Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
What does he mean "this year". I re-joined the public sector 9 years ago. Since then, my highest annual rise was 1.5% - it was often zero.
You're on PB. By definition, in PB-speak you are a parasite with a gold-plated pension and vast pay increases every year doing nothing but push woke pieces of paper.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
I was actually physically present when a rich (owned a house whose garden actually opened onto Wentworth Golf course) relative fired his tax lawyers and decided to simply pay the income tax.
This was when Maggie dropped the rates.
The comment I've heard from a number of such people is that while paying tax is OK, over 50% they feel motivated to extreme measures to reduce the bill.
I am sure it has been pointed out already, but the story in Southend is the low turnout. A third of what it was in the last election. Number of Con voters less than half. No left wing parties on the ballot as far as I can see. There isn't much in this to shore up Johnson. There wasn't even a credible challenger on the right, no Reform UK or Brexit party. So the way to 'kick' the tories was clearly by not voting at all. These by elections are never particularly representative, but the tories are going to struggle in Southend if they can only manage to drum up 12k votes, and the normal turnout is 45k.
It's right in line with what happened in B&S. We can't draw any big-picture conclusions becuase of the circumstances.
Do we know who made the decision to arrest Paul Gambaccini?
Timeline in this article. Note the comment at the end... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31720761 ...He said he would "enthusiastically" support a 28-day bail limit, adding: "There is no possible excuse for further delay in leaving somebody out to dry. "The only reason for the delay is to try to get somebody else to accuse you. "It's not a proper use of the criminal justice system, it's the misuse of a power they happen to have for other reasons." But DPP Alison Saunders - the most senior prosecutor in England and Wales - said the 28-day limit was "too short" because decisions on whether to press charges take substantially longer in a minority of cases, often involving fraud, corruption or historical sex offences. She insisted that the CPS does not release the names of suspects before charge and stressed that a decision not to press charges is not a determination of innocence or guilt, but a judgment on whether there is sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. Ms Saunders made clear she did not believe the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) owed Gambaccini an apology....
Seems like the Starmer comments this week have two potential effects: 1. they inevitably place some focus on his time as DPP, which may or may not be a net negative; 2. they put him constantly in the news. As someone else commented it is making Starmer less faceless every day. He is now an actor in the political situation rather than a bystander. I would guess, all things considered, that this is a positive for him.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Owen must be weeping at how Starmer's star has risen
It is an all-too-common trait among too many who regarded Corbyn as the messiah. Basically they are willing Starmer to fail, gunning for him at every opportunity and as a consequence just consigning themselves to derision.
In the meantime, I am increasingly impressed with how not only Starmer but also the key players on the Labour front bench are stepping up to the mark. The opposition front bench under Starmer was initially a disappointment but since he rejigged it they seem to have got their collective act together.
I am right of centre but I have always rated Starmer. If he becomes PM, he will become the first PM in a very long time to have done a "proper job" outside of politics, and one that he has risen right to the very top in. He is a very smart cookie.
Yeah, you mean in the way he adopted a policy of "believe all victims" and so we had Carl Beech wreck people's lives? Yup, 'very smart cookie'
Is that the latest right wing nutter meme since the previous one backfired spectacularly on Big Clown? Yes he is a very smart cookie. You are too partisan to see it, or you are really not a very smart cookie, or perhaps both.
Ahem, if you are going to lob insults, it might be better to get your facts right. Who is disagreeing with the statement that Starmer instituted a policy of believe all victims at the CPS? What people are disagreeing with BJ on is that Starmer didn't prosecute Jimmy Saville.
I have no need to defend Starmer on detail. I am not a Labour supporter, and therefore will be able to disagree with him on lots of things. He is very smart though. The fact that you are still an apologist for the worst PM probably in history suggests that you are going to be more and more disappointed that Starmer outmanoeuvres him at every juncture. One of the important things in politics and life in general is not to underestimate your opponents. Smarter Tories are beginning to realise they need someone better than the fat blusterer to outsmart Starmer.
Yes, I see you didn't acknowledge you got your point wrong, did you? Never mind.
Oh dear, I didn't get a point wrong (although it has been known occasionally - well maybe about 1985ish perhaps?). I said Starmer is a smart cookie, which you took exception to because you are so absorbed with thinking that anyone that you disagree with is not effective. He is smart cookie, for you to pretend otherwise is just silly. Starmer is very very smart. That comes as a shock to swivel-eyed far right UKIPy/Johnson apologist Tories. Sorry to have to break it to you.
Starmer was responsible for a policy that wrecked people's lives in a very public way. As far as I am aware, he has never apologised or recognised what he did. That does not sound like a decent person.
As for the "He is smart cookie, for you to pretend otherwise is just silly." that is not a fact, it is your view just as it is my view that he has significant flaws. Just because you say something doesn't make it a fact (although I know that is a common attribute of the pub bore who likes to tell everyone how it is and how right they are).
If you're talking about the CPS stuff, he really wasn't. It's on record that Allison Saunders was the fuck up at CPS.
He really was. Read the Ashcroft biography, Starmer was very much responsible for the CPS adopting the policy.
It seems like the defenders of Starmer at the CPS are trying to have it both ways. If you bring up Saville, the defence is "he didn't have any responsibility even though he headed the CPS", with the Carl Beech episode, it's "well, he wasn't head of the CPS so he didn't have any responsibility for it even though he very much made the decision it should go ahead". It's either one or the other.
No that's a load of crap. Allison Saunders is on record as admitting she fucked up by pushing a policy which removed "alleged" from crimes. It was her policy and she fucked it up.
The culture she created was at fault, Starmer didn't create the culture at the CPS, Saunders did. Like the Big Dog you're spinning really hard to try and use Starmer's time as DPP against him, but his record was pretty decent. Attempting to ascribe his successor's policy to him is like saying Theresa May is to blame for Boris having loads of parties.
As I said, take a look at Ashcroft's biography on his time at CPS and read through it. As I also said, Starmer has not publicly disputed that and / or claimed that Ashcroft misrepresented what he did as far as I am aware. The picture painted is not one of Starmer being the innocent you portray (whereas Ashcroft does essentially say Starmer didn't have any role in the Saville case).
Some people might view a tax-exile, Tory peer, with a history of writing political biographies with un-evidenced claims, to be not the most reliable source on a Labour party leader.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Your second point is crucial and I think this is a big area where the Left is currently going wrong.
In big-picture terms the Left should be aiming to reform the economy so that the lowest paid are paid more, so that they can afford to pay more tax for better public services.
Taxing the rich to pay for wage subsidies for the poor can seem like an attractive short-term expedient, but it creates a very narrow tax base and divides society in a way that makes society more hostile to left-wing politics.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Owen must be weeping at how Starmer's star has risen
It is an all-too-common trait among too many who regarded Corbyn as the messiah. Basically they are willing Starmer to fail, gunning for him at every opportunity and as a consequence just consigning themselves to derision.
In the meantime, I am increasingly impressed with how not only Starmer but also the key players on the Labour front bench are stepping up to the mark. The opposition front bench under Starmer was initially a disappointment but since he rejigged it they seem to have got their collective act together.
I am right of centre but I have always rated Starmer. If he becomes PM, he will become the first PM in a very long time to have done a "proper job" outside of politics, and one that he has risen right to the very top in. He is a very smart cookie.
Yeah, you mean in the way he adopted a policy of "believe all victims" and so we had Carl Beech wreck people's lives? Yup, 'very smart cookie'
Is that the latest right wing nutter meme since the previous one backfired spectacularly on Big Clown? Yes he is a very smart cookie. You are too partisan to see it, or you are really not a very smart cookie, or perhaps both.
Ahem, if you are going to lob insults, it might be better to get your facts right. Who is disagreeing with the statement that Starmer instituted a policy of believe all victims at the CPS? What people are disagreeing with BJ on is that Starmer didn't prosecute Jimmy Saville.
I have no need to defend Starmer on detail. I am not a Labour supporter, and therefore will be able to disagree with him on lots of things. He is very smart though. The fact that you are still an apologist for the worst PM probably in history suggests that you are going to be more and more disappointed that Starmer outmanoeuvres him at every juncture. One of the important things in politics and life in general is not to underestimate your opponents. Smarter Tories are beginning to realise they need someone better than the fat blusterer to outsmart Starmer.
Yes, I see you didn't acknowledge you got your point wrong, did you? Never mind.
Oh dear, I didn't get a point wrong (although it has been known occasionally - well maybe about 1985ish perhaps?). I said Starmer is a smart cookie, which you took exception to because you are so absorbed with thinking that anyone that you disagree with is not effective. He is smart cookie, for you to pretend otherwise is just silly. Starmer is very very smart. That comes as a shock to swivel-eyed far right UKIPy/Johnson apologist Tories. Sorry to have to break it to you.
Starmer was responsible for a policy that wrecked people's lives in a very public way. As far as I am aware, he has never apologised or recognised what he did. That does not sound like a decent person.
As for the "He is smart cookie, for you to pretend otherwise is just silly." that is not a fact, it is your view just as it is my view that he has significant flaws. Just because you say something doesn't make it a fact (although I know that is a common attribute of the pub bore who likes to tell everyone how it is and how right they are).
If you're talking about the CPS stuff, he really wasn't. It's on record that Allison Saunders was the fuck up at CPS.
He really was. Read the Ashcroft biography, Starmer was very much responsible for the CPS adopting the policy.
It seems like the defenders of Starmer at the CPS are trying to have it both ways. If you bring up Saville, the defence is "he didn't have any responsibility even though he headed the CPS", with the Carl Beech episode, it's "well, he wasn't head of the CPS so he didn't have any responsibility for it even though he very much made the decision it should go ahead". It's either one or the other.
No that's a load of crap. Allison Saunders is on record as admitting she fucked up by pushing a policy which removed "alleged" from crimes. It was her policy and she fucked it up.
The culture she created was at fault, Starmer didn't create the culture at the CPS, Saunders did. Like the Big Dog you're spinning really hard to try and use Starmer's time as DPP against him, but his record was pretty decent. Attempting to ascribe his successor's policy to him is like saying Theresa May is to blame for Boris having loads of parties.
As I said, take a look at Ashcroft's biography on his time at CPS and read through it. As I also said, Starmer has not publicly disputed that and / or claimed that Ashcroft misrepresented what he did as far as I am aware. The picture painted is not one of Starmer being the innocent you portray (whereas Ashcroft does essentially say Starmer didn't have any role in the Saville case).
Some people might view a tax-exile, Tory peer, with a history of writing political biographies with un-evidenced claims, to be not the most reliable source on a Labour party leader.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
I was actually physically present when a rich (owned a house whose garden actually opened onto Wentworth Golf course) relative fired his tax lawyers and decided to simply pay the income tax.
This was when Maggie dropped the rates.
The comment I've heard from a number of such people is that while paying tax is OK, over 50% they feel motivated to extreme measures to reduce the bill.
Yep the laffer curve is a real thing.
And our current tax rates are at the very top end of it and in some cases as @BartholomewRoberts claims as it comes to working while on Universal Credit probably well beyond that point.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
Difficult to know for sure that they are voting for the Conservatives because they support the Boris-led regime or because they are heartened that there are finally enough rumblings of discontent about Boris that an end is in sight.
I think anyone seeking to draw too many conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat is on a fools errand.
Yes utterly pointless. Someone did some comparisons this morning here to Batley and Spen and it wasn't favourable. Also on the news this lunchtime it refered to LDs and Lab supporters voting for the Conservative in support because of the reason for the by election. It is completely impossible to deduce anything. @MrEd desperate for something
Only useful info is UKIP doing so badly..
Christ, I didn't say it was good for BJ, only that it might make Tory MPs waver in sending in their letters.
So you were saying better for BJ then. No wonder you read and see things differently to everyone else just like that picnic, sorry attempted coup in the USA. You twist stuff to the extreme.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
Seems like the Starmer comments this week have two potential effects: 1. they inevitably place some focus on his time as DPP, which may or may not be a net negative; 2. they put him constantly in the news. As someone else commented it is making Starmer less faceless every day. He is now an actor in the political situation rather than a bystander. I would guess, all things considered, that this is a positive for him.
Someone made the point before about Labour winning a seat in Lewes when its other council by-election results in other places weren't great and wondering whether that was a sign Starmer was more appealing to middle class types than other Labour voters. I think there is truth in that and looking in this forum - which is going to be weighted towards professional, middle class types - you can see evidence for that. It does raise the question of where Labour will make gains next time.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
I heard the Governor this morning and he seemed completely anachronistic. When the country's main economic problems are stagnating real wages and stagnating productivity and one of its biggest strengths is almost full employment, the idea that wage restraint is the answer is hard to fathom. A Tory government pursuing that line would be shooting itself in the foot. There are still plenty of public sector workers who voted conservative at the last election.
It's not anachronistic wanting some restraint in wage demands. There's going to be a large inflationary shock this year, and probably next as well, from factors completely beyond the UK's control. If that feeds into significant wage inflation, the cycle could go on for years.
Up until this winter everyone thought fuel price shocks anachronistic, too.
The question is one of who should suffer the impact of those prices increases.
The shareholders or the workers. Now you may want it to be the workers but in reality that will have a secondary impact on discretionary spending which may have impacts you haven't modelled.
The reality is it's going to be everyone. What the BoE is hoping to avoid is a continuing wage price spiral like we saw in the 70s.
Ain't going to happen because in an economy with full employment it's easy to move round to get more money.
And the only way to stop your staff moving next door is to ensure you pay them the same as next door is now offering.
Seems like the Starmer comments this week have two potential effects: 1. they inevitably place some focus on his time as DPP, which may or may not be a net negative; 2. they put him constantly in the news. As someone else commented it is making Starmer less faceless every day. He is now an actor in the political situation rather than a bystander. I would guess, all things considered, that this is a positive for him.
Considering his speech at conference last autumn was mostly about his time as the DPP, he clearly sees it as a strength.
Interesting that despite Johnson withdrawing his accusation, his main advisor resigning over it, and it being repudiated by the CoE, that PB Johnsonites still want to continue the innuendo.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
What does he mean "this year". I re-joined the public sector 9 years ago. Since then, my highest annual rise was 1.5% - it was often zero.
You're on PB. By definition, in PB-speak you are a parasite with a gold-plated pension and vast pay increases every year doing nothing but push woke pieces of paper.
(NB. I don't agree with that consensus.)
I've worked in the private sector for ~20 years. I don't think I've ever had an "annual rise" as such - only pay rises from promotion or switching jobs.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Do the rich (however you are defining that) really pay most of the total tax take in the UK?
Also, your point 1 seems to be inconsistent with point 2. If the rich have the motivation and means to avoid paying tax, it seems very unlikely that they are also providing the exchequer with most of their tax revenue.
My understanding is that the top 1% of earners pay something like 29% of income tax. I don't know how this compares internationally, mind you, but it seems top heavy to me. Any idea of the equivalent in Germany or elsewhere? I take your other point - but I think it is at an equilibrium: push up that 29%(?) to 40% and off it goes to Jersey or wherever the super rich go; drop it down to 24% and in it comes from America and Europe. Perhaps. It's possibly also a factor of the extent to which wealth and income in the UK is unequally spread, and has become more so in the last 30 years. This is all ramblings off the top of my head based on things I think I know rather than a meticulously researched piece with evidence to hand - contrary information or views welcome!
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
I heard the Governor this morning and he seemed completely anachronistic. When the country's main economic problems are stagnating real wages and stagnating productivity and one of its biggest strengths is almost full employment, the idea that wage restraint is the answer is hard to fathom. A Tory government pursuing that line would be shooting itself in the foot. There are still plenty of public sector workers who voted conservative at the last election.
It's not anachronistic wanting some restraint in wage demands. There's going to be a large inflationary shock this year, and probably next as well, from factors completely beyond the UK's control. If that feeds into significant wage inflation, the cycle could go on for years.
Up until this winter everyone thought fuel price shocks anachronistic, too.
It really did sound like someone commenting from another era. The reason we have inflation is because commodity prices have soared and supply chains have been squeezed. It's a supply shock, not a demand shock. It is not driven by people having more money in their pockets and being prepared to spend more, and that's not going to be the case if we get long-overdue rises in wages - not even in real wages, just rises to keep up with the inflationary shock....
He said pretty well exactly the first part of that this morning on R4 - and made it clear he wasn't calling for wage freezes, just restraint.
It's a very large economy wide shock, and everyone is going to be a bit poorer as a result. Whatever BoE or government does.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Nope, as long as the DUP continue to refuse to rejoin the Stormont Executive until the NIP is scrapped they will win back voters from the TUV, the TUV voters just want as hard a line as possible against the NIP.
Of course judges overruling Boris in 2019 on proroguing Parliament and Brexit did him no harm in the general election that year in winning back voters lost to the Brexit Party by the Tories.
The key thing is the DUP can portray themselves as standing up for loyalists against the elites of the judges, the EU and indeed the Irish and UK governments if necessary selling them out
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
Difficult to know for sure that they are voting for the Conservatives because they support the Boris-led regime or because they are heartened that there are finally enough rumblings of discontent about Boris that an end is in sight.
I think anyone seeking to draw too many conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat is on a fools errand.
Yes utterly pointless. Someone did some comparisons this morning here to Batley and Spen and it wasn't favourable. Also on the news this lunchtime it refered to LDs and Lab supporters voting for the Conservative in support because of the reason for the by election. It is completely impossible to deduce anything. @MrEd desperate for something
Only useful info is UKIP doing so badly..
Christ, I didn't say it was good for BJ, only that it might make Tory MPs waver in sending in their letters.
So you were saying better for BJ then. No wonder you read and see things differently to everyone else just like that picnic, sorry attempted coup in the USA. You twist stuff to the extreme.
How is saying that the result may make MPs question sending in a letter twisting stuff? It is an expression of opinion and trying to work out how that might affect someone's decision making. And what has that got to do with the States?
You really have lost the plot. It is clear from yours - and others' posters - that, when it comes to BJ, we now have JDS - Johnson Derangement Syndrome. Anything that is deemed slightly sympathetic to BJ, no matter what it is, brings in a barrage of abuse. And coming from people who bang on about the fact of how tolerant they are, and they despise abuse in politics etc. etc. and probably have their "Love not Hate" and "Don't look back in anger" posters stuck on the wall. Total hypocrites to a person.
This really is becoming a website where only one point of view is accepted and nothing else tolerated. Good luck with your betting tips off the back of that.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
I heard the Governor this morning and he seemed completely anachronistic. When the country's main economic problems are stagnating real wages and stagnating productivity and one of its biggest strengths is almost full employment, the idea that wage restraint is the answer is hard to fathom. A Tory government pursuing that line would be shooting itself in the foot. There are still plenty of public sector workers who voted conservative at the last election.
It's not anachronistic wanting some restraint in wage demands. There's going to be a large inflationary shock this year, and probably next as well, from factors completely beyond the UK's control. If that feeds into significant wage inflation, the cycle could go on for years.
Up until this winter everyone thought fuel price shocks anachronistic, too.
(Snipped)
From a purely political perspective it's also just not somewhere the Tories or any other party are going to go. They have hitched themselves to the pay growth wagon. It is supposed to be one of the benefits of Brexit.
This is a key when looking at it electorally, the Tories have promised real wage growth as a benefit of Brexit. Controlling inflation with that in mind is quite a problem.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
Maybe. I knew a lot of people who were pissed with Labour for not signing up for a second referendum. Again, it's a point where a better Labour leader (and, dare I say it, shadow Brexit sec) might have managed to outfox May and generate a Commons majority for some form of soft Brexit. Or, indeed, a better PM/Brexit sec, if that way inclined.
In some ways I'm more annoyed with the hardcore remainers who wouldn't vote for Norway for now etc than with the Brexit ultras who pursued their dream. As, if I had been a Brexiter, I would have been more pissed with the Brexit ultras than the remainers if the end result had been a second ref and remain.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
I was actually physically present when a rich (owned a house whose garden actually opened onto Wentworth Golf course) relative fired his tax lawyers and decided to simply pay the income tax.
This was when Maggie dropped the rates.
The comment I've heard from a number of such people is that while paying tax is OK, over 50% they feel motivated to extreme measures to reduce the bill.
Yep the laffer curve is a real thing.
And our current tax rates are at the very top end of it and in some cases as @BartholomewRoberts claims as it comes to working while on Universal Credit probably well beyond that point.
Marginal rates of over 100% were (in effect) applied to some poor souls getting jobs while on benefits - that is the benefits were cut faster than the increase in income from the job.
If that isn't a disincentive to work, then I am at a loss to think of one.
While this was uncommon, effective rates of 70%+ were not.
I am sure it has been pointed out already, but the story in Southend is the low turnout. A third of what it was in the last election. Number of Con voters less than half. No left wing parties on the ballot as far as I can see. There isn't much in this to shore up Johnson. There wasn't even a credible challenger on the right, no Reform UK or Brexit party. So the way to 'kick' the tories was clearly by not voting at all. These by elections are never particularly representative, but the tories are going to struggle in Southend if they can only manage to drum up 12k votes, and the normal turnout is 45k.
I think Southend is moving leftwards and Rochford and Southend East is a longshot Labour target maybe even at the next election. Southend West is a safe enough seat for the Tories but not an ultra safe seat like others in Essex and can swing towards Lab/LD in the right circumstances (albeit only completely catastrophic Tory circumstances). Amess was lucky that Labour split the LD vote in 1997.
I was surprised to find out that Southend Council was Labour led albeit with the support of LDs and Independents and will be another interesting bellwether of Labour fortunes in May's elections.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Do the rich (however you are defining that) really pay most of the total tax take in the UK?
Also, your point 1 seems to be inconsistent with point 2. If the rich have the motivation and means to avoid paying tax, it seems very unlikely that they are also providing the exchequer with most of their tax revenue.
My understanding is that the top 1% of earners pay something like 29% of income tax. I don't know how this compares internationally, mind you, but it seems top heavy to me. Any idea of the equivalent in Germany or elsewhere? I take your other point - but I think it is at an equilibrium: push up that 29%(?) to 40% and off it goes to Jersey or wherever the super rich go; drop it down to 24% and in it comes from America and Europe. Perhaps. It's possibly also a factor of the extent to which wealth and income in the UK is unequally spread, and has become more so in the last 30 years. This is all ramblings off the top of my head based on things I think I know rather than a meticulously researched piece with evidence to hand - contrary information or views welcome!
The penultimate point is important - if you have a more even income distribution then you have a wider tax-base too if you assume similar taxation policy. Of course, there are other (complicated and impossible to resolve fully) arguments about whether having more even income raises the overall mean income and overall tax take or not
Seems like the Starmer comments this week have two potential effects: 1. they inevitably place some focus on his time as DPP, which may or may not be a net negative; 2. they put him constantly in the news. As someone else commented it is making Starmer less faceless every day. He is now an actor in the political situation rather than a bystander. I would guess, all things considered, that this is a positive for him.
Someone made the point before about Labour winning a seat in Lewes when its other council by-election results in other places weren't great and wondering whether that was a sign Starmer was more appealing to middle class types than other Labour voters. I think there is truth in that and looking in this forum - which is going to be weighted towards professional, middle class types - you can see evidence for that. It does raise the question of where Labour will make gains next time.
Well, Basingstoke and Hexham have been mentioned as 'surprising' seats Labour could pick up at the next election.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Was your mother born before 1922?
Stormont was effectively autonomous until the early part of the Troubles, and the imposition of Direct Rule about a half century ago.
'China has joined Russia in opposing further Nato expansion as the two countries move closer together in the face of Western pressure.
Moscow and Beijing issued a statement showcasing agreement on a raft of issues during a visit by Russia's Vladimir Putin for the Winter Olympics.
In it Moscow said it supported China's stance on Taiwan and opposed independence for the island..The two countries' lengthy joint statement accuses Nato of espousing a Cold War ideology and also says they are concerned about the Aukus security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Meanwhile Russia said it supported Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.'
The butterfly sanctuary, part of the North American Butterfly Association, made the announcement Wednesday. The decision came just days after GOP operatives descended on the site, reviving baseless and false conspiracy theories linking the center to sex trafficking...
...The butterfly center has been the target of far-right conspiracy theories for years, after the sanctuary in 2017 sued over the Trump administration’s plans to build a border wall through the 100-acre nature preserve.
I thought the problem with butterfies is that they caused tornadoes in Texas? Maybe I got that wrong.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Your second point is crucial and I think this is a big area where the Left is currently going wrong.
In big-picture terms the Left should be aiming to reform the economy so that the lowest paid are paid more, so that they can afford to pay more tax for better public services.
Taxing the rich to pay for wage subsidies for the poor can seem like an attractive short-term expedient, but it creates a very narrow tax base and divides society in a way that makes society more hostile to left-wing politics.
Agreed. In defence of 'the left'; large swathes of the left do get this. I'd be interested to hear from those on 'the left' who may have a more detailed view of the internal debates and who positions where, but I'd highlight the Manchester Labour Party, where a clique of the 'make poor people better off by bringing good quality jobs to Manchester, and meanwhile, work with the Conservative government to bring investment to Manchester' persuasion took over in the late 80s from the previous 'make poor people richer by taxing rich people more and giving poor people stuff, and no co-operation with Conservatives' clique. The new clique have done a great job of turning the city around and have been fantastically successful - though are still criticised by those of the 'tax rich people more' persuasion. This mainly plays out in the debate over affordable housing - do we take any investment at all in Manchester for the growth it will bring, or do we force investors to provide us with affordable housing, even if it means less development? This is a perfectly valid argument to have, as long as the last six words are recognised.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Nope, as long as the DUP continue to refuse to rejoin the Stormont Executive until the NIP is scrapped they will win back voters from the TUV, the TUV voters just want as hard a line as possible against the NIP.
Of course judges overruling Boris in 2019 on proroguing Parliament and Brexit did him no harm in the general election that year in winning back voters lost to the Brexit Party by the Tories.
The key thing is the DUP can portray themselves as standing up for loyalists against the elites of the judges, the EU and indeed the Irish and UK governments if necessary selling them out
There's some truth in that, undesirable in the long term for the good governance of the island of Ireland though it may be. The question that arises is for how long 'Traditional Unionism' will be a significant feature in Northern Irish politics. I suspect, and you probably agree with me that it'll be a long time; for how long it should be pandered to is another matter.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
Given how in his report he detailed how the police stubbornly refused to understand the issues, that does not surprise me in the slightest.
Henriques recently wrote about the deception of the district judge he referred to his report, and how he was assured it would be referred to the IPCC, as then was, and properly investigated. As he put it 'No such investigation was ever attempted. No single question was asked of the officer authorising the warrants. Now it is said that the officers cannot be investigated because a statutory investigation has taken place exonerating them'.
I think he's a bit cross about it.
The police do appear to be masters at playing for time - once the news cycle moves on they can just keep on as they were.
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
In a way that's the point I'm making. Probably I should have said he's sacked all his advisers except his wife.
Bizarrely - and shamefully - announcing his divorce is one thing that would actually go down well with a lot of Tory members, judging from some of the comments you see from them
Definitely a lot of misogyny around but it's also because she's perceived as the one behind his left-wing green policies, amongst a load of other alleged character defects.
Johnson has managed to piss off the whole party. Not even Theresa May managed that.
Johnson has been consistently in the Green wing of the Conservative party for a number of years - even before Cameron was leader, IIRC
I don't know how anyone can apply the word consistent to Johnson on anything. He flits and flies at the merest whim.
Some of his policies appear green one week and others hard right the next. He's an assortment of populist demagogy and downright lies.
On the green agenda stuff he has been pushing the policies fairly steadily - faster end to ICE, more wind power etc
This is a continuation of various previous government policies, but there has been no slackening of the pace on this. If anything an acceleration.
I saw some convincing commentary that feet are being dragged on replacing the larger Green renovation schemes (the smaller one funded by the green levy has been very successful). These have been a series of disasters since 2010.
This is because of the Conservatives being cowards about taking the Owner Occupied bull by the horns and making OO people pay their way, and the Treasury not being put back in its toybox sufficiently.
If OO people have to pay their own way, landlords also need to pay their own way and that opens up a whole set of problems.
Interested to hear about that new set of problems. Seriously.
However, on Green issues, landlords are already largely paying their own way.
Statutory requirements for Private Rented Dwellings to meet increasing Energy standards were announced in I think 2012-2013, passed into law in 2015, and a rented dwelling now requires an EPC value of E or better since 2018.
That will be D or better in a couple of years. And will be C or better in 2028 or 2030. Not sure exactly where these dates are, but there was a consultation.
Which represents iirc roughly a halving of energy required in toto.
If a parallel measure had been brought in for owner occupied we would have had 10 years of progress, and a roadmap for the path to improvement from here.
Instead, the Govt ran away from tackling the issue, and are now sitting on their bottom in a puddle, scrabbling around looking for answers.
Remember that newbuild contribute a tiny % to housing emissions, and that older houses contribute the vast majority. And in the UK 65-70% of houses are owner occupied.
2-3 years ago the Private Rental Sector went ahead of the OO in Energy Efficiency Terms.
There are perhaps interesting issues about standards in socially owned lettings, and especially places that enforce their own "codes of practices" (eg Universities), that never seem to get much attention.
Was that Ed Daveys work in coalition years on energy efficiency in new builds for the rental sector?
Regulations for New Builds are a different thing to regulations for rentals. Building Regs are a number of docs (Fire Safety, Electrical, Ventilation etc), most updated every few years - updates since 1990 have quite heavily focused on Energy Efficiency.
I guess he would have input into any updates around 2012-2016.
The rental regulation stuff was Davey aiui, and an excellent thing. A gradual change notified well in advance. A similar strategy to the minor-looking but culture-changing alterations to the Highway Code that just came in.
I wonder if he wanted to apply it to all housing, and had to compromise to get it through. It would take some digging to find out.
I am sure it has been pointed out already, but the story in Southend is the low turnout. A third of what it was in the last election. Number of Con voters less than half. No left wing parties on the ballot as far as I can see. There isn't much in this to shore up Johnson. There wasn't even a credible challenger on the right, no Reform UK or Brexit party. So the way to 'kick' the tories was clearly by not voting at all. These by elections are never particularly representative, but the tories are going to struggle in Southend if they can only manage to drum up 12k votes, and the normal turnout is 45k.
I think Southend is moving leftwards and Rochford and Southend East is a longshot Labour target maybe even at the next election. Southend West is a safe enough seat for the Tories but not an ultra safe seat like others in Essex and can swing towards Lab/LD in the right circumstances (albeit only completely catastrophic Tory circumstances). Amess was lucky that Labour split the LD vote in 1997.
I was surprised to find out that Southend Council was Labour led albeit with the support of LDs and Independents and will be another interesting bellwether of Labour fortunes in May's elections.
In a Labour landslide year yes Southend would be a likely Labour gain.
However for the moment it should stay Tory and the solid Tory voteshare last night confirmed that.
Colchester and Thurrock might go Labour now, Southend would not
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
I heard the Governor this morning and he seemed completely anachronistic. When the country's main economic problems are stagnating real wages and stagnating productivity and one of its biggest strengths is almost full employment, the idea that wage restraint is the answer is hard to fathom. A Tory government pursuing that line would be shooting itself in the foot. There are still plenty of public sector workers who voted conservative at the last election.
It's not anachronistic wanting some restraint in wage demands. There's going to be a large inflationary shock this year, and probably next as well, from factors completely beyond the UK's control. If that feeds into significant wage inflation, the cycle could go on for years.
Up until this winter everyone thought fuel price shocks anachronistic, too.
It really did sound like someone commenting from another era. The reason we have inflation is because commodity prices have soared and supply chains have been squeezed. It's a supply shock, not a demand shock. It is not driven by people having more money in their pockets and being prepared to spend more, and that's not going to be the case if we get long-overdue rises in wages - not even in real wages, just rises to keep up with the inflationary shock....
He said pretty well exactly the first part of that this morning on R4 - and made it clear he wasn't calling for wage freezes, just restraint.
It's a very large economy wide shock, and everyone is going to be a bit poorer as a result. Whatever BoE or government does.
I suppose the other obvious point is the cnut-like nature of any statement like this. I can't imagine many people would have listened to Andrew this morning and thought "oh okay, in that case I might tone down my requests for a pay rise this year" or even "oh okay, for the good of the country maybe I'll scale down our organisation's pay rise bands".
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
Maybe. I knew a lot of people who were pissed with Labour for not signing up for a second referendum. Again, it's a point where a better Labour leader (and, dare I say it, shadow Brexit sec) might have managed to outfox May and generate a Commons majority for some form of soft Brexit. Or, indeed, a better PM/Brexit sec, if that way inclined.
In some ways I'm more annoyed with the hardcore remainers who wouldn't vote for Norway for now etc than with the Brexit ultras who pursued their dream. As, if I had been a Brexiter, I would have been more pissed with the Brexit ultras than the remainers if the end result had been a second ref and remain.
I am fairly certain that if there had been a further referendum, it would have endosed the Deal. People were just sick of the subject by then, and would have accepted anything. As indeed they did in Dec 2019, despite it now being seen as half baked rather than oven ready.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Do the rich (however you are defining that) really pay most of the total tax take in the UK?
Also, your point 1 seems to be inconsistent with point 2. If the rich have the motivation and means to avoid paying tax, it seems very unlikely that they are also providing the exchequer with most of their tax revenue.
My understanding is that the top 1% of earners pay something like 29% of income tax. I don't know how this compares internationally, mind you, but it seems top heavy to me. Any idea of the equivalent in Germany or elsewhere? I take your other point - but I think it is at an equilibrium: push up that 29%(?) to 40% and off it goes to Jersey or wherever the super rich go; drop it down to 24% and in it comes from America and Europe. Perhaps. It's possibly also a factor of the extent to which wealth and income in the UK is unequally spread, and has become more so in the last 30 years. This is all ramblings off the top of my head based on things I think I know rather than a meticulously researched piece with evidence to hand - contrary information or views welcome!
'China has joined Russia in opposing further Nato expansion as the two countries move closer together in the face of Western pressure.
Moscow and Beijing issued a statement showcasing agreement on a raft of issues during a visit by Russia's Vladimir Putin for the Winter Olympics.
In it Moscow said it supported China's stance on Taiwan and opposed independence for the island..The two countries' lengthy joint statement accuses Nato of espousing a Cold War ideology and also says they are concerned about the Aukus security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Meanwhile Russia said it supported Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.'
China is in a position to extract serious tribute from Russia at the moment. No doubt they will be doing just that. Discounted gas, access to agricultural land in the far East, a beady eye over trade policy and regulation...
The butterfly sanctuary, part of the North American Butterfly Association, made the announcement Wednesday. The decision came just days after GOP operatives descended on the site, reviving baseless and false conspiracy theories linking the center to sex trafficking...
...The butterfly center has been the target of far-right conspiracy theories for years, after the sanctuary in 2017 sued over the Trump administration’s plans to build a border wall through the 100-acre nature preserve.
To think some say politics has become less rational. But I just ask where is the evidence for that?
'China has joined Russia in opposing further Nato expansion as the two countries move closer together in the face of Western pressure.
Moscow and Beijing issued a statement showcasing agreement on a raft of issues during a visit by Russia's Vladimir Putin for the Winter Olympics.
In it Moscow said it supported China's stance on Taiwan and opposed independence for the island..The two countries' lengthy joint statement accuses Nato of espousing a Cold War ideology and also says they are concerned about the Aukus security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Meanwhile Russia said it supported Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.'
Will be very interesting to see the first set of polls after this week's energy prices and inflation stories. See if there's a discernible effect beyond party-gate.
The most interesting poll to watch I think will be public satisfaction levels with Sunak.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Your second point is crucial and I think this is a big area where the Left is currently going wrong.
In big-picture terms the Left should be aiming to reform the economy so that the lowest paid are paid more, so that they can afford to pay more tax for better public services.
Taxing the rich to pay for wage subsidies for the poor can seem like an attractive short-term expedient, but it creates a very narrow tax base and divides society in a way that makes society more hostile to left-wing politics.
Agreed. In defence of 'the left'; large swathes of the left do get this. I'd be interested to hear from those on 'the left' who may have a more detailed view of the internal debates and who positions where, but I'd highlight the Manchester Labour Party, where a clique of the 'make poor people better off by bringing good quality jobs to Manchester, and meanwhile, work with the Conservative government to bring investment to Manchester' persuasion took over in the late 80s from the previous 'make poor people richer by taxing rich people more and giving poor people stuff, and no co-operation with Conservatives' clique. The new clique have done a great job of turning the city around and have been fantastically successful - though are still criticised by those of the 'tax rich people more' persuasion. This mainly plays out in the debate over affordable housing - do we take any investment at all in Manchester for the growth it will bring, or do we force investors to provide us with affordable housing, even if it means less development? This is a perfectly valid argument to have, as long as the last six words are recognised.
Manchester City Council are excellent. And I am obviously not a Labour person.
'China has joined Russia in opposing further Nato expansion as the two countries move closer together in the face of Western pressure.
Moscow and Beijing issued a statement showcasing agreement on a raft of issues during a visit by Russia's Vladimir Putin for the Winter Olympics.
In it Moscow said it supported China's stance on Taiwan and opposed independence for the island..The two countries' lengthy joint statement accuses Nato of espousing a Cold War ideology and also says they are concerned about the Aukus security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Meanwhile Russia said it supported Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.'
China is in a position to extract serious tribute from Russia at the moment. No doubt they will be doing just that. Discounted gas, access to agricultural land in the far East, a beady eye over trade policy and regulation...
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
Maybe. I knew a lot of people who were pissed with Labour for not signing up for a second referendum. Again, it's a point where a better Labour leader (and, dare I say it, shadow Brexit sec) might have managed to outfox May and generate a Commons majority for some form of soft Brexit. Or, indeed, a better PM/Brexit sec, if that way inclined.
In some ways I'm more annoyed with the hardcore remainers who wouldn't vote for Norway for now etc than with the Brexit ultras who pursued their dream. As, if I had been a Brexiter, I would have been more pissed with the Brexit ultras than the remainers if the end result had been a second ref and remain.
I am fairly certain that if there had been a further referendum, it would have endosed the Deal. People were just sick of the subject by then, and would have accepted anything. As indeed they did in Dec 2019, despite it now being seen as half baked rather than oven ready.
Deal v more negotiations, definitely.
But Deal v Revoke would likely have been won by Revoke on a reduced turnout.
(Edit: hit "post" too soon! I think in the latter case there would have been enough Leavers who would have been so put off by the preceding years and the effective cancellation of the first referendum result that they wouldn't have seen the point in voting again.)
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
Maybe. I knew a lot of people who were pissed with Labour for not signing up for a second referendum. Again, it's a point where a better Labour leader (and, dare I say it, shadow Brexit sec) might have managed to outfox May and generate a Commons majority for some form of soft Brexit. Or, indeed, a better PM/Brexit sec, if that way inclined.
In some ways I'm more annoyed with the hardcore remainers who wouldn't vote for Norway for now etc than with the Brexit ultras who pursued their dream. As, if I had been a Brexiter, I would have been more pissed with the Brexit ultras than the remainers if the end result had been a second ref and remain.
I'm not sure there ever was a viable 'Norway' option in the aftermath of the referendum. It is something we assume was an option but it isn't clear to me that it could have been actually negotiated without significant drawbacks. I think we would have embarked on it to much grief and pain, and ended up either remaining in the EU, or with the exit that we got.
Ideally we would have started from a better position - trying to achieve something like associate membership from the very outset, rather than Cameron's deal. The only thing I can say with absolute confidence was the whole thing was a mess, from the referendum through to the exit itself, but it did at least give the people what they wanted and so democracy prevailed.
I am sure it has been pointed out already, but the story in Southend is the low turnout. A third of what it was in the last election. Number of Con voters less than half. No left wing parties on the ballot as far as I can see. There isn't much in this to shore up Johnson. There wasn't even a credible challenger on the right, no Reform UK or Brexit party. So the way to 'kick' the tories was clearly by not voting at all. These by elections are never particularly representative, but the tories are going to struggle in Southend if they can only manage to drum up 12k votes, and the normal turnout is 45k.
I think Southend is moving leftwards and Rochford and Southend East is a longshot Labour target maybe even at the next election. Southend West is a safe enough seat for the Tories but not an ultra safe seat like others in Essex and can swing towards Lab/LD in the right circumstances (albeit only completely catastrophic Tory circumstances). Amess was lucky that Labour split the LD vote in 1997.
I was surprised to find out that Southend Council was Labour led albeit with the support of LDs and Independents and will be another interesting bellwether of Labour fortunes in May's elections.
The old Southend East seat was marginal at times. Old school acquaintance of mine got within a few hundred votes for Labour in the 60's. Adding rural Rochford has made it a lot safer for the Tories.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
One curiosity of modern policing is how the SMT is so willing to overlook grooming gangs, push Yewtree on minimal evidence, celebrate Pride week, yet has developed a canteen culture of misogyny and racism as seen in Charing Cross Station.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
Who did people expect was going to pay the costs of lockdowns they were demanding?
Fantastic comment and absolutely.
Public in favour of lockdowns. Public not in favour of tax rises.
*passes out in shock and surprise*
Public in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
Where did that £8.7bn wasted on PPE go? It's sitting in somebody's bank accounts.
The public are always in favour of tax rises for the wealthy.
And wealthy always means those who have more than they do.
Without exception.
Sorry to be the exception but I'd fully expect any sensible tax increase to hit me more than those with below average incomes and/or savings.
Honestly, I am not super wealthy but like many (not all) on here I am comfortably off. I end up spending stuff on things I don't really need or worse still pushing it into savings I'll never possibly use in my lifetime.
Sure, I can give it away, and almost certainly will in the end, but I could afford to pay more taxes too.
Yes my without exception was wrong. There's you and @kinabalu and others I'm sure. But we're not talking about those who have the luxury of being wealthy enough to advocate extra taxes and that should have been made clear.
With the exception of champagne socialists some of those who are very wealthy. .
I'm with Benpointer, a bit.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
Do the rich (however you are defining that) really pay most of the total tax take in the UK?
Also, your point 1 seems to be inconsistent with point 2. If the rich have the motivation and means to avoid paying tax, it seems very unlikely that they are also providing the exchequer with most of their tax revenue.
My understanding is that the top 1% of earners pay something like 29% of income tax. I don't know how this compares internationally, mind you, but it seems top heavy to me. Any idea of the equivalent in Germany or elsewhere? I take your other point - but I think it is at an equilibrium: push up that 29%(?) to 40% and off it goes to Jersey or wherever the super rich go; drop it down to 24% and in it comes from America and Europe. Perhaps. It's possibly also a factor of the extent to which wealth and income in the UK is unequally spread, and has become more so in the last 30 years. This is all ramblings off the top of my head based on things I think I know rather than a meticulously researched piece with evidence to hand - contrary information or views welcome!
"We published the final Wealth Tax Commission report in December 2020, with the recommendation that, if the government chooses to raise taxes as part of its response to the COVID-19 crisis, it should implement a one-off wealth tax in preference to increasing taxes on work or spending. A one-off wealth tax on millionaire couples paid at one per cent a year for five years, we found, would raise £260 billion."
Seems fair to me. Plough it into 'levelling up' and you might change something. Although it means death if you're reliant upon a block of atavistic home counties home owners.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
One curiosity of modern policing is how the SMT is so willing to overlook grooming gangs, push Yewtree on minimal evidence, celebrate Pride week, yet has developed a canteen culture of misogyny and racism as seen in Charing Cross Station.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Yes it's a puzzle. The police are simultaneously horribly woke and horribly non-woke.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Was your mother born before 1922?
1940s but Stormont ran the show until the early 70s.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
Maybe. I knew a lot of people who were pissed with Labour for not signing up for a second referendum. Again, it's a point where a better Labour leader (and, dare I say it, shadow Brexit sec) might have managed to outfox May and generate a Commons majority for some form of soft Brexit. Or, indeed, a better PM/Brexit sec, if that way inclined.
In some ways I'm more annoyed with the hardcore remainers who wouldn't vote for Norway for now etc than with the Brexit ultras who pursued their dream. As, if I had been a Brexiter, I would have been more pissed with the Brexit ultras than the remainers if the end result had been a second ref and remain.
I'm not sure there ever was a viable 'Norway' option in the aftermath of the referendum. It is something we assume was an option but it isn't clear to me that it could have been actually negotiated without significant drawbacks. I think we would have embarked on it to much grief and pain, and ended up either remaining in the EU, or with the exit that we got.
Ideally we would have started from a better position - trying to achieve something like associate membership from the very outset, rather than Cameron's deal. The only thing I can say with absolute confidence was the whole thing was a mess, from the referendum through to the exit itself, but it did at least give the people what they wanted and so democracy prevailed.
The referendum was fundamentally flawed in that *neither* side was fully fleshed-out. Having an exact Leave prospectus against a Remain campaign that admitted that full membership meant joining the euro and Schengen, with both sides agreeing that the half-in, half-out status quo was unsustainable in the long run, would have been so much more helpful.
The flaws are pretty obvious, though, which is why it didn't happen.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
I think that is just a sign of Leaver paranoia. If the Tories had voted for a Norway option along with Labour in the meaningful vote then I have absolutely no doubt that that is what we would have got. It would have had an unassailable parliamentary majority. The problem was the Tories' insistence that freedom of movement had to end, which meant they couldn't endorse anything that retained the single market. The big picture is simple. At every point since the referendum the process has been controlled by the Tory party and Leavers (or those who wholeheartedly embraced Leave after the referendum). To blame where we are on anyone else is a laughable attempt to rewrite history. And the fact that - having achieved their desired objective - they feel the need to blame anyone, just tells you what a pack of lies the whole Leave campaign was from the start.
Worse than the drop after the GFC or Black Wednesday is quite a grim situation.
Yes, indeed. Also, that graph is obviously an average; there will be a large number of low-paid people for whom the effect is proportionately larger, and who probably will already have had a tough time during the pandemic. The only relatively bright spot is that at the moment unemployment doesn't seem to be likely to be a big problem, but it is going to be pretty grim for many.
Not all of this is the government's fault, of course, and their room for manoeuvre is limited, but Sunak's mitigation measures are only going to address a small part of the pain.
It will be interesting to see if voters wake up to the fact that Brexit has made this substantially worse.
The other chart of relevance is this one from the FT which gives some idea of the regional bounce back, and where it is lacking:
The West Midlands being the cockpit of any election, but by far the worst affected doesn't bode well, especially for a government that talks about "The North" and ignores the Midlands.
'China has joined Russia in opposing further Nato expansion as the two countries move closer together in the face of Western pressure.
Moscow and Beijing issued a statement showcasing agreement on a raft of issues during a visit by Russia's Vladimir Putin for the Winter Olympics.
In it Moscow said it supported China's stance on Taiwan and opposed independence for the island..The two countries' lengthy joint statement accuses Nato of espousing a Cold War ideology and also says they are concerned about the Aukus security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Meanwhile Russia said it supported Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.'
China is in a position to extract serious tribute from Russia at the moment. No doubt they will be doing just that. Discounted gas, access to agricultural land in the far East, a beady eye over trade policy and regulation...
Worth pointing out again that every country which recognises the PRC supports "Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.' Which includes us.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
One curiosity of modern policing is how the SMT is so willing to overlook grooming gangs, push Yewtree on minimal evidence, celebrate Pride week, yet has developed a canteen culture of misogyny and racism as seen in Charing Cross Station.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Yes, it is perhaps best understood as an institution struggling to keep up with changes in society, which forces pulling it in all sorts of contradictory directions.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
One curiosity of modern policing is how the SMT is so willing to overlook grooming gangs, push Yewtree on minimal evidence, celebrate Pride week, yet has developed a canteen culture of misogyny and racism as seen in Charing Cross Station.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Maybe the latter is (at least in part) a reaction from the frontline troops against senior management's hobby horses.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
My wife's view was that once I got into my 50s blue jeans were strictly for garden work only. Just a thought.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
Not least because many - most? - leave voters were not ultras, but came to their decision narrowly. (As, I would imagine, were most remainers).
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
I think that is just a sign of Leaver paranoia.
Given how bitterly a faction of sore-loser Remainers fought to overturn the referendum result, a certain level of paranoia was quite understandable.
Worse than the drop after the GFC or Black Wednesday is quite a grim situation.
Yes, indeed. Also, that graph is obviously an average; there will be a large number of low-paid people for whom the effect is proportionately larger, and who probably will already have had a tough time during the pandemic. The only relatively bright spot is that at the moment unemployment doesn't seem to be likely to be a big problem, but it is going to be pretty grim for many.
Not all of this is the government's fault, of course, and their room for manoeuvre is limited, but Sunak's mitigation measures are only going to address a small part of the pain.
It will be interesting to see if voters wake up to the fact that Brexit has made this substantially worse.
The other chart of relevance is this one from the FT which gives some idea of the regional bounce back, and where it is lacking:
The West Midlands being the cockpit of any election, but by far the worst affected doesn't bode well, especially for a government that talks about "The North" and ignores the Midlands.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
I got my current pair from JL funnily enough. Amazing value at £25 and they do, if I say so myself, rather suit me. I'm hoping and expecting they'll do a decade, JL being a watchword for quality, so 8 years to go.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
I heard the Governor this morning and he seemed completely anachronistic. When the country's main economic problems are stagnating real wages and stagnating productivity and one of its biggest strengths is almost full employment, the idea that wage restraint is the answer is hard to fathom. A Tory government pursuing that line would be shooting itself in the foot. There are still plenty of public sector workers who voted conservative at the last election.
It's not anachronistic wanting some restraint in wage demands. There's going to be a large inflationary shock this year, and probably next as well, from factors completely beyond the UK's control. If that feeds into significant wage inflation, the cycle could go on for years.
Up until this winter everyone thought fuel price shocks anachronistic, too.
It really did sound like someone commenting from another era. The reason we have inflation is because commodity prices have soared and supply chains have been squeezed. It's a supply shock, not a demand shock. It is not driven by people having more money in their pockets and being prepared to spend more, and that's not going to be the case if we get long-overdue rises in wages - not even in real wages, just rises to keep up with the inflationary shock....
He said pretty well exactly the first part of that this morning on R4 - and made it clear he wasn't calling for wage freezes, just restraint.
It's a very large economy wide shock, and everyone is going to be a bit poorer as a result. Whatever BoE or government does.
That's why I think the Govt have messed up on Energy prices.
They should have been dealt with entirely to take the whole thing out of inflation, and I'm surprised that there seems to have been little coordination with OFGEM. I think the price crisis will be quite a lot shorter than the "2 year" claims being trolled across media.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
This is drastically worse than forecasts of even a few weeks ago, and comprises the toxic cocktail of misallocation of bank assets over the course of thirty years, the productivity mess, the infrastructure mess, and topped off with a side order of Brexit mess, which seems to be the final straw for the poor beast of UK PLC, which is now going to be on its back until well after the next GE. In the face of this, it is hard not to think that the electoral cycle is absolutely horrible for the Tories, no matter what.
I think that by October the scale of the mess really will be back to the 1970s, and the people in charge will be facing torches and pitchforks. It is real crisis and there are few to none on either side of the House who have the skills to understand the scale of the infolding disaster, let alone create a coherrent set of polcies that can successfully address an economic contraction the like of which we have really not seen in living memory.
One thing is for sure, since Brexit is clearly a contributory factor for the economic damage, it will be very difficult for the Conservatives to evade their share of the blame. People seem to be ignoring the endless queues of lorries but company balance sheets, where the costs of trade have increased 50%-60% in some cases, are being pummelled on both revenue and costs.
Tory MPs seem to think that Sunak could be John Major, and allow a reset with the furious voters. I think History may rhyme, but doesn´t repeat exactly, and the parrallel with Major may not be before the 92 GE, but after.
These local elections are ever stronger for the Lib Dems, and the Tory travails certainly bode well for them. Perhaps the next election will be like 97, but with what Blair and Ashdown both expected then, which was not a Labour landslide, but a coalition.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Was your mother born before 1922?
1940s but Stormont ran the show until the early 70s.
The problem with Stormont, as I'm sure you know, was that it was crudely gerrymandered to ensure 'a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People' with FPTP elections in constituencies organised to have at least 50% non-Catholics in as many as possible. I'm not sure about the value of all of the arrangements for the Executive, but STV does seem to have given a more 'representative' legislature.
Worse than the drop after the GFC or Black Wednesday is quite a grim situation.
Yes, indeed. Also, that graph is obviously an average; there will be a large number of low-paid people for whom the effect is proportionately larger, and who probably will already have had a tough time during the pandemic. The only relatively bright spot is that at the moment unemployment doesn't seem to be likely to be a big problem, but it is going to be pretty grim for many.
Not all of this is the government's fault, of course, and their room for manoeuvre is limited, but Sunak's mitigation measures are only going to address a small part of the pain.
It will be interesting to see if voters wake up to the fact that Brexit has made this substantially worse.
The other chart of relevance is this one from the FT which gives some idea of the regional bounce back, and where it is lacking:
The West Midlands being the cockpit of any election, but by far the worst affected doesn't bode well, especially for a government that talks about "The North" and ignores the Midlands.
Thank you Nigel for that. I recently suggested that he was the worst PM in my lifetime (i.e. since Atlee) and got jumped on from a great height. Admittedly it was Hyufd but even so I was astonished to find that even in so broad a forum as PB there was anyone prepared to argue that he didn't rank lower than all predecessors since WW2.
But you go further. 'In history', you say? Hmmm. Boris....Lord North.....Lord North...Boris.
It's close, I'll grant.
Absurd, Boris got Brexit done, won a landslide election win, delivered one of the most successful vaccination programmes in the world and unemployment still half the level Brown's Labour left in 2010.
After Blair and Thatcher in terms of delivery Boris is the most successful PM of the last 50 years
That assumes Brexit was delivered properly and was a good thing, overeggs the size of the election win, ignores the feebleness of Corbyn and the Labour Party at the time, ignores the many failings in the handling of the pandemic and the very high rates of covid cases and deaths by any reasonable international comparison, and the very deifferent economic scenarios that Brown and Johnson had to deal with.
You also overlook his mendacity and incompetence.
I won't be around to check but I'm pretty sure history will mark him down as one of the worst ever UK PMs. I'd definitely rate him lower than any other post-war PM, and comparisons with the legendary Lord North are not far-fetched.
Peter. I'd like to get in touch with you. Is it possible you could give me your email address?
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
One curiosity of modern policing is how the SMT is so willing to overlook grooming gangs, push Yewtree on minimal evidence, celebrate Pride week, yet has developed a canteen culture of misogyny and racism as seen in Charing Cross Station.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Yes it's a puzzle. The police are simultaneously horribly woke and horribly non-woke.
It's really just that they are civilians in service. There seems to be similar issues in a lot of other institutions, from Armed Forces, to political parties across the spectrum, Unions, business, media, sport, the NHS etc.
There is quite a lot of cognitive dissonance about.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Was your mother born before 1922?
1940s but Stormont ran the show until the early 70s.
The problem with Stormont, as I'm sure you know, was that it was crudely gerrymandered to ensure 'a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People' with FPTP elections in constituencies organised to have at least 50% non-Catholics in as many as possible. I'm not sure about the value of all of the arrangements for the Executive, but STV does seem to have given a more 'representative' legislature.
Stormont using STV also ensures the median MLA will almost always be from the Alliance now.
Hence neither Unionists nor Nationalists have a majority there
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
Not least because many - most? - leave voters were not ultras, but came to their decision narrowly. (As, I would imagine, were most remainers).
Absolutely. I'm one of those myself - I was mostly tipped by a suspicion that a Remain vote would have been taken as an endorsement of ever closer union/joining the euro and Schengen even though the Remain campaign hadn't campaigned on that prospectus. I was always intensely relaxed about ending up in EEA/EFTA or an equivalent.
I am sure it has been pointed out already, but the story in Southend is the low turnout. A third of what it was in the last election. Number of Con voters less than half. No left wing parties on the ballot as far as I can see. There isn't much in this to shore up Johnson. There wasn't even a credible challenger on the right, no Reform UK or Brexit party. So the way to 'kick' the tories was clearly by not voting at all. These by elections are never particularly representative, but the tories are going to struggle in Southend if they can only manage to drum up 12k votes, and the normal turnout is 45k.
I think Southend is moving leftwards and Rochford and Southend East is a longshot Labour target maybe even at the next election. Southend West is a safe enough seat for the Tories but not an ultra safe seat like others in Essex and can swing towards Lab/LD in the right circumstances (albeit only completely catastrophic Tory circumstances). Amess was lucky that Labour split the LD vote in 1997.
I was surprised to find out that Southend Council was Labour led albeit with the support of LDs and Independents and will be another interesting bellwether of Labour fortunes in May's elections.
In a Labour landslide year yes Southend would be a likely Labour gain.
However for the moment it should stay Tory and the solid Tory voteshare last night confirmed that.
Colchester and Thurrock might go Labour now, Southend would not
The idea that Southend West actually tells us anything at all shows how little you can actually think beyond the first stage.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
Difficult to know for sure that they are voting for the Conservatives because they support the Boris-led regime or because they are heartened that there are finally enough rumblings of discontent about Boris that an end is in sight.
I think anyone seeking to draw too many conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat is on a fools errand.
Yes utterly pointless. Someone did some comparisons this morning here to Batley and Spen and it wasn't favourable. Also on the news this lunchtime it refered to LDs and Lab supporters voting for the Conservative in support because of the reason for the by election. It is completely impossible to deduce anything. @MrEd desperate for something
Only useful info is UKIP doing so badly..
Christ, I didn't say it was good for BJ, only that it might make Tory MPs waver in sending in their letters.
So you were saying better for BJ then. No wonder you read and see things differently to everyone else just like that picnic, sorry attempted coup in the USA. You twist stuff to the extreme.
How is saying that the result may make MPs question sending in a letter twisting stuff? It is an expression of opinion and trying to work out how that might affect someone's decision making. And what has that got to do with the States?
You really have lost the plot. It is clear from yours - and others' posters - that, when it comes to BJ, we now have JDS - Johnson Derangement Syndrome. Anything that is deemed slightly sympathetic to BJ, no matter what it is, brings in a barrage of abuse. And coming from people who bang on about the fact of how tolerant they are, and they despise abuse in politics etc. etc. and probably have their "Love not Hate" and "Don't look back in anger" posters stuck on the wall. Total hypocrites to a person.
This really is becoming a website where only one point of view is accepted and nothing else tolerated. Good luck with your betting tips off the back of that.
OK let's take that point by point:
What has it got to do with the State - It is another example of you coming out with stuff that no sane person or someone without extreme bias could believe. You deduced stuff from the Southend result that was completely undeducible (if there is such a word) just like you deduced what happened on 6 Jan wasn't a coup attempt against all the obvious evidence.
brings a barrage of abuse - Where did I abuse you?
Re your 2nd para - What? I didn't even mention Boris in my post and only did later in response to your Boris point. Not sure how that gives me 'Boris Deranged Syndrome' when I didn't mention him and I wasn't even talking about him in the first place. Are you bonkers; you brought him up, not me? This is like Leon complaining about everyone talking about Brexit and yet he is the one that keeps bringing it up. I suggest you read my original post again.
Last para - So you don't want us to challenge you then? Bit wimpy. Not a good place to post then.
Last para again re betting tips - I have liked a number of your posts where you have come out with some cracking long shots. I can't remember them all, but the last was Esther McVey at I think 150/1
PS Just to make clear that last comment was a compliment and not sarcasm, which it sounds like. The McVey tip at those odds I thought was good.
I think that is just a sign of Leaver paranoia. If the Tories had voted for a Norway option along with Labour in the meaningful vote then I have absolutely no doubt that that is what we would have got. It would have had an unassailable parliamentary majority. The problem was the Tories' insistence that freedom of movement had to end, which meant they couldn't endorse anything that retained the single market. The big picture is simple. At every point since the referendum the process has been controlled by the Tory party and Leavers (or those who wholeheartedly embraced Leave after the referendum). To blame where we are on anyone else is a laughable attempt to rewrite history. And the fact that - having achieved their desired objective - they feel the need to blame anyone, just tells you what a pack of lies the whole Leave campaign was from the start.
Come off it, in the crucial period between the 2017 and 2019 GEs the Conservatives didn't have a majority. The reason we had gridlock and now have the catastrophe of a Brexit which is not only the hardest possible but incompetently implemented is because Labour, the LibDems and the SNP joined forces with the ERG to wreck every attempt at compromise. That wasn't the only cause, of course - there were others, such as the bewildering choice of voters in 2017 to deny Theresa May a majority and the even more bewildering choice of the Labour Party to choose Corbyn as leader, thus making the party unelectable - but you are the one rewriting history in your denial of the role of the opposition parties in the 2017-2019 period.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
One curiosity of modern policing is how the SMT is so willing to overlook grooming gangs, push Yewtree on minimal evidence, celebrate Pride week, yet has developed a canteen culture of misogyny and racism as seen in Charing Cross Station.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Yes it's a puzzle. The police are simultaneously horribly woke and horribly non-woke.
The "canteen culture of misogyny and racism" has always been there.
It is now submerged under lawyers of training in what to say. Not got rid of.
So Constable Savage is now arresting Black people for ordering their coffee Black.
If you see the problem as a broken culture trying to behave to standards that are not actually understood in a moral sense... it takes perfect sense.
"He looks like a lower primate trying to fly an aeroplane."
Chaps, I am coming off this website. After this morning, I've just decided the downsides are far greater than the upsides re info, betting tips. Good luck to the many decent individuals on here and thanks for all the betting tips you have given over the years.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
Given how in his report he detailed how the police stubbornly refused to understand the issues, that does not surprise me in the slightest.
Henriques recently wrote about the deception of the district judge he referred to his report, and how he was assured it would be referred to the IPCC, as then was, and properly investigated. As he put it 'No such investigation was ever attempted. No single question was asked of the officer authorising the warrants. Now it is said that the officers cannot be investigated because a statutory investigation has taken place exonerating them'.
I think he's a bit cross about it.
The police do appear to be masters at playing for time - once the news cycle moves on they can just keep on as they were.
Well nothing is going to change under the current leadership. And as Cyclefree says, the government don't seem to be bothered about it.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
Try Yoga pants. They stretch.
I don't want my trousers to stretch! Too many of them do stretch. I want them to be entirely rigid, like nature intended.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
I think that is just a sign of Leaver paranoia. If the Tories had voted for a Norway option along with Labour in the meaningful vote then I have absolutely no doubt that that is what we would have got. It would have had an unassailable parliamentary majority. The problem was the Tories' insistence that freedom of movement had to end, which meant they couldn't endorse anything that retained the single market. The big picture is simple. At every point since the referendum the process has been controlled by the Tory party and Leavers (or those who wholeheartedly embraced Leave after the referendum). To blame where we are on anyone else is a laughable attempt to rewrite history. And the fact that - having achieved their desired objective - they feel the need to blame anyone, just tells you what a pack of lies the whole Leave campaign was from the start.
The redwall would have hated the EEA and free movement even more than Remainers, it was never an option.
Maybe in 10 or 20 years time once immigration is under control it might be, though likely it would be a Labour government which goes to EEA and the Tories in time accepting that but not for the foreseeable future given Starmer too needs to win redwall seats to become PM
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The BoE Governor has asked people not to seek wage rises in response to inflation. Such "2nd round effects" can make inflation more persistent & the cost of cutting it higher. Does the govt intend to bolster the Governor's stance by limiting public sector pay rises this year?
I heard the Governor this morning and he seemed completely anachronistic. When the country's main economic problems are stagnating real wages and stagnating productivity and one of its biggest strengths is almost full employment, the idea that wage restraint is the answer is hard to fathom. A Tory government pursuing that line would be shooting itself in the foot. There are still plenty of public sector workers who voted conservative at the last election.
It's not anachronistic wanting some restraint in wage demands. There's going to be a large inflationary shock this year, and probably next as well, from factors completely beyond the UK's control. If that feeds into significant wage inflation, the cycle could go on for years.
Up until this winter everyone thought fuel price shocks anachronistic, too.
It really did sound like someone commenting from another era. The reason we have inflation is because commodity prices have soared and supply chains have been squeezed. It's a supply shock, not a demand shock. It is not driven by people having more money in their pockets and being prepared to spend more, and that's not going to be the case if we get long-overdue rises in wages - not even in real wages, just rises to keep up with the inflationary shock....
He said pretty well exactly the first part of that this morning on R4 - and made it clear he wasn't calling for wage freezes, just restraint.
It's a very large economy wide shock, and everyone is going to be a bit poorer as a result. Whatever BoE or government does.
That's why I think the Govt have messed up on Energy prices.
They should have been dealt with entirely to take the whole thing out of inflation, and I'm surprised that there seems to have been little coordination with OFGEM. I think the price crisis will be quite a lot shorter than the "2 year" claims being trolled across media.
There's certainly a case for it. Once inflationary expectations are baked in, it's a very painful process to change (which is what prompted the BoE comments). Anyone who recalls the 70s will be rightly concerned.
I tend to oppose taxing the rich much more because: 1. My belief is that it doesn't work. The rich are not like you and me. That's why they're rich. They're motivated by increasing their wealth, rather than family, an easy life, inertia, whatever motivates most people. And they have the means to do so. If you try to tax them more, they will either go somewhere else, pay specialists to find ways of avoiding the increased liabilities, or do less of the money-making activities that are being so heavily taxed - because they are wealthy enough not to need to. So if you're objective is maximising tax revenue, raising taxes on the rich is a surprisingly poor way to do it. And 2. The rich already pay a frighteningly large proportion of the tax the exchequer receives. A narrow base to tax revenues is undesirable because it's a) fraught with risk and b) engenders a disconnect in the minds of most people between raising of funds for public spending and the outcomes of that public spending, which leads to poor understanding of values. It's like the story Nick tells about the Swiss talking about 'our bridge' and that public spending is 'ours' whereas we say 'they are building a bridge'. Public spending is a public good, but should also be a public cost; not a cost which falls upon some 'other'. (A good example: Andy Burnham can add, I think, £10 to council tax in Greater Manchester, and with it pay for the specific outcome of free public transport for 16-18 year olds. Is this a cost I think there is a benefit in? As it happens, yes, even though I have no children that age. I can see the public good in allowing that cohort wider access to education and other opportunities.)
I'm not against tax rises per se, but I'm always wary when they are narrowly targeted.
I was actually physically present when a rich (owned a house whose garden actually opened onto Wentworth Golf course) relative fired his tax lawyers and decided to simply pay the income tax.
This was when Maggie dropped the rates.
The comment I've heard from a number of such people is that while paying tax is OK, over 50% they feel motivated to extreme measures to reduce the bill.
Some points on this:
1. People on Universal Credit routinely pay more than 50% effective tax when they take part-time work, because of the taper effect. When I was briefly on the previous system, I found myself paying 80% tax on casual work. I agree it's then tempting to take extreme measures, which for benefits takes the form of either not doing the work or not reporting it, both of which then incur lofty condemnation of "benefit scroungers". I think this discussion should prompt understanding of their position too.
2. I agree that rates over 50% incur active resistance. What could reasonably be considered would be additional bands above basic rate or a sliding scale where the % inches up as your income grows - the gaps to the £100K mark when an effective 60% rate kicks in (because of the loss of PA) and then to the £150K mark are very large, and unusual in international comparisons, where a sliding scale is common.
3. The differences in wealth are nowadays much more noticeable than difference in income (though the head of the BoE on something like £300K urging wage restraint on others was a good example of tin ear), and a wealth tax (perhaps replacing council tax) or at least additional council tax bands for very expensive properties seems a reasonable way forward. The Duke of Westminster and his family are reportedly worth £10 billion, not because he's worked his fingers to the bone or made brilliant decisions, but because he's the son of the previous Duke. I've nothing against him but if he paid say 0.5% a year on his assets I doubt if even he would feel it was especially unfair or required extreme avoidance tactics.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
Not least because many - most? - leave voters were not ultras, but came to their decision narrowly. (As, I would imagine, were most remainers).
Absolutely. I'm one of those myself - I was mostly tipped by a suspicion that a Remain vote would have been taken as an endorsement of ever closer union/joining the euro and Schengen even though the Remain campaign hadn't campaigned on that prospectus. I was always intensely relaxed about ending up in EEA/EFTA or an equivalent.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Was your mother born before 1922?
1940s but Stormont ran the show until the early 70s.
The problem with Stormont, as I'm sure you know, was that it was crudely gerrymandered to ensure 'a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People' with FPTP elections in constituencies organised to have at least 50% non-Catholics in as many as possible. I'm not sure about the value of all of the arrangements for the Executive, but STV does seem to have given a more 'representative' legislature.
Stormont using STV also ensures the median MLA will almost always be from the Alliance now.
Hence neither Unionists nor Nationalists have a majority there
Good. Aspiring politicians will have to start thinking about 'what's best for the people', rather than 'how does the Chief Priest of my tribe see it'.
Thank you Nigel for that. I recently suggested that he was the worst PM in my lifetime (i.e. since Atlee) and got jumped on from a great height. Admittedly it was Hyufd but even so I was astonished to find that even in so broad a forum as PB there was anyone prepared to argue that he didn't rank lower than all predecessors since WW2.
But you go further. 'In history', you say? Hmmm. Boris....Lord North.....Lord North...Boris.
It's close, I'll grant.
Absurd, Boris got Brexit done, won a landslide election win, delivered one of the most successful vaccination programmes in the world and unemployment still half the level Brown's Labour left in 2010.
After Blair and Thatcher in terms of delivery Boris is the most successful PM of the last 50 years
That assumes Brexit was delivered properly and was a good thing, overeggs the size of the election win, ignores the feebleness of Corbyn and the Labour Party at the time, ignores the many failings in the handling of the pandemic and the very high rates of covid cases and deaths by any reasonable international comparison, and the very deifferent economic scenarios that Brown and Johnson had to deal with.
You also overlook his mendacity and incompetence.
I won't be around to check but I'm pretty sure history will mark him down as one of the worst ever UK PMs. I'd definitely rate him lower than any other post-war PM, and comparisons with the legendary Lord North are not far-fetched.
Peter. I'd like to get in touch with you. Is it possible you could give me your email address?
Roger, did you know Vanilla has a way of sending private messages? If you click on Peter the Punter's name, it will take you to his profile, and in the top right there is a 'message' button which will send him an email. Apologies if teaching you to suck eggs.
Chaps, I am coming off this website. After this morning, I've just decided the downsides are far greater than the upsides re info, betting tips. Good luck to the many decent individuals on here and thanks for all the betting tips you have given over the years.
Sorry to hear that. Thanks for the contributions and perhaps you'll rejoin again.
The discussion about Alison Saunders, Starmer and the CPS is all very interesting. But what you are missing is that the Met - and other police forces - are still operating on the basis of the flawed assumptions about uncritical belief in what a victim alleges, despite Sir Richard Henriques pointing out all the wrongheadedness of this in his report following Operation Midland.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
Given how in his report he detailed how the police stubbornly refused to understand the issues, that does not surprise me in the slightest.
Henriques recently wrote about the deception of the district judge he referred to his report, and how he was assured it would be referred to the IPCC, as then was, and properly investigated. As he put it 'No such investigation was ever attempted. No single question was asked of the officer authorising the warrants. Now it is said that the officers cannot be investigated because a statutory investigation has taken place exonerating them'.
I think he's a bit cross about it.
The police do appear to be masters at playing for time - once the news cycle moves on they can just keep on as they were.
It is, frankly, an absolute scandal.
It is why I keep going on about it. Sorry. (Not that I am at all sorry. )
Worse than the drop after the GFC or Black Wednesday is quite a grim situation.
Yes, indeed. Also, that graph is obviously an average; there will be a large number of low-paid people for whom the effect is proportionately larger, and who probably will already have had a tough time during the pandemic. The only relatively bright spot is that at the moment unemployment doesn't seem to be likely to be a big problem, but it is going to be pretty grim for many.
Not all of this is the government's fault, of course, and their room for manoeuvre is limited, but Sunak's mitigation measures are only going to address a small part of the pain.
It will be interesting to see if voters wake up to the fact that Brexit has made this substantially worse.
The other chart of relevance is this one from the FT which gives some idea of the regional bounce back, and where it is lacking:
The West Midlands being the cockpit of any election, but by far the worst affected doesn't bode well, especially for a government that talks about "The North" and ignores the Midlands.
It is paywalled, but googling the full title takes you past it with the FT.
Looking on the ONS, in November 2021 they posted figures for the period to MARCH 2021.
The article says this:
"Economic output in Northern Ireland in the third quarter was only 0.3 per cent below that of the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Monday"
Obviously more up to date data will be interesting, but will the regional imbalances in recovery be very different?
Lars Klingbeil's comments reflect soul-searching in the SPD, which historically has sought closer engagement with Russia, over the right approach towards the Kremlin amid fears of a fresh Russian attack on Ukraine.
Some analysts say the soft stance of many in the party on Russia is holding Chancellor Olaf Scholz back from taking a stronger position. Klingbeil denies that, stressing that everything is on the table in case of an attack.
Scholz is in the unusual situation of being head of a three-way coalition but not of his own party.
The two junior coalition parties, the Free Democrats and Greens, have long advocated getting tougher on Russia.
"We haven't found a convincing way to deal with authoritarian states," said Klingbeil. "I wonder if the decades-old concept of trying to bring about change in a country through closer ties and economic relations is still relevant.
"When you look at Russia, you simply have to acknowledge that the domestic situation has massively worsened in recent years," he said, alluding to a crackdown on opponents of President Vladimir Putin by security services. ...
Chaps, I am coming off this website. After this morning, I've just decided the downsides are far greater than the upsides re info, betting tips. Good luck to the many decent individuals on here and thanks for all the betting tips you have given over the years.
Setting aside judgement on specific DPPs, quite a lot of commentary on here this morning doesn't do justice to what is a very complex debate. Anybody who's worked in a role where safeguarding is important knows that.
The problem is that historically (over centuries, and right through to the 1980s at least) too few victims of abuse were believed. It was assumed they were lying or attention-seeking, especially if their allegations related to powerful institutions such as the Catholic Church. So abusers got away with murder, both metaphorically and literally. Cover-ups were frequent and egregious.
Quite rightly, that has changed. The starting point now is to listen to 'victims' and believe what they say - notice the word 'starting'. To give them a voice. Not to start by assuming they are lying, especially if they are 'worthless' victims. But that doesn't mean that you carry on believing them if the evidence doesn't stack up. I don't think anybody reasonably could disagree with this.
So what people are really complaining about is that it's a really difficult balance to strike (for teachers, social workers, and similar as well as law enforcement), and it's hard to get it right all the time. But we live in a better time now than we did in the past, when victims of abuse were callously disregarded even when everything they alleged was, in fact, true.
Entirely off thread, and a discussion which should normally be post-Lagershed, but I've just had a pair of jeans delivered. They are more than I have ever spent on a pair of trousers - £59 - but I am delighted with them. As I get older I have more and more specific requirements for jeans (this is not just a result of ageing, it's also a result of clothing manufacturers being such neophiles that they can't let a product well alone: I'd have been perfectly happy to buy the same pair of jeans every 9 months from the age of 16, but they won't leave well alone): I want jeans to be light blue in colour (ideally slightly lighter than these turned out to be in real life), to taper slightly at the ankle, and to be 100% cotton. It's increasingly difficult to find even men's jeans without some sort of stretchy stuff woven in. I want my jeans as stiff and unyielding as cardboard. And also to be able to accommodate my unusually large legs. Anyway, weirdly, John Lewis of all places was able to provide. I blanche slightly at the price, but I am now going to order 6 more pairs which should see me comfortably through to my fifties. My taste in jeans hasn't changed for the last 30 years so I see no danger in it changing in the next four.
I got my current pair from JL funnily enough. Amazing value at £25 and they do, if I say so myself, rather suit me. I'm hoping and expecting they'll do a decade, JL being a watchword for quality, so 8 years to go.
I have never had a pair of jeans last much longer than a year, no matter the quality. They wear through in the upper thigh. A function of the unusually large legs. Surprisingly pleased to have your endorsement of my jeans buying choices!
Chaps, I am coming off this website. After this morning, I've just decided the downsides are far greater than the upsides re info, betting tips. Good luck to the many decent individuals on here and thanks for all the betting tips you have given over the years.
Oh dear. That is a shame. I don't share many of your views, but I think you add a valuable counter perspective. Particularly in reminding folk that those who don't have a comfortable lifestyle don't always feel the same as those who do. Best of luck.
So blowing up Stormont has zero impact on anything due to external factors.
Exactly what I suspected would happen and the DUP attempt to win votes back from the TUV is starting to fail.
Even my mother (who votes DUP) thinks they are heading for oblivion now that Paisley is dead. She thinks that Norn Iron will be tossed away by "the English" and will have to become federal with the South, or as she put it "have our government again like when I was younger even though they are all useless"
Was your mother born before 1922?
1940s but Stormont ran the show until the early 70s.
The problem with Stormont, as I'm sure you know, was that it was crudely gerrymandered to ensure 'a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People' with FPTP elections in constituencies organised to have at least 50% non-Catholics in as many as possible. I'm not sure about the value of all of the arrangements for the Executive, but STV does seem to have given a more 'representative' legislature.
Stormont using STV also ensures the median MLA will almost always be from the Alliance now.
Hence neither Unionists nor Nationalists have a majority there
Good. Aspiring politicians will have to start thinking about 'what's best for the people', rather than 'how does the Chief Priest of my tribe see it'.
Nah, they will continue to think 'What is best for me? That must be what is best for the people'.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
In some ways he's not wrong. The problem is that it is universal - we have a new upper 10,000 and they are worse than the previous lot. In the Goode Olde Days* the equivalent of Cressida Dick or the people involved in Rotherham wouldn't still be in post. After their (the old version) screwups, they actually lost their jobs in permeant ways.
We have replaced the Squirearchy with the Professionals**, who are eternally Learning Lessons.
*Which weren't good. **Who don't even appear to be as competent as CI5. They certainly aren't very Expert - in every field they seem to be utterly clueless as to real Best Practise in the real world.
There's a point here, a good one, but I don't like the macro take you draw from it. I don't think our bastions were better run in the old days of zero social mobility. And I'd say this Upper 10,000 of yours is dominated less by the Dicks of this world than it is by the Rees Moggs and Boris Johnsons and all of the money and backing behind the party through which they push their agenda - the Conservative Party.
Chaps, I am coming off this website. After this morning, I've just decided the downsides are far greater than the upsides re info, betting tips. Good luck to the many decent individuals on here and thanks for all the betting tips you have given over the years.
Sorry to hear that and I hope it wasn't due to me as I was only (robustly) challenging your comments and giving as good as I was getting.
Chaps, I am coming off this website. After this morning, I've just decided the downsides are far greater than the upsides re info, betting tips. Good luck to the many decent individuals on here and thanks for all the betting tips you have given over the years.
Sorry to see you go MrEd.
Indeed, MrEd was a minority view but an important one for a site that is a betting site and therefore needs to reflect all views, even pro Trump and pro Boris ones.
The last thing we want is for it to become a left liberal echo chamber
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
He'll probably beat Spencer Perceval. Unlikely he'll beat Gordon Brown.
Ah, Boris, you old duffer, it could all have been so different. You were played a hugely difficult hand - take over a party with no majority and with two wings in open rebellion, in different directions, deal with the most contentious constitutional issue of the post-war era, and then thrown off course by the biggest emergency of my lifetime. The first you managed with astonishing success, the second to no less dissatisfaction than anyone else would have achieved*, and the third better than many, with some brave calls along the way.
And then you threw it away on - what? Holding some not-very-good-parties? Evacuating someone's pets from Afghanistan? Owen Paterson? A distasteful jibe at PMQs?
I'm not trying to excuse Boris. I didn't want him in the first place and I certainly don't want him now. But he dealt with the really difficult issues quite well - certainly better than many. The first few months of his premiership when he took a fractious party without a majority which had recently polled below 10% in a national election to a landslide-ish majority was just astonishing.
He's played an astonishingly difficult hand with a surprising degree of success, and then made some really, really, really stupid and unnecessary unforced errors. Like the spy who finds the Macguffin, defeats three different sets of baddies, makes it home through no-mans land, then gets hilariously drunk on the train back from Dover, picks a fight with a bouncer and leaves the Macguffin on the tube.
*I can sense Remainer piss boiling from here when I write this. Sorry. It's hard to frame in a neutral way. But I stand by it - other solutions may or may not have been better; but any other solution would have pissed off at least as many people.
As a former remainer (meaningless term now, really) I agree completely. The options were piss off the Brexiters, piss off the Remainers or piss off everybody both extremes (something Norway-esque). Probably the last option was best for the country, but would have still greatly annoyed those on both extremes and been seen as a betrayal, for different reasons, by many. It would have required a great leader to bring people together behind it.
Actually I think most Remainers would have grabbed Norway with both hands, certainly once the initial shock of the vote was absorbed. That is certainly suggested by the parliamentary votes on this where Remainers overwhelmingly voted for it. The opposition came from Leavers who were in full on yah boo you lost mode and held out for a maximal position - which fair play to them they achieved. The least they could do now is own it instead of whining about the fact they've got everything they wanted.
The problem with the first part is that the Remainers who "overwhelmingly voted for it" came across as it being their second choice behind overturning the referendum result, so it looked like a trap.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
I think that is just a sign of Leaver paranoia.
Given how bitterly a faction of sore-loser Remainers fought to overturn the referendum result, a certain level of paranoia was quite understandable.
Not really, Leavers controlled the process at all times. The only reason that there was stalemate was that they promised something impossible (leaving the single market and customs union with no implications for the Irish border). That wasn't the fault of Remainers.
Comments
(NB. I don't agree with that consensus.)
This was when Maggie dropped the rates.
The comment I've heard from a number of such people is that while paying tax is OK, over 50% they feel motivated to extreme measures to reduce the bill.
But, as I said, Starmer hasn't claimed it is unfair and I haven't seen a rebuttal to the points made post-publication.
In big-picture terms the Left should be aiming to reform the economy so that the lowest paid are paid more, so that they can afford to pay more tax for better public services.
Taxing the rich to pay for wage subsidies for the poor can seem like an attractive short-term expedient, but it creates a very narrow tax base and divides society in a way that makes society more hostile to left-wing politics.
And our current tax rates are at the very top end of it and in some cases as @BartholomewRoberts claims as it comes to working while on Universal Credit probably well beyond that point.
And the only way to stop your staff moving next door is to ensure you pay them the same as next door is now offering.
Interesting that despite Johnson withdrawing his accusation, his main advisor resigning over it, and it being repudiated by the CoE, that PB Johnsonites still want to continue the innuendo.
I don't know how this compares internationally, mind you, but it seems top heavy to me. Any idea of the equivalent in Germany or elsewhere?
I take your other point - but I think it is at an equilibrium: push up that 29%(?) to 40% and off it goes to Jersey or wherever the super rich go; drop it down to 24% and in it comes from America and Europe.
Perhaps.
It's possibly also a factor of the extent to which wealth and income in the UK is unequally spread, and has become more so in the last 30 years.
This is all ramblings off the top of my head based on things I think I know rather than a meticulously researched piece with evidence to hand - contrary information or views welcome!
It's a very large economy wide shock, and everyone is going to be a bit poorer as a result. Whatever BoE or government does.
Of course judges overruling Boris in 2019 on proroguing Parliament and Brexit did him no harm in the general election that year in winning back voters lost to the Brexit Party by the Tories.
The key thing is the DUP can portray themselves as standing up for loyalists against the elites of the judges, the EU and indeed the Irish and UK governments if necessary selling them out
You really have lost the plot. It is clear from yours - and others' posters - that, when it comes to BJ, we now have JDS - Johnson Derangement Syndrome. Anything that is deemed slightly sympathetic to BJ, no matter what it is, brings in a barrage of abuse. And coming from people who bang on about the fact of how tolerant they are, and they despise abuse in politics etc. etc. and probably have their "Love not Hate" and "Don't look back in anger" posters stuck on the wall. Total hypocrites to a person.
This really is becoming a website where only one point of view is accepted and nothing else tolerated. Good luck with your betting tips off the back of that.
That report was written 3 years ago.
Nothing has been done to implement his recommendations. The police have simply waved 2 fingers at him. The government in charge while all this has been happening has been led by one Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary throughout has been Priti Patel.
So wondering whether Saunders or Starmer could have done their jobs better in the past is a diversion from the fact that this gruesome duo (Johnson and Patel) are not doing their jobs well in this regard now. The injustices are continuing now.
In some ways I'm more annoyed with the hardcore remainers who wouldn't vote for Norway for now etc than with the Brexit ultras who pursued their dream. As, if I had been a Brexiter, I would have been more pissed with the Brexit ultras than the remainers if the end result had been a second ref and remain.
If that isn't a disincentive to work, then I am at a loss to think of one.
While this was uncommon, effective rates of 70%+ were not.
I was surprised to find out that Southend Council was Labour led albeit with the support of LDs and Independents and will be another interesting bellwether of Labour fortunes in May's elections.
Moscow and Beijing issued a statement showcasing agreement on a raft of issues during a visit by Russia's Vladimir Putin for the Winter Olympics.
In it Moscow said it supported China's stance on Taiwan and opposed independence for the island..The two countries' lengthy joint statement accuses Nato of espousing a Cold War ideology and also says they are concerned about the Aukus security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Meanwhile Russia said it supported Beijing's One China policy, which asserts that self-ruled Taiwan is a breakaway province that will eventually be part of China again.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-60257080
In defence of 'the left'; large swathes of the left do get this. I'd be interested to hear from those on 'the left' who may have a more detailed view of the internal debates and who positions where, but I'd highlight the Manchester Labour Party, where a clique of the 'make poor people better off by bringing good quality jobs to Manchester, and meanwhile, work with the Conservative government to bring investment to Manchester' persuasion took over in the late 80s from the previous 'make poor people richer by taxing rich people more and giving poor people stuff, and no co-operation with Conservatives' clique. The new clique have done a great job of turning the city around and have been fantastically successful - though are still criticised by those of the 'tax rich people more' persuasion. This mainly plays out in the debate over affordable housing - do we take any investment at all in Manchester for the growth it will bring, or do we force investors to provide us with affordable housing, even if it means less development? This is a perfectly valid argument to have, as long as the last six words are recognised.
If Remainers had been strong from June 2016 until May's election that "we lost, but only narrowly, but EEA is a reasonable outcome from the result" then plenty of Leavers would have been more than happy with that.
The question that arises is for how long 'Traditional Unionism' will be a significant feature in Northern Irish politics. I suspect, and you probably agree with me that it'll be a long time; for how long it should be pandered to is another matter.
Henriques recently wrote about the deception of the district judge he referred to his report, and how he was assured it would be referred to the IPCC, as then was, and properly investigated. As he put it 'No such investigation was ever attempted. No single question was asked of the officer authorising the warrants. Now it is said that the officers cannot be investigated because a statutory investigation has taken place exonerating them'.
I think he's a bit cross about it.
The police do appear to be masters at playing for time - once the news cycle moves on they can just keep on as they were.
I guess he would have input into any updates around 2012-2016.
The rental regulation stuff was Davey aiui, and an excellent thing. A gradual change notified well in advance. A similar strategy to the minor-looking but culture-changing alterations to the Highway Code that just came in.
I wonder if he wanted to apply it to all housing, and had to compromise to get it through. It would take some digging to find out.
However for the moment it should stay Tory and the solid Tory voteshare last night confirmed that.
Colchester and Thurrock might go Labour now, Southend would not
The most interesting poll to watch I think will be public satisfaction levels with Sunak.
But Deal v Revoke would likely have been won by Revoke on a reduced turnout.
(Edit: hit "post" too soon! I think in the latter case there would have been enough Leavers who would have been so put off by the preceding years and the effective cancellation of the first referendum result that they wouldn't have seen the point in voting again.)
Ideally we would have started from a better position - trying to achieve something like associate membership from the very outset, rather than Cameron's deal. The only thing I can say with absolute confidence was the whole thing was a mess, from the referendum through to the exit itself, but it did at least give the people what they wanted and so democracy prevailed.
Adding rural Rochford has made it a lot safer for the Tories.
Perhaps just a reflection of wider society, but even so.
Seems fair to me. Plough it into 'levelling up' and you might change something. Although it means death if you're reliant upon a block of atavistic home counties home owners.
The flaws are pretty obvious, though, which is why it didn't happen.
The big picture is simple. At every point since the referendum the process has been controlled by the Tory party and Leavers (or those who wholeheartedly embraced Leave after the referendum). To blame where we are on anyone else is a laughable attempt to rewrite history. And the fact that - having achieved their desired objective - they feel the need to blame anyone, just tells you what a pack of lies the whole Leave campaign was from the start.
ONS has GDP recovering to pre-COVID levels last November.
Which includes us.
https://www.ft.com/content/3b5059c4-4ef1-44d1-ae1f-43a875efb7ca
It is paywalled, but googling the full title takes you past it with the FT.
They should have been dealt with entirely to take the whole thing out of inflation, and I'm surprised that there seems to have been little coordination with OFGEM. I think the price crisis will be quite a lot shorter than the "2 year" claims being trolled across media.
This is drastically worse than forecasts of even a few weeks ago, and comprises the toxic cocktail of misallocation of bank assets over the course of thirty years, the productivity mess, the infrastructure mess, and topped off with a side order of Brexit mess, which seems to be the final straw for the poor beast of UK PLC, which is now going to be on its back until well after the next GE. In the face of this, it is hard not to think that the electoral cycle is absolutely horrible for the Tories, no matter what.
I think that by October the scale of the mess really will be back to the 1970s, and the people in charge will be facing torches and pitchforks. It is real crisis and there are few to none on either side of the House who have the skills to understand the scale of the infolding disaster, let alone create a coherrent set of polcies that can successfully address an economic contraction the like of which we have really not seen in living memory.
One thing is for sure, since Brexit is clearly a contributory factor for the economic damage, it will be very difficult for the Conservatives to evade their share of the blame. People seem to be ignoring the endless queues of lorries but company balance sheets, where the costs of trade have increased 50%-60% in some cases, are being pummelled on both revenue and costs.
Tory MPs seem to think that Sunak could be John Major, and allow a reset with the furious voters. I think History may rhyme, but doesn´t repeat exactly, and the parrallel with Major may not be before the 92 GE, but after.
These local elections are ever stronger for the Lib Dems, and the Tory travails certainly bode well for them. Perhaps the next election will be like 97, but with what Blair and Ashdown both expected then, which was not a Labour landslide, but a coalition.
I'm not sure about the value of all of the arrangements for the Executive, but STV does seem to have given a more 'representative' legislature.
There is quite a lot of cognitive dissonance about.
Hence neither Unionists nor Nationalists have a majority there
What has it got to do with the State - It is another example of you coming out with stuff that no sane person or someone without extreme bias could believe. You deduced stuff from the Southend result that was completely undeducible (if there is such a word) just like you deduced what happened on 6 Jan wasn't a coup attempt against all the obvious evidence.
brings a barrage of abuse - Where did I abuse you?
Re your 2nd para - What? I didn't even mention Boris in my post and only did later in response to your Boris point. Not sure how that gives me 'Boris Deranged Syndrome' when I didn't mention him and I wasn't even talking about him in the first place. Are you bonkers; you brought him up, not me? This is like Leon complaining about everyone talking about Brexit and yet he is the one that keeps bringing it up. I suggest you read my original post again.
Last para - So you don't want us to challenge you then? Bit wimpy. Not a good place to post then.
Last para again re betting tips - I have liked a number of your posts where you have come out with some cracking long shots. I can't remember them all, but the last was Esther McVey at I think 150/1
PS Just to make clear that last comment was a compliment and not sarcasm, which it sounds like. The McVey tip at those odds I thought was good.
It is now submerged under lawyers of training in what to say. Not got rid of.
So Constable Savage is now arresting Black people for ordering their coffee Black.
If you see the problem as a broken culture trying to behave to standards that are not actually understood in a moral sense... it takes perfect sense.
"He looks like a lower primate trying to fly an aeroplane."
And as Cyclefree says, the government don't seem to be bothered about it.
Maybe in 10 or 20 years time once immigration is under control it might be, though likely it would be a Labour government which goes to EEA and the Tories in time accepting that but not for the foreseeable future given Starmer too needs to win redwall seats to become PM
Once inflationary expectations are baked in, it's a very painful process to change (which is what prompted the BoE comments). Anyone who recalls the 70s will be rightly concerned.
1. People on Universal Credit routinely pay more than 50% effective tax when they take part-time work, because of the taper effect. When I was briefly on the previous system, I found myself paying 80% tax on casual work. I agree it's then tempting to take extreme measures, which for benefits takes the form of either not doing the work or not reporting it, both of which then incur lofty condemnation of "benefit scroungers". I think this discussion should prompt understanding of their position too.
2. I agree that rates over 50% incur active resistance. What could reasonably be considered would be additional bands above basic rate or a sliding scale where the % inches up as your income grows - the gaps to the £100K mark when an effective 60% rate kicks in (because of the loss of PA) and then to the £150K mark are very large, and unusual in international comparisons, where a sliding scale is common.
3. The differences in wealth are nowadays much more noticeable than difference in income (though the head of the BoE on something like £300K urging wage restraint on others was a good example of tin ear), and a wealth tax (perhaps replacing council tax) or at least additional council tax bands for very expensive properties seems a reasonable way forward. The Duke of Westminster and his family are reportedly worth £10 billion, not because he's worked his fingers to the bone or made brilliant decisions, but because he's the son of the previous Duke. I've nothing against him but if he paid say 0.5% a year on his assets I doubt if even he would feel it was especially unfair or required extreme avoidance tactics.
Apologies if teaching you to suck eggs.
It is why I keep going on about it. Sorry. (Not that I am at all sorry. )
"Economic output in Northern Ireland in the third quarter was only 0.3 per cent below that of the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Monday"
Obviously more up to date data will be interesting, but will the regional imbalances in recovery be very different?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-must-reassess-policy-towards-russia-china-ruling-party-chief-2022-02-03/
Germany should reassess its long-held strategy of seeking to bring about change in authoritarian societies through rapprochement given developments in Russia and China, the co-head of the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) said in an interview.
Lars Klingbeil's comments reflect soul-searching in the SPD, which historically has sought closer engagement with Russia, over the right approach towards the Kremlin amid fears of a fresh Russian attack on Ukraine.
Some analysts say the soft stance of many in the party on Russia is holding Chancellor Olaf Scholz back from taking a stronger position. Klingbeil denies that, stressing that everything is on the table in case of an attack.
Scholz is in the unusual situation of being head of a three-way coalition but not of his own party.
The two junior coalition parties, the Free Democrats and Greens, have long advocated getting tougher on Russia.
"We haven't found a convincing way to deal with authoritarian states," said Klingbeil. "I wonder if the decades-old concept of trying to bring about change in a country through closer ties and economic relations is still relevant.
"When you look at Russia, you simply have to acknowledge that the domestic situation has massively worsened in recent years," he said, alluding to a crackdown on opponents of President Vladimir Putin by security services.
...
The problem is that historically (over centuries, and right through to the 1980s at least) too few victims of abuse were believed. It was assumed they were lying or attention-seeking, especially if their allegations related to powerful institutions such as the Catholic Church. So abusers got away with murder, both metaphorically and literally. Cover-ups were frequent and egregious.
Quite rightly, that has changed. The starting point now is to listen to 'victims' and believe what they say - notice the word 'starting'. To give them a voice. Not to start by assuming they are lying, especially if they are 'worthless' victims. But that doesn't mean that you carry on believing them if the evidence doesn't stack up. I don't think anybody reasonably could disagree with this.
So what people are really complaining about is that it's a really difficult balance to strike (for teachers, social workers, and similar as well as law enforcement), and it's hard to get it right all the time. But we live in a better time now than we did in the past, when victims of abuse were callously disregarded even when everything they alleged was, in fact, true.
Surprisingly pleased to have your endorsement of my jeans buying choices!
Best of luck.
The last thing we want is for it to become a left liberal echo chamber