cleaning the chimney, cutting down branches around the chimney, petrol for the wood splitter, repairs to the wood splitter, the chainsaw, electricity for the chainsaw, the truck, petrol for the truck, insurance for the truck, repairs to the truck, terms and conditions may apply
In London, the pollution being caused by the spread of wood-burning stoves is going to become a big issue before long.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
If she wanted to 'remove industry', why did she work like the devil to bring the big car manufacturers and other industries in? I think the story is much more nuanced than you claim.
If I remember rightly (which I might not because I can't find it) Sir Geoffrey Howe's memoirs indicate even he wondered if they were going too far.
The thing that really accelerated deindustrialisation in the early Eighties was the strong pound, driven up by tight monetary policy and North Sea oil. Manufacturing companies struggled to export at those rates, while imports soared.
There were a lot of problems in British industry in the Seventies, but management was often as hopeless as the unions. The sudden squeeze was too much for many of them to adapt.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
Yes, that is the key distinction. Previous governments had struggled to prevent de-industrialisation, while Thatcher gloried in it. Post 1979 industrial policy was a fundamental change, and still not truly reversed. That is why Thatcher is so associated with factory closures, she saw them as the nessecary effects of globalisation.
She, and later Blair, saw globalisation as a good thing. New Labour was more redistributive though, with its spending policies creating new opportunities in the North, admittingly mostly via the public sector, universities, consumerism and the night time economy, so concentrated in particular major cities.
"Thatcher gloried in it."
I don't think she did. She was just holding the hot potato when it dropped. It was necessary, so it was done.
In 2009, under New Labour, the historic Butterley Ironworks closed after over 200 years. The company that gave us St Pancras Trainshed, HMS Warrior, the Falkirk Wheel, and the Spinnaker Tower amongst others, went totally unmourned by the Labour government and its local Labour MPs.
If it had happened under a Conservative government, how those same people would have been screeching about evil Tories closing historic businesses.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
I heard a conspiracy theory that Wales is kept off the agenda because they've been infiltrated by a closet Plaid supporter? Surely that can't be true.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You talk as a right wing southern Englishman who is only interested in protecting your entitlement and privileges and quite frankly deserve to be in opposition, permanently
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
Yes, but Le Pen and Farage come from the same political corner. It doesn't mean that they would join each others countries!
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
No, there is no point stating in power for its own sake if it means not pursuing conservatism but pursuing social democracy and high taxes on your core vote to do so. Better to rebuild in opposition
Have you ever considered that politics might be a means to an end, and not an end in itself?
(apart from for those making money from careers in it, obvs).
And I'm sure it's possible to take a pride in one's work, make a positive difference, in a call centre, if management goes about it the right way.
If your job is answering customer support calls, then yes.
If your job is cold calling people claiming to be "from microsoft security department", then no.
I just did a change of address call to First Direct from my new house in Spain. The service was first rate fron start to finish - answered in less than 30 seconds, clear, polite and helpful. I'd like to say the Spanish banks were generally as good but they really aren't.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
You're acting as if the only way to level up the North is to be spending a lot of cash here.
I don't agree. Some cash is needed but other things are far more important and that's about fixing attitudes and tax reforms etc not expenditure.
I maintain that the best way to level up is tax reform to abolish the withdrawal rate on Universal Credit which causes the poverty trap.
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas ---------------- Ayn Rand libertarianism and Thatcherite free market economics are in direct opposition to socialism. Social democracy is just watered down socialism like Christian democracy and One Nation Toryism is watered down capitalism. Social Democrats accept the role of the market unlike socialists but they still want a government led and big state, high tax and high spend and high regulation economy --------------
It's alarming how often I agree with you, HYUFD - I think both those statements are right (though I also think that Canada will stay Canada and that labels are of limited use as a guide to what people think). Your last sentence pretty much sums me up.
I don't agree. The idea of one ideology being described as a "watered down" version of another it deeply problematic. It is a cousin to the "slippery slope" argument, and equally invalid. Opponents of one ideology try to harness more widespread distaste for a separate ideology by linking the two of them in ways the proponents of either would not. It's the same process by which everyone on Twitter is seemingly either a communist or a fascist, when in reality almost nobody is either.
Lastly, don't ignore the Marxist influence in libertarianism. Libertarianism is a mixed-heritage system of thought, with elements of liberalism, anarchism, and socialism. There is a hard-left route into libertarianism, so to describe is as directly opposite is either mischievous or ignorant of the history and topography of political ideology.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to them all apart from Wyoming and just cannot believe the rubbish @HYUFD comes up with
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
If she wanted to 'remove industry', why did she work like the devil to bring the big car manufacturers and other industries in? I think the story is much more nuanced than you claim.
That was to break the traditional industrial unions, and of course to export to the EU Single Market.
There's a good argument that the slow trickle of benefit from membership of the EEC/EU as the Single Market evolved played as significant a role in the UK's recovery from being the 'sick man of Europe' in the 1970s as did the 1980s Thatcherite reforms.
And I'm sure it's possible to take a pride in one's work, make a positive difference, in a call centre, if management goes about it the right way.
If your job is answering customer support calls, then yes.
If your job is cold calling people claiming to be "from microsoft security department", then no.
I just did a change of address call to First Direct from my new house in Spain. The service was first rate fron start to finish - answered in less than 30 seconds, clear, polite and helpful. I'd like to say the Spanish banks were generally as good but they really aren't.
First Direct is atypically good in the UK market
Though on the other hand I get excellent service from Santander.
Are they not so good in Spain? Of course their British operation springs from the building societies that they bought up after the GFC.
And I'm sure it's possible to take a pride in one's work, make a positive difference, in a call centre, if management goes about it the right way.
If your job is answering customer support calls, then yes.
If your job is cold calling people claiming to be "from microsoft security department", then no.
I just did a change of address call to First Direct from my new house in Spain. The service was first rate fron start to finish - answered in less than 30 seconds, clear, polite and helpful. I'd like to say the Spanish banks were generally as good but they really aren't.
First Direct is atypically good in the UK market
Though on the other hand I get excellent service from Santander.
Are they not so good in Spain? Of course their British operation springs from the building societies that they bought up after the GFC.
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Is that 300 pounds per year or per month? It seems like a joke, but an extra 300 pounds per month is what EDF offered me to fix my energy bills.
It is an annual payment for pensioners over 80 and £200 for those born between September 1941 and September 1955
It is expected energy bills will rise from £1200 to £2000 average by April - it is an issue that needs to be ameliorated
The only good thing about that is most people use hardly any gas between May and October. At least I don't - 8-10 units a month, as opposed to 30-50 in the winter. Will this just push the problem down the road to next autumn? Of course what will happen is that people won't be in credit by as much over the summer. And electricity will go up as well, as much of it is generated by gas. On the other hand, I have a green electricity account so I'm not sure if that will be effective.
In preparation I have reduced the thermostat by 1° (and may go further) and reduced the boiler output and hot water temperatures as advised by Octopus.
My house is never heated beyond 18 degrees except when I light the stove (and asthat's an expensive form of heating I do it because I like a nice warm fire rather than to save money).
It's no coincidence my energy bills are quite low.
That's how I do it, burning wood keeps you warm and demonstrates the mastery of man over the tree. Also it's free [*].
* Except for the stove, the chimney, cleaning the chimney, cutting down branches around the chimney, petrol for the wood splitter, repairs to the wood splitter, the chainsaw, electricity for the chainsaw, the truck, petrol for the truck, insurance for the truck, repairs to the truck, terms and conditions may apply
In London, the pollution being caused by the spread of wood-burning stoves is going to become a big issue before long.
Better than letting the trees get the upper hand though
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
I heard a conspiracy theory that Wales is kept off the agenda because they've been infiltrated by a closet Plaid supporter? Surely that can't be true.
I was utterly amazed when @HYUFD admitted voting for Plaid, after all the accusations that having voted for Blair twice I was not a true conservative disciple
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
Just another windbag chancer, none of this lot have any talent. Just a large team of grifters and /or dumplings.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to them all apart from Wyoming and just cannot believe the rubbish @HYUFD comes up with
And I'm sure it's possible to take a pride in one's work, make a positive difference, in a call centre, if management goes about it the right way.
If your job is answering customer support calls, then yes.
If your job is cold calling people claiming to be "from microsoft security department", then no.
I just did a change of address call to First Direct from my new house in Spain. The service was first rate fron start to finish - answered in less than 30 seconds, clear, polite and helpful. I'd like to say the Spanish banks were generally as good but they really aren't.
First Direct is atypically good in the UK market
Though on the other hand I get excellent service from Santander.
Are they not so good in Spain? Of course their British operation springs from the building societies that they bought up after the GFC.
Yes, but Abbey National was often dire.
I never had a problem with them, indeed, that is how I wound up with Santander.
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
Just another windbag chancer, none of this lot have any talent. Just a large team of grifters and /or dumplings.
Yes but TBF Malc you think that of every politician except Alex Salmond, Ken Clarke and possibly Joanna Cherry.
How can the government prevent energy bills from causing political problems?
Options available to it:
1. Cutting VAT - not likely to be enough. 2. Energy Subsidies - likely too expensive and won’t solve anything long term. 3. Er…
What else can they do? Not a lot.
Good morning
This is a problem for governments across the world, and certainly cutting vat would only save a small amount when considering the huge increases
I would expect HMG to provide targeted help to those on low incomes similar to the £300 provided to elderly pensioners each December and restricting the rise in April
Is that 300 pounds per year or per month? It seems like a joke, but an extra 300 pounds per month is what EDF offered me to fix my energy bills.
It is an annual payment for pensioners over 80 and £200 for those born between September 1941 and September 1955
It is expected energy bills will rise from £1200 to £2000 average by April - it is an issue that needs to be ameliorated
The only good thing about that is most people use hardly any gas between May and October. At least I don't - 8-10 units a month, as opposed to 30-50 in the winter. Will this just push the problem down the road to next autumn? Of course what will happen is that people won't be in credit by as much over the summer. And electricity will go up as well, as much of it is generated by gas. On the other hand, I have a green electricity account so I'm not sure if that will be effective.
In preparation I have reduced the thermostat by 1° (and may go further) and reduced the boiler output and hot water temperatures as advised by Octopus.
My house is never heated beyond 18 degrees except when I light the stove (and asthat's an expensive form of heating I do it because I like a nice warm fire rather than to save money).
It's no coincidence my energy bills are quite low.
That's how I do it, burning wood keeps you warm and demonstrates the mastery of man over the tree. Also it's free [*].
* Except for the stove, the chimney, cleaning the chimney, cutting down branches around the chimney, petrol for the wood splitter, repairs to the wood splitter, the chainsaw, electricity for the chainsaw, the truck, petrol for the truck, insurance for the truck, repairs to the truck, terms and conditions may apply
In London, the pollution being caused by the spread of wood-burning stoves is going to become a big issue before long.
It already is, and has been for years. They were never a "green" form of heating. Same mistake the EuCo is making now with Gas, categorising it as "green" as part of a Franco-German fudge.
Here's Sadiq Khan in September 2017 wanting to start banning them in some areas: Wood-burning stoves could be banned in some areas to combat air pollution under proposals by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan. ... Khan said: “Non-transport sources contribute half of the deadly emissions in London, so we need a hard-hitting plan of action to combat them similar to moves I am taking to reduce pollution from road vehicles.
“With more than 400 schools located in areas exceeding legal pollution levels, and such significant health impacts on our most vulnerable communities, we cannot wait any longer, and I am calling on government to provide the capital with the necessary powers to effectively tackle harmful emissions from a variety of sources.”
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas ---------------- Ayn Rand libertarianism and Thatcherite free market economics are in direct opposition to socialism. Social democracy is just watered down socialism like Christian democracy and One Nation Toryism is watered down capitalism. Social Democrats accept the role of the market unlike socialists but they still want a government led and big state, high tax and high spend and high regulation economy --------------
It's alarming how often I agree with you, HYUFD - I think both those statements are right (though I also think that Canada will stay Canada and that labels are of limited use as a guide to what people think). Your last sentence pretty much sums me up.
I don't agree. The idea of one ideology being described as a "watered down" version of another it deeply problematic. It is a cousin to the "slippery slope" argument, and equally invalid. Opponents of one ideology try to harness more widespread distaste for a separate ideology by linking the two of them in ways the proponents of either would not. It's the same process by which everyone on Twitter is seemingly either a communist or a fascist, when in reality almost nobody is either.
Lastly, don't ignore the Marxist influence in libertarianism. Libertarianism is a mixed-heritage system of thought, with elements of liberalism, anarchism, and socialism. There is a hard-left route into libertarianism, so to describe is as directly opposite is either mischievous or ignorant of the history and topography of political ideology.
Ayn Rand libertarianism basically does not believe in any role for the state at all bar protection of private property, it is as far from Marxist Socialism as can be. Many Thatcherites and Reaganites were influenced by Rand in the 1980s.
Leftist anarchism is not libertarianism either as it believes in taking private property
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
It just shows how useless the government is. A year on from the last winter wave and bugger all done about school (and other crowded indoor space) ventilation. Sweet FA on preventing hospital acquired covid either, even though effective measures for each exist that don't impinge on freedoms or economy.
I suspect it is hugely expensive and complex in older school buildings and virtually impossible / prohibitive in schools built under New Labour’s crappy PFI contracts.
Question. How are New Labour's crappy PFI contracts different to Ken Clarke's brilliant PFI contracts or George Osborne's superb PFI contracts?
Either PFI is crappy or it is not. The notion that it was only crap under one party defies realities about how the civil service works. The notion that PFI was only under one party is laughable revisionism that is beneath you.
As for Labour-specific PFI my response for a long time has been "what was the alternative". 18 month waits to see a specialist to join the waiting list for actual treatment. Schools and hospitals literally crumbing around you. Public infrastructure unsafe and uncared for. Your party did not spend any money to "fix the roof when the sun was shining" hence the huge backlog.
Personally I would have borrowed to invest but politically that was impossible as people were so paranoid about spending money on anything even as they sent their kids into schools held up by steel endoskeletons.
Ken Clarke (and Major’s) were fine because they were used for appropriate things like street lighting which are predictable and relatively simple to manage. Even the Rosocs were appropriate although they were embarrassing because they were badly mispriced.
Blair/Brown’s we’re bad because they tried to use them for complex operating entities such as schools and hospitals. Those organisations need flexibility to optimise the use of space while the strictness of the PFI contracts (which need certainty and clarity) made that extraordinarily expensive
I don’t know enough about Osborne’s PFI contracts (I had the vague impression that it had been reduced in scale). But based on his track record I’m willing to believe that he took what Brown did and found a way to make it even more complicated and expensive.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
I heard a conspiracy theory that Wales is kept off the agenda because they've been infiltrated by a closet Plaid supporter? Surely that can't be true.
I was utterly amazed when @HYUFD admitted voting for Plaid, after all the accusations that having voted for Blair twice I was not a true conservative disciple
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
No, there is no point staying in power for its own sake if it means not pursuing conservatism but pursuing social democracy and high taxes on your core vote to do so. Better to rebuild in opposition.
Winning the redwall was useful to get Brexit done and through Parliament but if keeping it means pursuing high tax social democracy no thanks, better to go into opposition than that
Maybe the South is under taxed. All my neighbours who can afford a four bedroom detached house in Hampshire, and have two SUVs on the drive plus Minis for the kids, have a bit more to spare for the public purse, methinks.
I am curious to see the governments response to fuel bills doubling/trebling over the coming weeks. There must be a political dimension to folks having to find up to 300 pounds extra per month.
It’s perhaps the biggest issue facing the government in the first half of the year.
By imposing caps, rather than letting the market do its thing, people are now going to blame government when the price rises, rather than greedy utilities and bad Mr Putin.
I would think that the Brexit-enabled dividend of dropping VAT of energy is a no-brainer before April.
Cutting vat will cut bills by 5%, if they’ve risen by 200-300% that will not be seen as an adequate response.
Not ideal conditions for a Tory revival.
Oh, it will indeed be a drop in the ocean, but at least it’s an acknowledgement towards the problem.
The biggest mistake was imposing the price cap in the first place.
So wind the clock back and look at why the price cap was even considered - the perfect storm of endlessly rising bills and endlessly rising profits. The companies wouldn't behave so the regulated market intervened.
Except that the price cap wasn't anything to do with endlessly rising bills and profits. It was an attempt to do something about the way in which the market did over customers who didn't switch, in favour of those who did.
Those of us who understood how the system worked prior to the cap did very badly out of it (my energy bills pretty much doubled) as all the good deals promptly evaporated.
The creators of the cap (being politicians in search of a quick fix, and therefore stupid) never considered what would happen if the cost of wholesale energy doubled or trippled overnight, so set the cap up with a fairly slow review process, which is fine if wholesale trends move slowly. It was never intended to be used to make suppliers supply for long periods at a loss as currently is occurring.
It would have been very politically difficult to deal with a sudden price rise of the current scales before the price cap, but now via the laws of unintended consequences its going to be a massive political football when the price cap is next reset.
Comparing the graphs of coal spot prices to gas spot prices, if we had any real opposition they'd be crucifying the government over the closing of coal fired baseload generation in favour of gas - whilst the coal price has risen, its gone up around 50% rather than 300%.
This is just basic economics. If a country or the EU imposes a price cap they will run out of people prepared to sell them gas at that price. If they have longer term contracts they may be able to force supply for a time, until their supplier goes bust but that is it.
We are clearly more vulnerable to the spot price than many EU counties but this has little or nothing to do with the market being regulated. It is because most EU countries have strategic stores of gas that can be used to deflate the market at a spot peak and we don't.
Turns out closing storage facilities has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
The lack of willingness to invest in strategic resilience has been one of the biggest mistakes of the last 30 years. Bet that Thatcher wouldn’t have made it 😉
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
No, there is no point stating in power for its own sake if it means not pursuing conservatism but pursuing social democracy and high taxes on your core vote to do so. Better to rebuild in opposition
Have you ever considered that politics might be a means to an end, and not an end in itself?
(apart from for those making money from careers in it, obvs).
Management of government without any core belief and any ideology is pointless.
It would end up with a 1997 result anyway but worse for the Tories as it would see far greater betrayal of the Tory core vote than Major ever did
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
I heard a conspiracy theory that Wales is kept off the agenda because they've been infiltrated by a closet Plaid supporter? Surely that can't be true.
I was utterly amazed when @HYUFD admitted voting for Plaid, after all the accusations that having voted for Blair twice I was not a true conservative disciple
I think the word is hypocrisy
I don't think our friend was being hypocritical; there was no Tory candidate and he wanted to vote, but not Labour. You on the other hand forsook the True Church when the opportunity to attend was there.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You talk as a right wing southern Englishman who is only interested in protecting your entitlement and privileges and quite frankly deserve to be in opposition, permanently
If we pursued your chosen new goals of high taxes and open door immigration from India we would be in opposition permanently beyond doubt
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
Indeed. Culturally Alberta is the Texas of Canada but there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that there'd be any desire for Albertans to join the USA ... or coastal US states to join Canada.
It is simply not something anyone is interested in. Actually Albertans if there were to want constitutional reform then the one thing I've heard discussed over there is the idea of Western Independence.
They consider, quite rightly, that a lot of taxes go from West to East while the politics is dominated by the East so Western Independence could be a thing but joining the USA simply isn't on the radar.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
There is your real Tory speaking , as long as "I am all right Jack" you peasants can F off. There will never be levelling up under the Tories , they are too selfish and greedy.
You must not attack his entitlement to a one million pound tax free inheritance Malc
And happy new year to you and your family
Hello G, Hope 2022 is a great one for you and your family. I am almost over Covid , just in time to go back to work. be happier when this miserable weather is gone .
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas ---------------- Ayn Rand libertarianism and Thatcherite free market economics are in direct opposition to socialism. Social democracy is just watered down socialism like Christian democracy and One Nation Toryism is watered down capitalism. Social Democrats accept the role of the market unlike socialists but they still want a government led and big state, high tax and high spend and high regulation economy --------------
It's alarming how often I agree with you, HYUFD - I think both those statements are right (though I also think that Canada will stay Canada and that labels are of limited use as a guide to what people think). Your last sentence pretty much sums me up.
I don't agree. The idea of one ideology being described as a "watered down" version of another it deeply problematic. It is a cousin to the "slippery slope" argument, and equally invalid. Opponents of one ideology try to harness more widespread distaste for a separate ideology by linking the two of them in ways the proponents of either would not. It's the same process by which everyone on Twitter is seemingly either a communist or a fascist, when in reality almost nobody is either.
Lastly, don't ignore the Marxist influence in libertarianism. Libertarianism is a mixed-heritage system of thought, with elements of liberalism, anarchism, and socialism. There is a hard-left route into libertarianism, so to describe is as directly opposite is either mischievous or ignorant of the history and topography of political ideology.
Ayn Rand libertarianism basically does not believe in any role for the state at all bar protection of private property, it is as far from Marxist Socialism as can be. Many Thatcherites and Reaganites were influenced by Rand in the 1980s.
Leftist anarchism is not libertarianism either as it believes in taking private property
I did not that are the same thing, I said there is a route from one into the other. You see, this is the problem. When you start mixing the proximity, identity, and convertibility of ideologies in order to sell a temporary point in a discussion, you kick up mud and confuse yourself. Also, trying to lump four different ideologies together into two supercategories whilst maintaining a fine distinction between different varieties of libertarianism is as odd a curatorial decision as I can imagine.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to them all apart from Wyoming and just cannot believe the rubbish @HYUFD comes up with
It is surreal
But have you been to Epping?
Actually no
Parts are very pleasant; pre-overspill, a traditional small Essex town.Think there was a market. Used to have.... maybe still has, ..... an excellent independent butchers.And a pharmacy which had been, IIRC, owned by the same family for many, many years
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
Just another windbag chancer, none of this lot have any talent. Just a large team of grifters and /or dumplings.
Yes but TBF Malc you think that of every politician except Alex Salmond, Ken Clarke and possibly Joanna Cherry.
First two anyway Ydoethur, jury out on Cherry. I did like Lord Tonypandy back in the day.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
This is the truth about where New Labour went wrong. Remember that Many was relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer? Doesn't matter - they thought - because we're lifting you out of institutionalised poverty, building new schools and hospitals, transforming your life chances etc. The list of their achievements in office - direct benefits to the red wall achievements - is extensive.
And yet ultimately so many of the people benefitting from New Labour think they did nothing. Why? Because of economic relativity. They picked up places like Teesside and lifted them towards where the south was. But the south was also lifting, so the disparity remained. Whats worse, so many of the new job opportunities were service jobs - hard graft in an anonymous warehouse for you to make the south richer
And those northern service jobs were generally worse paid than the disappearing industrial and mining jobs they replaced.
Even if they paid the same, too many outsiders miss the big picture. Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit. The knowledge that your work was doing something big, something that put your town on the map, your work noticed. And a job for your sons.
What do warehouse and call centre jobs offer, even if the work pays the same? No pride. No worth. No image. No security. Labour then spent their time in government and beyond either saying this is the new world deal with it, or 'this is the Tories fault, deal with it'.
No wonder people voted for Brexit and then Boris to get Brexit done. But here we are in 2022 and the only thing that's been done is the red wall voter. I expect many will swing back to Labour as a muscle memory. But turnout will be lower because whats the point?
" Heavy industry gave a place an identity. Pride. A community spirit."
Having talked to people who worked in heavy industry in the past - mining, steelworking - I think that' a BS generalisation. For one thing, from a couple of people I've chatted to, there was a sense of camaraderie in workers down in a mine - as you might expect from a dangerous environment. But that did not necessarily extend to the majority of workers who were on the surface. I've heard people talk about three 'classes' of mineworkers, even into the 1980s: the ones working underground (the ones we always think of), those working at grass, and the clerical workers. They did not necessarily get along.
It also ignores the vast majority of the people who did not work in the heavy industry, but in support industries, from pubs to shops, equipment supply to transport.
I also think you're being very nasty towards call centres and their workers. It's probably a better job than working in an accounts office at a mine.
I have worked in a call centre...
I completely take your point that not all miners are equal, not all jobs are equal. Of course. But I do stand by the image that towns had as a mining town or a cotton town or a steel town or a shipbuilding town. Most of them are littered with reminders of their shared history with this hole where a shared present and future would be if they had one.
And the fact that they were one-industry towns is exactly why they failed, and is a mistake we cannot afford to make again. But even then, the majority of people did not work directly in those industries.
People complain about Thatcher and the death of those industries, even if that death had been occurring long before her (e.g. shipbuilding, mining), and continued into Major and New Labour.
Sure! As Labour closed more railway lines and stations than Beeching did. Which is why I talk in political eras rather than specific governments. The rot set in at the end of the post-war era. The global energy crisis, crap management and communist unions created a very difficult position.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
If she wanted to 'remove industry', why did she work like the devil to bring the big car manufacturers and other industries in? I think the story is much more nuanced than you claim.
That was to break the traditional industrial unions, and of course to export to the EU Single Market.
There's a good argument that the slow trickle of benefit from membership of the EEC/EU as the Single Market evolved played as significant a role in the UK's recovery from being the 'sick man of Europe' in the 1970s as did the 1980s Thatcherite reforms.
Wishful thinking by pro Europeans.
The Thatcherite reforms were far more serious and it's worth noting that significant differences and sick men remained in Europe.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
Some years ago I went on a cruise to the Artic and Svalbard and as we crossed the Artic circle the temperature was 26* which was just crazy for our location
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Someone who is already wealthy would say that, whether it is true or not? Cf MRD.
MRD?
Mandy Rice-Davies. Profumo Affair. He would say that, wouldn't he. Normally PB-ified as MRDA (MRD applies).
Thanks. I know the quote obviously but wasn’t aware of the abbrev.
@MattW burning wood is inherently renewable and therefore possibly sustainable by the simple fact that we can regrow trees
I think you'll find that the hydrogen used for fusion that generates sunlight and grows the trees is finite. But you never talk about such things because you're clearly in the pocket of Big Sun.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
I heard a conspiracy theory that Wales is kept off the agenda because they've been infiltrated by a closet Plaid supporter? Surely that can't be true.
I was utterly amazed when @HYUFD admitted voting for Plaid, after all the accusations that having voted for Blair twice I was not a true conservative disciple
I think the word is hypocrisy
Nope, as I also voted for every Tory candidate on that ballot paper for Aberystwyth Town Council and the Tory candidate for Ceredigion unitary Council. There were only 4 Tory candidates but I had 6 votes and as I always use all my votes I voted for the only 2 candidates left who were Plaid.
When you voted Labour in 1997 and 2001 you were not voting for a Tory candidate as well, did you even vote for a Tory Council candidate even if you voted Labour nationally?
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
The 1st Epping Volunteer Tank Brigade only goes to Scotland and Spain.
I heard a conspiracy theory that Wales is kept off the agenda because they've been infiltrated by a closet Plaid supporter? Surely that can't be true.
I was utterly amazed when @HYUFD admitted voting for Plaid, after all the accusations that having voted for Blair twice I was not a true conservative disciple
I think the word is hypocrisy
I don't think our friend was being hypocritical; there was no Tory candidate and he wanted to vote, but not Labour. You on the other hand forsook the True Church when the opportunity to attend was there.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
I've noted that there is a definite shift towards accepting this is an airborne virus. Quite how some of the measures we still take are meant to work if that is the case is beyond me.
@MattW burning wood is inherently renewable and therefore possibly sustainable by the simple fact that we can regrow trees
I think you'll find that the hydrogen used for fusion that generates sunlight and grows the trees is finite. But you never talk about such things because you're clearly in the pocket of Big Sun.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
"We" are not destroying the world. China are.
If you want to tackle climate change seriously then cutting the "green crap" taxes on relatively extremely clean energy in the UK would be a good way to start.
Shifting our production from largely wind farmed electricity in the UK and importing from coal powered China helps the polar bears how?
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
By definition levelling up implies making the lower deciles better off. There is obviously a cost to that aka taxation. So long as it is levelling up to generate a better outcome and not levelling down I'm relaxed about it. Extra taxation isn't a deal breaker.
But you can't have levelling up without someone being levelled down. That's pure fantasy.
Of course you can.
That’s the fundamental difference between left and right.
Equality of opportunity and extra investment; more growth overall but the north gets richer faster (hence levelling up). That’s the right’s approach
The left would prefer equality of outcome, delivered through taxation and redistribution, which results in levelling down
Lazy.
The South is currently relatively much richer than the North. If you point the limited national resources at the North at the expense of the South (which is what is required), the South will relatively become poorer compared to the North.
This is just a fact of life. It doesn’t mean that the South doesn’t get objectively richer during the time, it just gets relatively poorer.
If the South doesn’t get relatively poorer, then its not true levelling up as the North/South divide remains.
May be we are talking at cross purposes.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
Levying extra tax on the South is what is required because otherwise you have to scale back investment in the South to free up funds for the North and that won’t be acceptable.
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
Neither increased tax on the South or less investment in the South would be acceptable. Better for the Tories to go into opposition and let a Starmer Labour government tax the South and spend on the North if it wants than for a Tory government to so betray its core vote like that
You sound more and more like a Corbynista every single day.
No, there is no point stating in power for its own sake if it means not pursuing conservatism but pursuing social democracy and high taxes on your core vote to do so. Better to rebuild in opposition
Have you ever considered that politics might be a means to an end, and not an end in itself?
(apart from for those making money from careers in it, obvs).
Management of government without any core belief and any ideology is pointless.
It would end up with a 1997 result anyway but worse for the Tories as it would see far greater betrayal of the Tory core vote than Major ever did
@MattW burning wood is inherently renewable and therefore possibly sustainable by the simple fact that we can regrow trees
We have run out of time. your regrown tree won't have captured useful amounts of carbon till about 2060, except it will have died in a drought or forest fire by then.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to them all apart from Wyoming and just cannot believe the rubbish @HYUFD comes up with
It is surreal
But have you been to Epping?
Actually no
Parts are very pleasant; pre-overspill, a traditional small Essex town.Think there was a market. Used to have.... maybe still has, ..... an excellent independent butchers.And a pharmacy which had been, IIRC, owned by the same family for many, many years
Still is a market and Churches butchers, which has been going since the late 1800s
Comments
I've not yet figured out whether he is a politician of substance, or just a facile operator.
What doesn't change though is that the UK government were explicitly warned what would happen if they both left the regulated market and removed gas storage. That is unique to the UK even if countries like Spain are being battered by factors we are protected from like interconnectivity.
That's utterly wrong. PFI is a tool. There are places where it is a perfectly acceptable tool to use: DBFO on roads, for instance. And there are places where it is a terrible tool - I'd argue that the more complex something is to run, the less applicable PFI is.
Hence roads are generally good for PFI (*). Schools can be difficult, but the tool may work. Hospitals are a poor fit IMO.
PFI-style projects first came under my radar in the late 1980s for road projects, then for a power station we were involved with in the early 1990s. Labour accelerated the number and scale of schemes for schools and hospitals, where IMV PFI is a much poorer fit.
Use the tool where it is appropriate.
(*) It depends on the contract, of course, but that's always the case.
Any real 'levelling up' would require substantial investment. And would take more than one Parliament.
The reason why Thatcher specifically gets mentioned - and she started the post-industrial era which we're now in - was that she explicitly wanted to remove industry. It was inefficient, costly and communist. Far better to sweep it away and focus on financial services and technology. Which would have been fine if having invested in technology we then retained ownership.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of this. Has it been published? If so does anyone have a link? Or is he just talking about that study in California last year?
Still waiting on that report from Scotland as well, if anyone knows about that.
You seem to believe that high gas prices can be regulated away, they can't. We're stuck with them until we spend money on an alternative or keep our fingers crossed that America will come to the rescue. That's as true here as it is across the EU.
Secondly, one of the possible future uses for gas storage is as a means of storing excess wind energy, by converting it to gas - but again the government isn't doing enough to prepare for future anticipated changes in energy supply.
If the South remains flat and the North improves its relative position that is levelling up.
It’s only if you take from the south (increasing tax to pay for current spending in the north - which was the historical labour approach under Blair/brown) that you get levelling down.
This is because the increased tax redistributes wealth without generating additional growth (because it’s current spending not investment). IMV “crowding out” is one of the biggest issues for the North and other less well off parts of the UK. But unfortunately national pay bargaining is a sine qua non for public sector unions
The South has to choose, more tax or less investment.
She, and later Blair, saw globalisation as a good thing. New Labour was more redistributive though, with its spending policies creating new opportunities in the North, admittingly mostly via the public sector, universities, consumerism and the night time economy, so concentrated in particular major cities.
Here in South Wales in the late 1980s and early 1990s European Social Fund money brought us Ford, Bosch, TRW, Allied Signal, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and many many more. When the Social fund money stopped they upped sticks and went East (and not to Norfolk).
I know everything is all New Labour's fault but one of Mrs Thatcher's grave errors was allowing foreign shareholding and ownership of British manufacturing. I understand the reasoning, foreign investment to bolster British companies to avoid Government having to bail them out. In places, it worked. It also allowed asset syripping by our foreign competitors.
I'm thinking that if I end up working from home again it will be worth using the emergency electric radiator in the spare room rather than turning the heating up.
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
----------------
Ayn Rand libertarianism and Thatcherite free market economics are in direct opposition to socialism. Social democracy is just watered down socialism like Christian democracy and One Nation Toryism is watered down capitalism. Social Democrats accept the role of the market unlike socialists but they still want a government led and big state, high tax and high spend and high regulation economy
--------------
It's alarming how often I agree with you, HYUFD - I think both those statements are right (though I also think that Canada will stay Canada and that labels are of limited use as a guide to what people think). Your last sentence pretty much sums me up.
And of course the money for maintenance will run out well before the end of the PFI 'mortgage' term, so what happens then? The idea that all the maintenance will be 'done' and hence there'll then be little more demand for spending on roads for the next ten or more years seems somewhat optimistic.
And happy new year to you and your family
Extra investment - there’s a vast amount of government money sloshing around the system. Not all of it well spent. It’s about choices not just increasing taxes to spend more.
https://gen.medium.com/the-ender-c525d87e66cf
It is surreal
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
Just boosting incentives for growth without any effort at redistribution is an argument advanced by the rich to avoid having to face the question of fairness and redistribition.
Just taxing and spending without any effort at stimulating the economy is an argument advanced by those who don't want to have to consider policies to create an environment friendly to business.
The uniqueness of our current position is that we have a government that is both determined to make the environment less business-friendly at the same time as avoiding doing much to address the significant and growing inequalities, whether of individual wealth or between regions and generations.
https://en.desk-russie.eu/2021/12/30/what-does-the-russian-ultimatum.html
I get a lovely warm smug feeling now everyone agrees with me.
* Except for the stove, the chimney, cleaning the chimney, cutting down branches around the chimney, petrol for the wood splitter, repairs to the wood splitter, the chainsaw, electricity for the chainsaw, the truck, petrol for the truck, insurance for the truck, repairs to the truck, terms and conditions may apply
Winning the redwall was useful to get Brexit done and through Parliament but if keeping it means pursuing high tax social democracy no thanks, better to go into opposition than that
There were a lot of problems in British industry in the Seventies, but management was often as hopeless as the unions. The sudden squeeze was too much for many of them to adapt.
I don't think she did. She was just holding the hot potato when it dropped. It was necessary, so it was done.
In 2009, under New Labour, the historic Butterley Ironworks closed after over 200 years. The company that gave us St Pancras Trainshed, HMS Warrior, the Falkirk Wheel, and the Spinnaker Tower amongst others, went totally unmourned by the Labour government and its local Labour MPs.
If it had happened under a Conservative government, how those same people would have been screeching about evil Tories closing historic businesses.
(apart from for those making money from careers in it, obvs).
I don't agree. Some cash is needed but other things are far more important and that's about fixing attitudes and tax reforms etc not expenditure.
I maintain that the best way to level up is tax reform to abolish the withdrawal rate on Universal Credit which causes the poverty trap.
It's the same process by which everyone on Twitter is seemingly either a communist or a fascist, when in reality almost nobody is either.
Lastly, don't ignore the Marxist influence in libertarianism. Libertarianism is a mixed-heritage system of thought, with elements of liberalism, anarchism, and socialism. There is a hard-left route into libertarianism, so to describe is as directly opposite is either mischievous or ignorant of the history and topography of political ideology.
Are they not so good in Spain? Of course their British operation springs from the building societies that they bought up after the GFC.
I think the word is hypocrisy
Here's Sadiq Khan in September 2017 wanting to start banning them in some areas:
Wood-burning stoves could be banned in some areas to combat air pollution under proposals by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan.
...
Khan said: “Non-transport sources contribute half of the deadly emissions in London, so we need a hard-hitting plan of action to combat them similar to moves I am taking to reduce pollution from road vehicles.
“With more than 400 schools located in areas exceeding legal pollution levels, and such significant health impacts on our most vulnerable communities, we cannot wait any longer, and I am calling on government to provide the capital with the necessary powers to effectively tackle harmful emissions from a variety of sources.”
The mayor has asked the environment department to amend the Clean Air Act to allow for the creation of zero-emission zones where the burning of solid fuel is not allowed from 2025 onwards.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/29/air-pollution-sadiq-khan-calls-for-ban-on-wood-burning-stoves
Leftist anarchism is not libertarianism either as it believes in taking private property
Blair/Brown’s we’re bad because they tried to use them for complex operating entities such as schools and hospitals. Those organisations need flexibility to optimise the use of space while the strictness of the PFI contracts (which need certainty and clarity) made that extraordinarily expensive
I don’t know enough about Osborne’s PFI contracts (I had the vague impression that it had been reduced in scale). But based on his track record I’m willing to believe that he took what Brown did and found a way to make it even more complicated and expensive.
⚫️Polar Bears are being forced to migrate from America to Russia due to climate change.
🌡️On Boxing Day, temperatures soared to a record 19.4C on the island of Kodiak in Alaska
#Thread 👇
https://t.co/727OIVjlyE https://t.co/rh6LwJiYAJ
https://twitter.com/TelegraphWorld/status/1477653423143145472?t=GlA_tRLP94lwe8IIT1Awug&s=19
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
It would end up with a 1997 result anyway but worse for the Tories as it would see far greater betrayal of the Tory core vote than Major ever did
You on the other hand forsook the True Church when the opportunity to attend was there.
It is simply not something anyone is interested in. Actually Albertans if there were to want constitutional reform then the one thing I've heard discussed over there is the idea of Western Independence.
They consider, quite rightly, that a lot of taxes go from West to East while the politics is dominated by the East so Western Independence could be a thing but joining the USA simply isn't on the radar.
You see, this is the problem. When you start mixing the proximity, identity, and convertibility of ideologies in order to sell a temporary point in a discussion, you kick up mud and confuse yourself. Also, trying to lump four different ideologies together into two supercategories whilst maintaining a fine distinction between different varieties of libertarianism is as odd a curatorial decision as I can imagine.
The Thatcherite reforms were far more serious and it's worth noting that significant differences and sick men remained in Europe.
When you voted Labour in 1997 and 2001 you were not voting for a Tory candidate as well, did you even vote for a Tory Council candidate even if you voted Labour nationally?
I was never persuaded by traditional religions, and feel no reason to lash myself with guilt over the cult of climate change.
If you want to tackle climate change seriously then cutting the "green crap" taxes on relatively extremely clean energy in the UK would be a good way to start.
Shifting our production from largely wind farmed electricity in the UK and importing from coal powered China helps the polar bears how?