I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
And we didn't frack.
We didn't, but from what I read (may be wrong) that wasn't a viable solution to produce enough gas to remove our need for expensive imports.
Sadly does not have the cut to a gently stunned Bob Harris at the end.
Me too! What a boon TOGWT was to lads (& possibly some lasses) in the provinces. It was my favourite tv along with World at War, and they made the creature before you today.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
The point is it isn't being misrepresented. I saw it live and my impression of her meaning was formed then, not because Polly Toynbee has misrepresented it to me later on. Now maybe I have misinterpreted it, but if a whole room full of people watched the speech and all took the meaning from it that the government despised them then I think you have to ask yourself whose fault that is. Hint: It's not the fault of the Guardian.
Well, if a whole roomful of people thought they fell into one of these categories:
So if you’re a boss who earns a fortune but doesn’t look after your staff…
An international company that treats tax laws as an optional extra…
A household name that refuses to work with the authorities even to fight terrorism…
A director who takes out massive dividends while knowing that the company pension is about to go bust…
.. then I guess it must have been a pretty extraordinary roomful, but it doesn't alter the plain meaning of what she said.
It was the line "But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means." May's meaning there is abundantly clear.
Yup, to the extent that there's a substantive point, as opposed to a series of pseudo-populist evasions, it's that responsibility to a community is intrinsically connected with nationalism, and if you're not a nationalist, about the country you live in no less, you don't have responsibility to your community.
This is a huge fuck you to all the people from other countries who are being helpful to their communities in countries they don't have citizenship in and dutifully paying their taxes in countries that don't give them the right to vote.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I've done work while intoxicated before.
So have I - and I was duly fired.
It's the government which is making an issue about this because they want to distract from the actual issue which is flouting COVID issues. The result if they get away with it is that public sector workers will have another nagging edict from the centre which will make their lives slightly less pleasant.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you ask PB to draw a cave painting of society - half will draw on institutions, parliaments, churches, democracy - the other Half will draw stick people in family or other societal groups likes streets or neighbourhood. So it’s a question of perspective of society, if you are in one grouping the other concept of society does not exist, there is no such thing as it.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Turn on the old lignite burners like Germany? No thanks. We've already trashed the planet enough.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph gives homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
Food bank use is capped by food bank supply, not food bank demand.
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
This is nonsense, as I've mentioned, but I know I'm not going to change your mind.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph gives homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
Food bank use is capped by food bank supply, not food bank demand.
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
This is nonsense, as I've mentioned, but I know I'm not going to change your mind.
How is it nonsense?
Do you think that pre-2013 the food banks were receiving donations that they were binning as they had nobody demanding it?
Don't be ridiculous. Supply has always been the limiter for charity, not demand.
I don't think this is quite right in terms of particular types of charity.
Charities quite often close, refocus, or scale back due to the underlying demand drying up. For example, the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association was a big deal in the 19th century, as provision became a major cause following cholera epidemics. It does actually still exist to make small grants, but is hardly the household name it once was.
Similarly, some charities run into difficulties due to receiving more in donations than they need. For example, Guide Dogs for the Blind had to distribute some of its vast reserves to other charitable organisations (a worthy cause but it attracts maybe attracts disproportionate donations given the relatively limited remit and declining incidence of blindness, because it hits a sweet spot in people's hearts between nice doggies and people in need of support). See also donkey sanctuaries.
I do, to an extent, get your point - numbers of food banks are a very loose proxy for the scale of the issue of families struggling to afford food. But, noting I can't just walk into a food bank and pick up freebies (it's a need-based referral system), the level of supply does give some indication of demand. Really, if the benefits system was functioning well, and the economy performing better, both demand and supply would tend to be lower.
The drinking fountain association both supports and undermines your point. As water supplies improved, it became a charity whose scale outstripped the need. Fountains gradually provided became ever more ornate and more a matter of public art than meeting clean water need in some cases. But, as demand for its underlying service reduced, the donations and scale of the organisation did too albeit as a lagging response.
The local by-elections yesterday were somewhat atypical and not much could be drawn from them about the current party polling situation. But there were a number of town/parish elections yesterday which give a clearer picture. El Capitano has already mentioned the Lib Dem gain in Carterton. There were also Lib Dem gains from the Conservatives in Dawlish and Burbage and from Labour in Hatfield.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
As it seems is most other countries
Its the global price of gas that has exploded, and with it electricity prices where gas is prevalent in generating electricity as it is here. So yeah, not just the UK. Each country has its own unique mix of generation methods and interconnects, and ours is being massively reliant on gas. A pity that we chose to forget how to make nuclear stations.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
I agree with your main point, but AUIU the Reeves policy is simply to make sure that the 1.25% extra "income tax" (effectively) for health and social care is borne on unearned income as well as earned income - which seems pretty just. It wouldn't have any impact on income received by pension funds because they aren't within scope of the taxes that would be affected. As for rents rising, that seems pretty unlikely (as far as I know, the restriction of mortgage interest relief on personally-owned BTLs has not been shown to have a significant impact on rents, and for a normally-leveraged property it has a far bigger impact on tax cost than a 1.25% rate increase would).
Context: It's had significant effect on how many BTLs are now owned by companies. Especially amongst medium sized portfolios. There's been a polarisation as the Osborne measures have driven a polarisation.
The number that have low % of mortgage, or have mortgages paid off, is a further impact, which has reduced the resources available for investment in improving housing.
I'd say that "huge energy bills for two years" is mainly industry scaremongering.
Absolutely - I think it's a pretty terrible policy with lots of apparently unintended effects (balancing up the benefit of full interest deductibility with the higher/two-layer tax charge on getting property sales proceeds back out of a company is a particularly fun exercise), but in general landlords are already charging the highest rent that they can get, and I struggle with the idea that tenants will suddenly be willing to pay more rent because the tax rate applicable to the landlord changes.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
..why can’t we build any nuclear reactors? I had thought we’d recently endorsed a small nuclear consortium led by Rolls Royce.
I get that there’s a gap between building these things and seeing the actual generation delivered to the national grid
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
One interesting aspect is certainly the 2011-2012 increase. That may be the one caused by the 2010 voucher referrals scheme which caused the government to then change the system ; there was actually some embarassment at the numbers using foodbanks in government circles, so it was actually made more indirect after that.
The much smaller proportionate increase than between 2013-15 that seems to have taken place between 2010-2012, I should say - those graphs give different year sets. That would be consistent with a smaller uptick from the new DWP vouchers first, that the Cameron government first put in.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
There's about 2.5GW of offshore wind coming on stream this year, which will reduce the need for gas to generate lecky, plus elec demand falls by 15-20% in the summer, plus gas demand falls due to no heating, plus both are currently in secular decline.
Plus one of our big interconnectors is still being repaired.
So plenty of factors both sides. Rishi needs to get away from focussing on the retail side on this one.
Here's a recent gas demand prediction to show trends:
Much as it galls me to say it but any hint of a new relationship with the EU which brings back FoM let alone a full rejoin is probably the best way to shore up Boris's leadership or ensure a hard-line replacement. It will also likely to shore up the Tory vote considerably.
Why galled? Are you a supporter of FOM?
I'm ambivalent - living in Spain I get the advantages but I understand the issue for some in the UK. The problem is the UK benefits system is generous compared to many EU countries. Had the EU been more flexible to take account of these matters a major reason for the vote to leave would have gone.
They should have if they were thinking in the long term. However, the system was largely working for the rest of the EU. Immigrant workers with wages topped up by tax credits were then sending the money back home. They never really thought the UK would vote to leave.
Cameron's error was not making clear to the EU that there was a real chance the UK would vote to leave. The EU's error was not also seeing this and being more flexible. Errors all round.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Thanks for reinforcing my points that you are clueless on the issue.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
Can you identify any western country who is doing that
A lot of them are still running on "dirty power", that is what the whole climate issue is about
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I've done work while intoxicated before.
Posting on PB isn’t work Phil!
I thought he had changed names here as he did not to use his real life name.
It is straightforward courtesy to respect that request.
A common first name is not identifiable like
I have requested you don't use my real life name please, I have my own personal reasons for doing so and I am not using it online anymore for discussions anywhere.
Please show me the civil courtesy of respecting that. I am not using your name.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
There's about 2.5GW of offshore wind coming on stream this year, which will reduce the need for gas to generate lecky, plus elec demand falls by 15-20% in the summer, plus gas demand falls due to no heating, plus both are currently in secular decline.
Plus one of our big interconnectors is still being repaired.
So plenty of factors both sides. Rishi needs to get away from focussing on the retail side on this one.
Here's a recent gas demand prediction to show trends:
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Thanks for reinforcing my points that you are clueless on the issue.
Not clueless. Please tell me when food banks were getting inundated with food that they couldn't distribute due to lack of demand?
Demand for free is infinite. Yes people may not want to be in that situation, but people always have been and always will be in the situation where they are desperate.
When they are, its better to have charity available than predators.
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
The attraction of Boris to some of my friends was that he was "not a normal politician" he was "different" and (God help us) "a bit of a laugh". They wanted a change from the weasley ways of politics and they definitely got a change!
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
I can sympathise with your friends because I felt much the same when I voted for him, but that was for MAyor of London, a largely ceremonial post and the alternative was a discredited Ken Livingstone.
When we look back at Boris's career we should never overlook the part Labour played in offering up unacceptable alternatives.
Yes - the Labour madness with Corbyn was a big part of this. It underscores the importance of the LOTO
Which of the Conservative leadership candidates in 2019 were unacceptable Labour stooges in your opinion? The list is at the link below. I backed against Boris because I thought it inconceivable any sane party could elect him. Tory MPs followed the opinion polls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leadership_election
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
How many are left? Of three big ones near me, two, Ferrybridge C and Eggborough have been or are in the middle of being demolished. The third, Drax, is still going generating with biomass.
Are there any left that could be reactivated without incurring prohibitive costs?
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
And we didn't frack.
We didn't, but from what I read (may be wrong) that wasn't a viable solution to produce enough gas to remove our need for expensive imports.
Even if not complete removal, any reduction would have helped.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
Well done Rory!
We have been over the death toll arguments ad infinitum, but here goes again. We have not done that well on keeping covid deaths down. But its almost impossible to really rank nation against nation, if you should even try to do that. There is no consensus about what is a covid death, even just in the UK. Hence deaths within 28 days of a positive test (you could be run over while asymptomatic and count as a death from covid on that measure, although it has mostly balanced out those who took longer than 28 days to die, and it gives a quick number), death certificate showing where a medic put covid as being involved (but not saying it was definitely covid thatr killed them), excess deaths over the 5 year average etc.
I think our initial vaccine procurement and roll out was great. Other nations were able to step on the gas when the supply increased, and now the west is limited not by supply, but by demand. I believe the best decision has been the July opening. Many wont agree, but I think having a high cases load, tragic for those badly affected or worse though it would have been, has contributed to the paper tiger nature of omicron. That we have 96% of the population with antibodies is great, and some of that has been through infection of vaccine refusniks, as a result of opening up for the exit wave* in July.
We moan about test and trace while routinely doing lateral flows twice a week or more. We have been able to turn around vast numbers of pcr tests in recent times, and our sequencing is second to none world-wide. The dirty truth about covid is that asymptomatic spread rendered classic contact tracing obselete.
We have not got everything right - no-one has. We could almost certainly have avoided tens of thousands of deaths, but decisions should be appraised in the light of what was known at the time.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
Can you identify any western country who is doing that
I keep hearing that US domestic petrol and heating gas prices are a fraction of ours. Is that not the case?
Precisely. The continuing efforts to rewrite history and blame the pig's breakfast we have now on anyone other than the fools in the Conservative and Unionist Party who delivered it are laughable. May's Citizens of Nowhere speech (probably the only speech in my lifetime that gets raised regularly in casual conversation among non political types) closed off the soft Brexit route. As did the Tory whipping against those options in the Commons votes. It is nobody else's fault.
The way that May's 'Citizens' of Nowhere' speech has been traduced and misrepresented is one of the most extraordinary feature of the of politics of the last decade. You obviously haven't read it, but you have strong views about it.
It's not even principally about Brexit, but here's what she actually said about the relationship with the EU:
It is, of course, too early to say exactly what agreement we will reach with the EU. It’s going to be a tough negotiation, it will require some give and take. And while there will always be pressure to give a running commentary, it will not be in our national interest to do so.
But let me be clear about the agreement we seek. I want it to reflect the strong and mature relationships we enjoy with our European friends. I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work. I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services.
I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within the Single Market – and let European businesses do the same here.
But let’s state one thing loud and clear: we are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration all over again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That’s not going to happen.
There's no closing off there, quite the opposite. She was genuinely trying to find a route which respected the referendum result but kept trade frictions to a minimum. It was of course a hugely difficult circle to square, and she failed in the end, thanks to the 2017 election disaster and Labour joining the ERG in torpedoing any compromise, but she was certainly trying hard.
And the 'citizens of nowhere' phrase was about tax evaders and irresponsible employers, but was seized upon by the Guardian-reading classes and twisted into something which bore no relation to what she was saying.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
These recurring spasms of PB Tories telling all and sundry what Tory politicians acksherly meant (which have cropped up since I were a PB lad) tend to make me think said pols weren’t great communicators.
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
The attraction of Boris to some of my friends was that he was "not a normal politician" he was "different" and (God help us) "a bit of a laugh". They wanted a change from the weasley ways of politics and they definitely got a change!
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
I can sympathise with your friends because I felt much the same when I voted for him, but that was for MAyor of London, a largely ceremonial post and the alternative was a discredited Ken Livingstone.
When we look back at Boris's career we should never overlook the part Labour played in offering up unacceptable alternatives.
Yes - the Labour madness with Corbyn was a big part of this. It underscores the importance of the LOTO
Which of the Conservative leadership candidates in 2019 were unacceptable Labour stooges in your opinion? The list is at the link below. I backed against Boris because I thought it inconceivable any sane party could elect him. Tory MPs followed the opinion polls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leadership_election
I do not understand what you are getting at. The election of Corbyn made Labour unelectable and turned the UK into an effective one party state.
If there had been a credible Labour leader and opposition, the 2017 or 2019 election may well have had a very different outcome
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
I find it a bit surprising that the UK has a higher rate of homelessness than the UK, I strongly suspect that definitions must be different.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I've done work while intoxicated before.
Times have changed even since West Wing (and in US shows politicians/ cops etc always seem to be boozing in their offices).
A pt in the pub at lunch would be the max in many areas now I think - its be anathema to consider a drink on the premises or during work hours where ive worked.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks, with a voucher. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you ask PB to draw a cave painting of society - half will draw on institutions, parliaments, churches, democracy - the other Half will draw stick people in family or other societal groups likes streets or neighbourhood. So it’s a question of perspective of society, if you are in one grouping the other concept of society does not exist, there is no such thing as it.
And yet the institutions by themselves cannot do anything - only people can do things. Parliament can pass a law, but if the vast majority of people don't observe it then does the law truly exist?
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
So what. The header of the link makes clear homelessness here includes the definitions 'living in a shelter, being in a transitional phase of housing and living in a place not fit for human habitation. The numbers may take into account internal displacement from conflict, violence and natural disasters.'
The definition can vary however, in terms of actual rough sleeping 'As for the number of people rough sleeping, the latest official count found a total of 2,688 people were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2020 in England, down 37 per cent on the 4,266 people recorded in 2019.'
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
Can you identify any western country who is doing that
I keep hearing that US domestic petrol and heating gas prices are a fraction of ours. Is that not the case?
Sad news about Meatloaf. The Good Lady Wife is quite cut up - she wrote songs for him and knew him well. She spoke to John Parr (of St Elmo's Fire fame) this morning - John had only spoken to him last week, and he'd been invited to support him on a 20 date tour later this year.....
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
I find it a bit surprising that the UK has a higher rate of homelessness than the US, I strongly suspect that definitions must be different.
Perhaps so but they do seem to try and nuance it all - for example with the comments about Germany housing many refugees. But I agree it surprises me as well.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
How many are left? Of three big ones near me, two, Ferrybridge C and Eggborough have been or are in the middle of being demolished. The third, Drax, is still going generating with biomass.
Are there any left that could be reactivated without incurring prohibitive costs?
Somebody will know. My point is that moving money about and wittering about prices is not the answer. More generating capacity is the answer. If anyone is dealing with that then they seem to be keeping it very quiet. I have not seen Boris (or anyone else) standing up in the House and saying "We are expanding our generating capacity as follows...."
The local by-elections yesterday were somewhat atypical and not much could be drawn from them about the current party polling situation. But there were a number of town/parish elections yesterday which give a clearer picture. El Capitano has already mentioned the Lib Dem gain in Carterton. There were also Lib Dem gains from the Conservatives in Dawlish and Burbage and from Labour in Hatfield.
Thank you Slade. Imo the strength of libdems in actual elections call into question the national polling models showing them drop into single figures whilst arch enemy in much of the country is on the slide.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
No he's not being misleading in this instance since people with temporary shelter are defined as homeless in the UK too. So you should compare the UK's raw figure with Germany's raw figure for a like-for-like comparison.
This is like discussions about poverty, but where poverty has been redefined to mean inequality. International tables and comparisons are absurd if you aren't comparing like for like.
There is no way the real homeless situation in the UK is worse than America's. Any drive or walk through British and American cities would confirm that.
One or two bits of interesting polling from further afield.
The latest French polling shows Pecresse back ahead of Le Pen in first round polling but still losing to Macron by 53-47 in a hypothetical run off.
From Barbados (or should we now call it Newham in the Caribbean) where the Barbados Labour Party won all 30 seats in the GE on Wednesday. The re-elected Prime Minister Mia Mottley presided over a second successive absolute victory over the Democratic Labour Party.
Another triumph for what some might call "elected anocracy".
Portugal votes in nine days and the latest opinion poll has piqued my interest - changes from the last election:
Socialists: 37% (+1) Social Democrats: 33% (+5) Enough (Chega): 6% (+5) Left Bloc: 5% (-5) Movement for Unity Coalition: 5% (-1) Liberal Initiative: 5% (+4)
That's a 2% swing to the opposition Social Democrats - in terms of seats it looks like around 105 for the Socialists and 95 for the Social Democrats with Chega winning 8 and the Left Bloc, Movement for Unity and Liberal Initiative all on 6 or 7 each in the 230-seat National Assembly.
While Socialist Prime Minister Costa still leads Social Democrat leader Rio 50-35 in preferred PM polling, the gap has closed (as often happens). Until this poll (which may be an outlier), I thought Costa would get back quite easily but I'm less certain now and if we see other polls showing growing support for the Social Democrats there may yet be fun and games down Lisbon way at the end of the month.
Much as it galls me to say it but any hint of a new relationship with the EU which brings back FoM let alone a full rejoin is probably the best way to shore up Boris's leadership or ensure a hard-line replacement. It will also likely to shore up the Tory vote considerably.
Why galled? Are you a supporter of FOM?
I'm ambivalent - living in Spain I get the advantages but I understand the issue for some in the UK. The problem is the UK benefits system is generous compared to many EU countries. Had the EU been more flexible to take account of these matters a major reason for the vote to leave would have gone.
They should have if they were thinking in the long term. However, the system was largely working for the rest of the EU. Immigrant workers with wages topped up by tax credits were then sending the money back home. They never really thought the UK would vote to leave.
Cameron's error was not making clear to the EU that there was a real chance the UK would vote to leave. The EU's error was not also seeing this and being more flexible. Errors all round.
I'd suggest that Cameron's biggest error was not even understanding that there was a real chance that we would vote to leave so that even if he did try to tell the EU that there was, it wouldn't have been convincing.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
I agree with your main point, but AUIU the Reeves policy is simply to make sure that the 1.25% extra "income tax" (effectively) for health and social care is borne on unearned income as well as earned income - which seems pretty just. It wouldn't have any impact on income received by pension funds because they aren't within scope of the taxes that would be affected. As for rents rising, that seems pretty unlikely (as far as I know, the restriction of mortgage interest relief on personally-owned BTLs has not been shown to have a significant impact on rents, and for a normally-leveraged property it has a far bigger impact on tax cost than a 1.25% rate increase would).
Context: It's had significant effect on how many BTLs are now owned by companies. Especially amongst medium sized portfolios. There's been a polarisation as the Osborne measures have driven a polarisation.
The number that have low % of mortgage, or have mortgages paid off, is a further impact, which has reduced the resources available for investment in improving housing.
I'd say that "huge energy bills for two years" is mainly industry scaremongering.
Absolutely - I think it's a pretty terrible policy with lots of apparently unintended effects (balancing up the benefit of full interest deductibility with the higher/two-layer tax charge on getting property sales proceeds back out of a company is a particularly fun exercise), but in general landlords are already charging the highest rent that they can get, and I struggle with the idea that tenants will suddenly be willing to pay more rent because the tax rate applicable to the landlord changes.
Rather disagree with your "highest rent they can get in general" comment.
There is a huge advantage to longer term stable tenants paying a somewhat lower rent than a property could achieve, and a *lot* of LLs do it. Changing tenants, voids and refurbs are the expensive part of being a LL.
I'm not sure if stats are available.
(Just checked with my Lettings Agent and a significant number of their LLs let rents fall behind market to keep tenants, then reset to market when a T leaves.)
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered and slightly restricted.
Yes because the supply wasn't there to meet the demand in 2010. 🤦♂️
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
The local by-elections yesterday were somewhat atypical and not much could be drawn from them about the current party polling situation. But there were a number of town/parish elections yesterday which give a clearer picture. El Capitano has already mentioned the Lib Dem gain in Carterton. There were also Lib Dem gains from the Conservatives in Dawlish and Burbage and from Labour in Hatfield.
I don't read too much into individual local council results, particularly smaller seats as so influenced by candidates and local factors. However, the Dawlish one is a vaguely interesting one as pretty big electorate for a town council (750+ votes cast) and it lies in Newton Abbott which was once a Lib Dem seat and has an MP who has the Tory whip suspended.
Coalition and Brexit was a double whammy that absolutely hammered the Lib Dems in the Westcountry more even than elsewhere - they lost the anti-Tory vote and then the anti-Europe vote in very short order. An interesting question at the next election is whether there are signs of life and recovery as the protest vehicle of choice in an area where Labour have never really been able to crack in a big way. Winning Newton Abbott back would take a huge swing, but there's a question of whether a foothold can be regained.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
The point is it isn't being misrepresented. I saw it live and my impression of her meaning was formed then, not because Polly Toynbee has misrepresented it to me later on. Now maybe I have misinterpreted it, but if a whole room full of people watched the speech and all took the meaning from it that the government despised them then I think you have to ask yourself whose fault that is. Hint: It's not the fault of the Guardian.
Well, if a whole roomful of people thought they fell into one of these categories:
So if you’re a boss who earns a fortune but doesn’t look after your staff…
An international company that treats tax laws as an optional extra…
A household name that refuses to work with the authorities even to fight terrorism…
A director who takes out massive dividends while knowing that the company pension is about to go bust…
.. then I guess it must have been a pretty extraordinary roomful, but it doesn't alter the plain meaning of what she said.
It was the line "But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means." May's meaning there is abundantly clear.
Yup, to the extent that there's a substantive point, as opposed to a series of pseudo-populist evasions, it's that responsibility to a community is intrinsically connected with nationalism, and if you're not a nationalist, about the country you live in no less, you don't have responsibility to your community.
This is a huge fuck you to all the people from other countries who are being helpful to their communities in countries they don't have citizenship in and dutifully paying their taxes in countries that don't give them the right to vote.
I hope she chokes to death on a mince pie.
I believe that **** Nick Timothy was largely responsible for the speech so there should be at least two mince pies. The boon of not having to encounter his shit any more would be considerable.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
There's about 2.5GW of offshore wind coming on stream this year, which will reduce the need for gas to generate lecky, plus elec demand falls by 15-20% in the summer, plus gas demand falls due to no heating, plus both are currently in secular decline.
Plus one of our big interconnectors is still being repaired.
So plenty of factors both sides. Rishi needs to get away from focussing on the retail side on this one.
Here's a recent gas demand prediction to show trends:
But the UK press only like scare stories.
Thanks for that
Cheers. I'm not arguing its the whole picture, but it's a complex setup.
I would like to see Rishi give short term relief to generators, then review in 6 months.
I think that Mr Macron's approach was quite innovative - gave a direction to EDF to hold prices for an extra 5% of the nation's energy supply which slugged their share price by 25%, but is mainly a non-obvious hit on the French State as they own 85% of it.
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
Yes. People might have disagreed with that choice then or regret it now, but it was done with open eyes by politicians press and the public.
That doesnt mean any failings are acceptable, people can still be mad and take corrective action, but it wasnt as though people felt it was saintly boris vs evil Jeremy - the political culture which led to both has been discussed for years.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
No he's not being misleading in this instance since people with temporary shelter are defined as homeless in the UK too. So you should compare the UK's raw figure with Germany's raw figure for a like-for-like comparison.
This is like discussions about poverty, but where poverty has been redefined to mean inequality. International tables and comparisons are absurd if you aren't comparing like for like.
There is no way the real homeless situation in the UK is worse than America's. Any drive or walk through British and American cities would confirm that.
When the UK takes in a million or so refugees like Germany has over the last few years then you might have a point. Until then you are just talking bullshit. Germany has a short term issue related to accepting all those refugees. The UK has a long standing and endemic problem with homelessness which no Government has been taking seriously.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you ask PB to draw a cave painting of society - half will draw on institutions, parliaments, churches, democracy - the other Half will draw stick people in family or other societal groups likes streets or neighbourhood. So it’s a question of perspective of society, if you are in one grouping the other concept of society does not exist, there is no such thing as it.
And yet the institutions by themselves cannot do anything - only people can do things. Parliament can pass a law, but if the vast majority of people don't observe it then does the law truly exist?
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered and slightly restricted.
Yes because the supply wasn't there to meet the demand in 2010. 🤦♂️
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
Almost none of this is true in this particular case, but I know that whatever I post will make little difference to your view.
I read this tweet and my immediate thought was why they were only using an 8-bit system (apologies to non-geeks).
British Army's new Apache helicopters that can detect 256 potential targets at once and prioritise threats in a matter of seconds are undergoing test flights at Wattisham Flying Station. With a top speed of 186mph, the new fleet can detect targets up to a range of 10 miles https://twitter.com/jjgiddens/status/1484494710043512835
As an aside last Summer we went for a break staying close to that base. Every day we had at least one flypass from Apache helicopters.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
How many are left? Of three big ones near me, two, Ferrybridge C and Eggborough have been or are in the middle of being demolished. The third, Drax, is still going generating with biomass.
Are there any left that could be reactivated without incurring prohibitive costs?
Somebody will know. My point is that moving money about and wittering about prices is not the answer. More generating capacity is the answer. If anyone is dealing with that then they seem to be keeping it very quiet. I have not seen Boris (or anyone else) standing up in the House and saying "We are expanding our generating capacity as follows...."
Yes. That's where Boris the Useless fails to save his Government's skin, whilst it is perfectly possible.
One or two bits of interesting polling from further afield.
The latest French polling shows Pecresse back ahead of Le Pen in first round polling but still losing to Macron by 53-47 in a hypothetical run off.
From Barbados (or should we now call it Newham in the Caribbean) where the Barbados Labour Party won all 30 seats in the GE on Wednesday. The re-elected Prime Minister Mia Mottley presided over a second successive absolute victory over the Democratic Labour Party.
Another triumph for what some might call "elected anocracy".
Portugal votes in nine days and the latest opinion poll has piqued my interest - changes from the last election:
Socialists: 37% (+1) Social Democrats: 33% (+5) Enough (Chega): 6% (+5) Left Bloc: 5% (-5) Movement for Unity Coalition: 5% (-1) Liberal Initiative: 5% (+4)
That's a 2% swing to the opposition Social Democrats - in terms of seats it looks like around 105 for the Socialists and 95 for the Social Democrats with Chega winning 8 and the Left Bloc, Movement for Unity and Liberal Initiative all on 6 or 7 each in the 230-seat National Assembly.
While Socialist Prime Minister Costa still leads Social Democrat leader Rio 50-35 in preferred PM polling, the gap has closed (as often happens). Until this poll (which may be an outlier), I thought Costa would get back quite easily but I'm less certain now and if we see other polls showing growing support for the Social Democrats there may yet be fun and games down Lisbon way at the end of the month.
53% to 47% still closer than the 56% to 44% Macron beats Le Pen by.
Note too that is on the basis of 58% of Le Pen and 52% of Zemmour voters sitting out a Pecresse v Macron runoff.
Those who will vote however would vote for Pecresse over Macron by about 4:1 (even more so for Zemmour voters), so Pecresse can shift further to the populist right in the runoff if needed to win them over
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
How many are left? Of three big ones near me, two, Ferrybridge C and Eggborough have been or are in the middle of being demolished. The third, Drax, is still going generating with biomass.
Are there any left that could be reactivated without incurring prohibitive costs?
Somebody will know. My point is that moving money about and wittering about prices is not the answer. More generating capacity is the answer. If anyone is dealing with that then they seem to be keeping it very quiet. I have not seen Boris (or anyone else) standing up in the House and saying "We are expanding our generating capacity as follows...."
We might have the first few natural gas fired plants with carbon capture coming on stream in the next four or five years or so. Keep an eye out for announcements of projects being selected under "Track 1, Phase 2" in April or May.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you ask PB to draw a cave painting of society - half will draw on institutions, parliaments, churches, democracy - the other Half will draw stick people in family or other societal groups likes streets or neighbourhood. So it’s a question of perspective of society, if you are in one grouping the other concept of society does not exist, there is no such thing as it.
And yet the institutions by themselves cannot do anything - only people can do things. Parliament can pass a law, but if the vast majority of people don't observe it then does the law truly exist?
I’m not disagreeing. 🙂
Can we put you down into the stick man column?
In a forced choice, then I guess yes. The difficulty is in knowing when the stick men can do things in their own groups, and when they have to work through institutions. The solution is not in naming it "the Big Society"...
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
No he's not being misleading in this instance since people with temporary shelter are defined as homeless in the UK too. So you should compare the UK's raw figure with Germany's raw figure for a like-for-like comparison.
This is like discussions about poverty, but where poverty has been redefined to mean inequality. International tables and comparisons are absurd if you aren't comparing like for like.
There is no way the real homeless situation in the UK is worse than America's. Any drive or walk through British and American cities would confirm that.
When the UK takes in a million or so refugees like Germany has over the last few years then you might have a point. Until then you are just talking bullshit. Germany has a short term issue related to accepting all those refugees. The UK has a long standing and endemic problem with homelessness which no Government has been taking seriously.
The UK has taken in millions of migrants over the last few years, net migration is considerably higher in the UK than it has been in Germany for many years now which inevitably affects the housing situation. Either way though on a like-for-like comparison the German situation is worse.
However I was primarily responding to your nonsense claim that the homeless situation in the UK is worse than the USA. Stop and think about that for thirty seconds please and think for thirty seconds about the fact that, like in Germany, those in temporary accommodation are classed as "homeless" in the UK.
Now after stopping and thinking do you still want to claim the homeless situation in the UK is worse than the USA? Really?
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered and slightly restricted.
Yes because the supply wasn't there to meet the demand in 2010. 🤦♂️
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
Almost none of this is true in this particular case, but I know that whatever I post will make little difference to your view.
What evidence do you have it isn't true? You haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. Do you have evidence of food banks sending mounds of food to landfill due to an absence of demand in 2011?
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
The attraction of Boris to some of my friends was that he was "not a normal politician" he was "different" and (God help us) "a bit of a laugh". They wanted a change from the weasley ways of politics and they definitely got a change!
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
I can sympathise with your friends because I felt much the same when I voted for him, but that was for MAyor of London, a largely ceremonial post and the alternative was a discredited Ken Livingstone.
When we look back at Boris's career we should never overlook the part Labour played in offering up unacceptable alternatives.
Yes - the Labour madness with Corbyn was a big part of this. It underscores the importance of the LOTO
I remember, back in the New Labour days, Labour MPs chuckling with incredulity at the fact that Boris was being touted as a future Tory leader - the idea being that the Tories would be committing electoral suicide if that happened. So it says it all that years later Boris was able to thrash them in a general election.
The local by-elections yesterday were somewhat atypical and not much could be drawn from them about the current party polling situation. But there were a number of town/parish elections yesterday which give a clearer picture. El Capitano has already mentioned the Lib Dem gain in Carterton. There were also Lib Dem gains from the Conservatives in Dawlish and Burbage and from Labour in Hatfield.
Thank you Slade. Imo the strength of libdems in actual elections call into question the national polling models showing them drop into single figures whilst arch enemy in much of the country is on the slide.
That's always said though. Hasnt been true for years
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
And we didn't frack.
We didn't, but from what I read (may be wrong) that wasn't a viable solution to produce enough gas to remove our need for expensive imports.
I've repeated this here before, but some years ago somebody said at a conference that the cheapest shale gas in the UK would be LNG imported from the USA.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
So that means 18 countries in the EU had fewer deats than us? Is that what you picked up listening to PMQ's last Wednesday?
On excess deaths the UK is a bit behind Spain, Portugal, and Italy. On a par with places like Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium. We're are a bit ahead of France and Germany.
The UK did very badly in the first wave, which is primarily down to bad luck and where the early outbreaks were seeded in Europe, Spain and Italy also suffered greatly in the first wave.
As the pandemic developed the UK has fallen down the rankings, there are now about 75 or so countries that have done worse than the UK, and some are much, much worse.
I expect when the pandemic is all over the UK will have done relatively well when compared to similar countries in terms of population and development.
How’s Aussie election going? Did Morrison get a lasting bounce you predicted from bouncing out the world number 1?
There have been no Australian polls yet taken fully after the deportation of Djokovic.
Though the latest polls only have the ALP at Gillard 2010 levels, there are plenty of undecideds or Others to swing back.
However the French presidential election is obviously the most important international election this year
Don't be so Eurocentric!
If Scotty Morrison falls, and Biden loses the Mid-terms too, what becomes of the beloved AUKUS?
And while not a democracy (!!!) The People's Congress in PRC is probably the most significant. 50% will be new delegates, and a new generation that grew up post Deng.
The local by-elections yesterday were somewhat atypical and not much could be drawn from them about the current party polling situation. But there were a number of town/parish elections yesterday which give a clearer picture. El Capitano has already mentioned the Lib Dem gain in Carterton. There were also Lib Dem gains from the Conservatives in Dawlish and Burbage and from Labour in Hatfield.
I don't read too much into individual local council results, particularly smaller seats as so influenced by candidates and local factors. However, the Dawlish one is a vaguely interesting one as pretty big electorate for a town council (750+ votes cast) and it lies in Newton Abbott which was once a Lib Dem seat and has an MP who has the Tory whip suspended.
Coalition and Brexit was a double whammy that absolutely hammered the Lib Dems in the Westcountry more even than elsewhere - they lost the anti-Tory vote and then the anti-Europe vote in very short order. An interesting question at the next election is whether there are signs of life and recovery as the protest vehicle of choice in an area where Labour have never really been able to crack in a big way. Winning Newton Abbott back would take a huge swing, but there's a question of whether a foothold can be regained.
Well, the Lib Dems did take over the running of the council there, almost three years ago. That is probably a bit more than a foothold,, I would have thought.....
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Thanks for reinforcing my points that you are clueless on the issue.
Not clueless.
Demand for free is infinite.
Utterly clueless. And shameless. Hardly unexpected though.
Douglas Ross will be happy with that. Every chance SCON will avoid a meltdown in May. Scotland and England evidently not moving in tandem as the constitution continues to dominate thinking and voting behaviour.
One or two bits of interesting polling from further afield.
The latest French polling shows Pecresse back ahead of Le Pen in first round polling but still losing to Macron by 53-47 in a hypothetical run off.
From Barbados (or should we now call it Newham in the Caribbean) where the Barbados Labour Party won all 30 seats in the GE on Wednesday. The re-elected Prime Minister Mia Mottley presided over a second successive absolute victory over the Democratic Labour Party.
Another triumph for what some might call "elected anocracy".
Portugal votes in nine days and the latest opinion poll has piqued my interest - changes from the last election:
Socialists: 37% (+1) Social Democrats: 33% (+5) Enough (Chega): 6% (+5) Left Bloc: 5% (-5) Movement for Unity Coalition: 5% (-1) Liberal Initiative: 5% (+4)
That's a 2% swing to the opposition Social Democrats - in terms of seats it looks like around 105 for the Socialists and 95 for the Social Democrats with Chega winning 8 and the Left Bloc, Movement for Unity and Liberal Initiative all on 6 or 7 each in the 230-seat National Assembly.
While Socialist Prime Minister Costa still leads Social Democrat leader Rio 50-35 in preferred PM polling, the gap has closed (as often happens). Until this poll (which may be an outlier), I thought Costa would get back quite easily but I'm less certain now and if we see other polls showing growing support for the Social Democrats there may yet be fun and games down Lisbon way at the end of the month.
What is the preference for governing party among the smaller ones? Assume the L:eft Bloc will back Costa, but I don't know where the others stand.
How’s Aussie election going? Did Morrison get a lasting bounce you predicted from bouncing out the world number 1?
There have been no Australian polls yet taken fully after the deportation of Djokovic.
Though the latest polls only have the ALP at Gillard 2010 levels, there are plenty of undecideds or Others to swing back.
However the French presidential election is obviously the most important international election this year
Don't be so Eurocentric!
If Scotty Morrison falls, and Biden loses the Mid-terms too, what becomes of the beloved AUKUS?
Even Albanese has backed AUKUS and the US Congress elections mainly concern US domestic policy, they are far less relevant for international affairs. Though if the GOP do win Congress they are generally even more hawkish on China than Biden's Democrats anyway, especially GOP Senators and the Senate has most influence on international affairs not the House.
France however is a G7 and UN Security Council permanent member unlike Australia which is only like France in the G20, internationally France's election is the most significant election
The government would be doing ok if it didn't keep hitting that self destruct button.
I'm still trying to work out who the expected buyers of the batteries are...
As pointed out by someone else - this factory will produce about 1/8th of the batteries required if all cars produced in the UK are electric.
Car companies are directly investing in battery production, because there is nothing like the capacity required. Yet. There are no technological blockers to massively increasing battery production like this, but it hasn't been done yet. So there will be a market for the batteries, if virtually any circumstance.
For example, I think it was Porsche who, when they tried to expand EV production, got told the price of batteries would go UP. This was because the supplier would need to build an entire factory to meet the demand, and the costs and risks associated with that....
Vertical integration, with the car maker owning component factories would actually be unusual in the car business. The individual battery cells are likely to become commodity components, and will be bought by car makers..
Will it be that unusual ? Tesla are certainly vertically integrated, even though they also source batteries externally. VW are standardising a battery format for their entire range (though they are agnostic on what chemistries it will use).
On the other hand, in the medium term the 'commodity' market is likely to be dominated by a handful of manufacturers who have sufficient capital to stay ahead of the rest in cost competitiveness as the technology changes rapidly. Towards the end of this decade there's likely to be a serious thinning out of the smaller manufacturers (like Britvolt, unless they are very lucky).
@WhisperingOracle in 2012 (prior to your date for the "increased demand" for food banks) payday loans in the UK were £2.8 billion per annum.
In 2014 (the year you're blaming "increased demand" for food banks) the usage of payday loan companies contracted by 27% in one year.
If the increase in food banks was driven by desperation, rather than increased supply, why did the demand for payday loan companies collapse that year?
The reality is that food bank availability grew to meet the latent demand that until 2014 was being met by predatory loan shark businesses instead. Hence the rise of food banks is met with a countervailing fall in predatory loan sharks.
And you think that's a bad thing? Give me a break! 🤦♂️🙄
You have zero evidence to show that supply was not the limiting factor. I do have evidence - that people were prior to 2014 going to loan sharks instead - to show that demand was not the limiting factor.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered and slightly restricted.
Yes because the supply wasn't there to meet the demand in 2010. 🤦♂️
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
Almost none of this is true in this particular case, but I know that whatever I post will make little difference to your view.
What evidence do you have it isn't true? You haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. Do you have evidence of food banks sending mounds of food to landfill due to an absence of demand in 2011?
The onus one me isn't to prove a lack of demand in 2011 ; the onus is on you to prove that your abstracted and ideological concept of infinite demand has anything immediately relevant or helpful to add to the debate. There were clear new drivers of demand in 2013-2015, in a period of significant welfare cuts, and which period also coincided with rises in homelessness and several other social indicators.
To me it seems that you're trying to bend reality towards an ideology.
One or two bits of interesting polling from further afield.
The latest French polling shows Pecresse back ahead of Le Pen in first round polling but still losing to Macron by 53-47 in a hypothetical run off.
From Barbados (or should we now call it Newham in the Caribbean) where the Barbados Labour Party won all 30 seats in the GE on Wednesday. The re-elected Prime Minister Mia Mottley presided over a second successive absolute victory over the Democratic Labour Party.
Another triumph for what some might call "elected anocracy".
Portugal votes in nine days and the latest opinion poll has piqued my interest - changes from the last election:
Socialists: 37% (+1) Social Democrats: 33% (+5) Enough (Chega): 6% (+5) Left Bloc: 5% (-5) Movement for Unity Coalition: 5% (-1) Liberal Initiative: 5% (+4)
That's a 2% swing to the opposition Social Democrats - in terms of seats it looks like around 105 for the Socialists and 95 for the Social Democrats with Chega winning 8 and the Left Bloc, Movement for Unity and Liberal Initiative all on 6 or 7 each in the 230-seat National Assembly.
While Socialist Prime Minister Costa still leads Social Democrat leader Rio 50-35 in preferred PM polling, the gap has closed (as often happens). Until this poll (which may be an outlier), I thought Costa would get back quite easily but I'm less certain now and if we see other polls showing growing support for the Social Democrats there may yet be fun and games down Lisbon way at the end of the month.
What is the preference for governing party among the smaller ones? Assume the L:eft Bloc will back Costa, but I don't know where the others stand.
One question from further a-field.
Why was a female Maltese Conservative politician who I think believes in Malta's effective total abortion ban voted President of the European Parliament? The UK analogy might be Iain Paisley Jr becoming Speaker of the Commons.
(I think I have that right, and I did not realise that Malta had an opt-out on future EU abortion policy.)
There are some quite vigorous justifying narratives going on on EU social media.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
So that means 18 countries in the EU had fewer deats than us? Is that what you picked up listening to PMQ's last Wednesday?
On excess deaths the UK is a bit behind Spain, Portugal, and Italy. On a par with places like Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium. We're are a bit ahead of France and Germany.
The UK did very badly in the first wave, which is primarily down to bad luck and where the early outbreaks were seeded in Europe, Spain and Italy also suffered greatly in the first wave.
As the pandemic developed the UK has fallen down the rankings, there are now about 75 or so countries that have done worse than the UK, and some are much, much worse.
I expect when the pandemic is all over the UK will have done relatively well when compared to similar countries in terms of population and development.
Yes, got some things right but not great overall seems about right.
Looking at it as more or fewer deaths continues not to make sense, since it means places regarded as doing much better than the UK would be essentially just as terrible, eg Germany would be among the worst in the world barely better than us since 7th or 14th out of 190 odd is not good.
This year there has been one Roy Morgan Poll, taken from 4th to 16th January and Djocovic was not deported until 16th. That has the ALP 2.5% ahead on the primary vote. A slightly more recent poll from 11th to 15th January by Resolve has the ALP just 1% ahead on the primary vote on 35% with a high Others vote.
The 2PP gives bigger ALP leads but all the 2PP polls were completely wrong in 2019. Morrison does lead still as preferred PM as he did in 2019 however
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Thanks for reinforcing my points that you are clueless on the issue.
Not clueless.
Demand for free is infinite.
Utterly clueless. And shameless. Hardly unexpected though.
Why did the rise of food banks and a fall in predatory loan shark businesses happen in the same year?
You are the clueless one. And the shameless one. Yes the demand was there pre-2014, but it was met by Wonga and the like instead.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
That is massively misleading by you. From the table you link to:
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
No he's not being misleading in this instance since people with temporary shelter are defined as homeless in the UK too. So you should compare the UK's raw figure with Germany's raw figure for a like-for-like comparison.
This is like discussions about poverty, but where poverty has been redefined to mean inequality. International tables and comparisons are absurd if you aren't comparing like for like.
There is no way the real homeless situation in the UK is worse than America's. Any drive or walk through British and American cities would confirm that.
When the UK takes in a million or so refugees like Germany has over the last few years then you might have a point. Until then you are just talking bullshit. Germany has a short term issue related to accepting all those refugees. The UK has a long standing and endemic problem with homelessness which no Government has been taking seriously.
The UK has taken in millions of migrants over the last few years, net migration is considerably higher in the UK than it has been in Germany for many years now which inevitably affects the housing situation. Either way though on a like-for-like comparison the German situation is worse.
However I was primarily responding to your nonsense claim that the homeless situation in the UK is worse than the USA. Stop and think about that for thirty seconds please and think for thirty seconds about the fact that, like in Germany, those in temporary accommodation are classed as "homeless" in the UK.
Now after stopping and thinking do you still want to claim the homeless situation in the UK is worse than the USA? Really?
Any actual source for the claim that "net migration is considerably higher in the UK than it has been in Germany for many years now"?
According to this 16.1% of Germany's 2019 population was foreign-born, compared with 13.7% for the UK in 2018
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered and slightly restricted.
Yes because the supply wasn't there to meet the demand in 2010. 🤦♂️
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
Almost none of this is true in this particular case, but I know that whatever I post will make little difference to your view.
What evidence do you have it isn't true? You haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. Do you have evidence of food banks sending mounds of food to landfill due to an absence of demand in 2011?
The onus one me isn't to prove a lack of demand in 2011 ; the onus is on you to prove that your abstracted and ideological concept of infinite demand has anything immediately relevant or helpful with the debate. There were clear new drivers of demand in 2013-2015, in a period of significant welfare cuts, and which period also coincided with rises in homelessness and several other social indicators.
To me it seems that you're trying to bend reality towards an ideology.
I've proven it. Until food banks became widely available in 2014 people were going to Wonga etc instead.
The true measure of desperation isn't people going to food banks, its people getting desperately into debt and that fell in 2014 it didn't increase!
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
So that means 18 countries in the EU had fewer deats than us? Is that what you picked up listening to PMQ's last Wednesday?
On excess deaths the UK is a bit behind Spain, Portugal, and Italy. On a par with places like Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium. We're are a bit ahead of France and Germany.
The UK did very badly in the first wave, which is primarily down to bad luck and where the early outbreaks were seeded in Europe, Spain and Italy also suffered greatly in the first wave.
As the pandemic developed the UK has fallen down the rankings, there are now about 75 or so countries that have done worse than the UK, and some are much, much worse.
I expect when the pandemic is all over the UK will have done relatively well when compared to similar countries in terms of population and development.
We're also one of the better big western countries, economically - in terms of the pandemic - after a disastrous beginning. Our GDP absolutely cratered, but we are now back at post-pandemic levels - which, say, Germany is NOT
And if we can stay out of restrictions (unlike others) we will continue to do relatively well
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
Hats off for a creative bit of punditry - the explosion in food banks as benign consequence of our compassionate 'big society' under the Conservatives - but what lets it down is it being total bollox. The demand isn't infinite. By and large people prefer to have enough money to buy food at the shops. If they're going to a food bank it means they don't. Widespread use of them is a sign of many people being in this unfortunate - and in a wealthy country such as ours - shameful position. It's nothing to be proud of, Bartholomew.
Can I call you "Bart" now btw? I feel we've reached a point where that would be appropriate.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Absolute rubbish. Food banks have a requirement for people to access them just like the benefits system. If more people fall into it then by definition then things are going worse. That is unless you can demonstrate that food banks are relaxing their criteria for help to encompass more people?
Yes they have relaxed the criteria to encompass more people. Those reforms happened in the Coalition government. That is the point!
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
But as mentioned, the main reform happened in 2010. Suddenly job centres were actually sending people direct to foodbanks. The absolute explosion in use happened a few years later, when this route was also already altered and slightly restricted.
Yes because the supply wasn't there to meet the demand in 2010. 🤦♂️
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
Almost none of this is true in this particular case, but I know that whatever I post will make little difference to your view.
What evidence do you have it isn't true? You haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. Do you have evidence of food banks sending mounds of food to landfill due to an absence of demand in 2011?
The onus one me isn't to prove a lack of demand in 2011 ; the onus is on you to prove that your abstracted concept of infinite demand has anything immediately relevant or helpful with the debate. There were clear new drivers of demand in 2013-2015, in a period of significant welfare cuts, and which period also coincided with rises in homelessness and several other social indicators.
To me it seems that you're trying to bend reality towards an ideology.
Its always daft straw man arguments and daft emojis from him.
His core supposition is that food banks are fantastic and demand for free food is infinite. As neither is true you can just ignore the straw man points and move on.
I read this tweet and my immediate thought was why they were only using an 8-bit system (apologies to non-geeks).
British Army's new Apache helicopters that can detect 256 potential targets at once and prioritise threats in a matter of seconds are undergoing test flights at Wattisham Flying Station. With a top speed of 186mph, the new fleet can detect targets up to a range of 10 miles https://twitter.com/jjgiddens/status/1484494710043512835
As an aside last Summer we went for a break staying close to that base. Every day we had at least one flypass from Apache helicopters.
It can only engage 16 targets so it's probably pointless acquiring more than 256. And in a situation where there are over 200 targets the crew are going to be dead soon enough anyway.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
Oh cut the sanctimonious claptrap. If I wanted to listen to that, I'd be religious and go to Chruch.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Thanks for reinforcing my points that you are clueless on the issue.
Not clueless.
Demand for free is infinite.
Utterly clueless. And shameless. Hardly unexpected though.
Why did the rise of food banks and a fall in predatory loan shark businesses happen in the same year?
You are the clueless one. And the shameless one. Yes the demand was there pre-2014, but it was met by Wonga and the like instead.
Lol - as I am not talking about wonga I hardly need to answer your point about wonga do I?
Not putting words into your mouth but is your huge enthusiasm for food banks because you think feeding the working poor via charity reduces your tax bill?
It is possible to both smash down on loansharks and have an economy that doesn't rely on charity to feed working people. It isn't either / or.
Why the F don't the Colombans have nice bars when you can sit outside? It's mad
They don't have many bars, for a start, and those they do have are nearly all indoors.
The climate is nearly identitcal to Thailand where every third shop is a bar or cafe - fronted by fried squid and whisky pop-ups - yet the Colombans resolutely close the windows and stay in. Both countries - Sri Lanka - Thailand - are Buddhist
Annoying. I want to sit at a seafront bar and sip gin
How’s Aussie election going? Did Morrison get a lasting bounce you predicted from bouncing out the world number 1?
There have been no Australian polls yet taken fully after the deportation of Djokovic.
Though the latest polls only have the ALP at Gillard 2010 levels, there are plenty of undecideds or Others to swing back.
However the French presidential election is obviously the most important international election this year
Don't be so Eurocentric!
If Scotty Morrison falls, and Biden loses the Mid-terms too, what becomes of the beloved AUKUS?
Even Albanese has backed AUKUS and the US Congress elections mainly concern US domestic policy, they are far less relevant for international affairs. Though if the GOP do win Congress they are generally even more hawkish on China than Biden's Democrats anyway, especially GOP Senators and the Senate has most influence on international affairs not the House.
France however is a G7 and UN Security Council permanent member unlike Australia which is only like France in the G20, internationally France's election is the most significant election
I think the most globally significant elections this year are to the National People's Congress in China, in the autumn. 50% of the delegates will be new, and a younger generation, while Xi is going for a third term. Internal Chinese politics are opaque to outsiders, but either Xi will consolidate, or be undermined.
Comments
What a boon TOGWT was to lads (& possibly some lasses) in the provinces. It was my favourite tv along with World at War, and they made the creature before you today.
This is a huge fuck you to all the people from other countries who are being helpful to their communities in countries they don't have citizenship in and dutifully paying their taxes in countries that don't give them the right to vote.
I hope she chokes to death on a mince pie.
People have always run into hard times. People will always run into hard times. That's not "society gone very wrong" that is real life.
Yes people may be regretful, but that is no different whatsoever to people being ashamed to sign on for welfare benefits. Either way it is better that the supply is there than it isn't.
That people are willing to donate to those less fortunate than them isn't society gone wrong, its society gone right and something to celebrate.
Unless you can point to me a time when food banks were getting inundated with donations that were going to landfill as they had nobody to give the donations to, because everybody was fine and dandy, nobody hand trouble, nobody was getting into debt etc then yes supply always has been and always will be the limiting factor.
Choose
Charities quite often close, refocus, or scale back due to the underlying demand drying up. For example, the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association was a big deal in the 19th century, as provision became a major cause following cholera epidemics. It does actually still exist to make small grants, but is hardly the household name it once was.
Similarly, some charities run into difficulties due to receiving more in donations than they need. For example, Guide Dogs for the Blind had to distribute some of its vast reserves to other charitable organisations (a worthy cause but it attracts maybe attracts disproportionate donations given the relatively limited remit and declining incidence of blindness, because it hits a sweet spot in people's hearts between nice doggies and people in need of support). See also donkey sanctuaries.
I do, to an extent, get your point - numbers of food banks are a very loose proxy for the scale of the issue of families struggling to afford food. But, noting I can't just walk into a food bank and pick up freebies (it's a need-based referral system), the level of supply does give some indication of demand. Really, if the benefits system was functioning well, and the economy performing better, both demand and supply would tend to be lower.
The drinking fountain association both supports and undermines your point. As water supplies improved, it became a charity whose scale outstripped the need. Fountains gradually provided became ever more ornate and more a matter of public art than meeting clean water need in some cases. But, as demand for its underlying service reduced, the donations and scale of the organisation did too albeit as a lagging response.
I get that there’s a gap between building these things and seeing the actual generation delivered to the national grid
Plus one of our big interconnectors is still being repaired.
So plenty of factors both sides. Rishi needs to get away from focussing on the retail side on this one.
Here's a recent gas demand prediction to show trends:
But the UK press only like scare stories.
Cameron's error was not making clear to the EU that there was a real chance the UK would vote to leave. The EU's error was not also seeing this and being more flexible. Errors all round.
Presidential election
Macron (LREM-RE): 25% (+1)
Pécresse (LR-EPP): 18%
Le Pen (RN-ID): 17% (-1)
Zemmour (REC-*): 13% (+2)
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1484482391360118789?s=20
Please show me the civil courtesy of respecting that. I am not using your name.
Demand for free is infinite. Yes people may not want to be in that situation, but people always have been and always will be in the situation where they are desperate.
When they are, its better to have charity available than predators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leadership_election
Are there any left that could be reactivated without incurring prohibitive costs?
Plus awareness of them increased so people started going to them instead of Wonga.
The German homeless number "*Includes "around 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation"; only 4.9/10000 people are without any shelter"
The US total is higher than the UK but in terms of % population they are massively lower - 17.7 per 10,000 compared to the UK value of 54 per 10,000. That we have a higher rate of homelessness than the US should be a matter of shame to any British Government.
I think our initial vaccine procurement and roll out was great. Other nations were able to step on the gas when the supply increased, and now the west is limited not by supply, but by demand.
I believe the best decision has been the July opening. Many wont agree, but I think having a high cases load, tragic for those badly affected or worse though it would have been, has contributed to the paper tiger nature of omicron. That we have 96% of the population with antibodies is great, and some of that has been through infection of vaccine refusniks, as a result of opening up for the exit wave* in July.
We moan about test and trace while routinely doing lateral flows twice a week or more. We have been able to turn around vast numbers of pcr tests in recent times, and our sequencing is second to none world-wide. The dirty truth about covid is that asymptomatic spread rendered classic contact tracing obselete.
We have not got everything right - no-one has. We could almost certainly have avoided tens of thousands of deaths, but decisions should be appraised in the light of what was known at the time.
If there had been a credible Labour leader and opposition, the 2017 or 2019 election may well have had a very different outcome
A pt in the pub at lunch would be the max in many areas now I think - its be anathema to consider a drink on the premises or during work hours where ive worked.
The definition can vary however, in terms of actual rough sleeping 'As for the number of people rough sleeping, the latest official count found a total of 2,688 people were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2020 in England, down 37 per cent on the 4,266 people recorded in 2019.'
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/how-many-people-are-homeless-in-the-uk-and-what-can-you-do-about-it/
This is like discussions about poverty, but where poverty has been redefined to mean inequality. International tables and comparisons are absurd if you aren't comparing like for like.
There is no way the real homeless situation in the UK is worse than America's. Any drive or walk through British and American cities would confirm that.
One or two bits of interesting polling from further afield.
The latest French polling shows Pecresse back ahead of Le Pen in first round polling but still losing to Macron by 53-47 in a hypothetical run off.
From Barbados (or should we now call it Newham in the Caribbean) where the Barbados Labour Party won all 30 seats in the GE on Wednesday. The re-elected Prime Minister Mia Mottley presided over a second successive absolute victory over the Democratic Labour Party.
Another triumph for what some might call "elected anocracy".
Portugal votes in nine days and the latest opinion poll has piqued my interest - changes from the last election:
Socialists: 37% (+1)
Social Democrats: 33% (+5)
Enough (Chega): 6% (+5)
Left Bloc: 5% (-5)
Movement for Unity Coalition: 5% (-1)
Liberal Initiative: 5% (+4)
That's a 2% swing to the opposition Social Democrats - in terms of seats it looks like around 105 for the Socialists and 95 for the Social Democrats with Chega winning 8 and the Left Bloc, Movement for Unity and Liberal Initiative all on 6 or 7 each in the 230-seat National Assembly.
While Socialist Prime Minister Costa still leads Social Democrat leader Rio 50-35 in preferred PM polling, the gap has closed (as often happens). Until this poll (which may be an outlier), I thought Costa would get back quite easily but I'm less certain now and if we see other polls showing growing support for the Social Democrats there may yet be fun and games down Lisbon way at the end of the month.
There is a huge advantage to longer term stable tenants paying a somewhat lower rent than a property could achieve, and a *lot* of LLs do it. Changing tenants, voids and refurbs are the expensive part of being a LL.
I'm not sure if stats are available.
(Just checked with my Lettings Agent and a significant number of their LLs let rents fall behind market to keep tenants, then reset to market when a T leaves.)
Demand is infinite, supply isn't. So when the liberalisation in the rules happened, it took time to build the supply capacity. It is to the credit of the British public that they responded by being generous and meeting the demand that was always there.
Coalition and Brexit was a double whammy that absolutely hammered the Lib Dems in the Westcountry more even than elsewhere - they lost the anti-Tory vote and then the anti-Europe vote in very short order. An interesting question at the next election is whether there are signs of life and recovery as the protest vehicle of choice in an area where Labour have never really been able to crack in a big way. Winning Newton Abbott back would take a huge swing, but there's a question of whether a foothold can be regained.
Though the latest polls only have the ALP at Gillard 2010 levels, there are plenty of undecideds or Others to swing back.
However the French presidential election is obviously the most important international election this year
I would like to see Rishi give short term relief to generators, then review in 6 months.
I think that Mr Macron's approach was quite innovative - gave a direction to EDF to hold prices for an extra 5% of the nation's energy supply which slugged their share price by 25%, but is mainly a non-obvious hit on the French State as they own 85% of it.
That doesnt mean any failings are acceptable, people can still be mad and take corrective action, but it wasnt as though people felt it was saintly boris vs evil Jeremy - the political culture which led to both has been discussed for years.
Can we put you down into the stick man column?
British Army's new Apache helicopters that can detect 256 potential targets at once and prioritise threats in a matter of seconds are undergoing test flights at Wattisham Flying Station. With a top speed of 186mph, the new fleet can detect targets up to a range of 10 miles
https://twitter.com/jjgiddens/status/1484494710043512835
As an aside last Summer we went for a break staying close to that base. Every day we had at least one flypass from Apache helicopters.
Note too that is on the basis of 58% of Le Pen and 52% of Zemmour voters sitting out a Pecresse v Macron runoff.
Those who will vote however would vote for Pecresse over Macron by about 4:1 (even more so for Zemmour voters), so Pecresse can shift further to the populist right in the runoff if needed to win them over
https://www.opinion-way.com/en/component/edocman/opinionway-pour-cnews-barometre-hebdomadaire-vague-1-20-janvier-2022/viewdocument/2759.html?Itemid=0
Later folks....
However I was primarily responding to your nonsense claim that the homeless situation in the UK is worse than the USA. Stop and think about that for thirty seconds please and think for thirty seconds about the fact that, like in Germany, those in temporary accommodation are classed as "homeless" in the UK.
Now after stopping and thinking do you still want to claim the homeless situation in the UK is worse than the USA? Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Australian_federal_election
The UK did very badly in the first wave, which is primarily down to bad luck and where the early outbreaks were seeded in Europe, Spain and Italy also suffered greatly in the first wave.
As the pandemic developed the UK has fallen down the rankings, there are now about 75 or so countries that have done worse than the UK, and some are much, much worse.
I expect when the pandemic is all over the UK will have done relatively well when compared to similar countries in terms of population and development.
If Scotty Morrison falls, and Biden loses the Mid-terms too, what becomes of the beloved AUKUS?
And while not a democracy (!!!) The People's Congress in PRC is probably the most significant. 50% will be new delegates, and a new generation that grew up post Deng.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Xi-says-2022-party-congress-will-be-major-event-for-China-s-politics
Preston, Seton and Gosford (East Lothian) council by-election result, first preferences:
LAB: 38.5% (-4.2)
SNP: 26.2% (-1.4)
CON: 24.8% (+0.7)
GRN: 5.0% (+1.9)
LDEM: 2.9% (+0.5)
IND: 2.6% (+2.6)
Votes cast: 4,653
Labour HOLD (elected after transfers).
Douglas Ross will be happy with that. Every chance SCON will avoid a meltdown in May. Scotland and England evidently not moving in tandem as the constitution continues to dominate thinking and voting behaviour.
France however is a G7 and UN Security Council permanent member unlike Australia which is only like France in the G20, internationally France's election is the most significant election
Tesla are certainly vertically integrated, even though they also source batteries externally. VW are standardising a battery format for their entire range (though they are agnostic on what chemistries it will use).
On the other hand, in the medium term the 'commodity' market is likely to be dominated by a handful of manufacturers who have sufficient capital to stay ahead of the rest in cost competitiveness as the technology changes rapidly. Towards the end of this decade there's likely to be a serious thinning out of the smaller manufacturers (like Britvolt, unless they are very lucky).
Talking of exotic locations: 67,000 cases in Belgium
A huge leap to a new record. Rumours out of Belgium suggest they might have Omicron OMG, the new mad BA2 variant
In 2014 (the year you're blaming "increased demand" for food banks) the usage of payday loan companies contracted by 27% in one year.
If the increase in food banks was driven by desperation, rather than increased supply, why did the demand for payday loan companies collapse that year?
The reality is that food bank availability grew to meet the latent demand that until 2014 was being met by predatory loan shark businesses instead. Hence the rise of food banks is met with a countervailing fall in predatory loan sharks.
And you think that's a bad thing? Give me a break! 🤦♂️🙄
You have zero evidence to show that supply was not the limiting factor. I do have evidence - that people were prior to 2014 going to loan sharks instead - to show that demand was not the limiting factor.
(It has taken me two days to come up with that!)
To me it seems that you're trying to bend reality towards an ideology.
Why was a female Maltese Conservative politician who I think believes in Malta's effective total abortion ban voted President of the European Parliament? The UK analogy might be Iain Paisley Jr becoming Speaker of the Commons.
(I think I have that right, and I did not realise that Malta had an opt-out on future EU abortion policy.)
There are some quite vigorous justifying narratives going on on EU social media.
Looking at it as more or fewer deaths continues not to make sense, since it means places regarded as doing much better than the UK would be essentially just as terrible, eg Germany would be among the worst in the world barely better than us since 7th or 14th out of 190 odd is not good.
The 2PP gives bigger ALP leads but all the 2PP polls were completely wrong in 2019. Morrison does lead still as preferred PM as he did in 2019 however
You are the clueless one. And the shameless one. Yes the demand was there pre-2014, but it was met by Wonga and the like instead.
According to this 16.1% of Germany's 2019 population was foreign-born, compared with 13.7% for the UK in 2018
https://data.oecd.org/migration/foreign-born-population.htm
The true measure of desperation isn't people going to food banks, its people getting desperately into debt and that fell in 2014 it didn't increase!
And if we can stay out of restrictions (unlike others) we will continue to do relatively well
Can I call you "Bart" now btw? I feel we've reached a point where that would be appropriate.
His core supposition is that food banks are fantastic and demand for free food is infinite. As neither is true you can just ignore the straw man points and move on.
The tories have just scrapped 16 Apaches.
Not putting words into your mouth but is your huge enthusiasm for food banks because you think feeding the working poor via charity reduces your tax bill?
It is possible to both smash down on loansharks and have an economy that doesn't rely on charity to feed working people. It isn't either / or.
They don't have many bars, for a start, and those they do have are nearly all indoors.
The climate is nearly identitcal to Thailand where every third shop is a bar or cafe - fronted by fried squid and whisky pop-ups - yet the Colombans resolutely close the windows and stay in. Both countries - Sri Lanka - Thailand - are Buddhist
Annoying. I want to sit at a seafront bar and sip gin