A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
"More than they have ever done." Hmm, please, is that corrected for inflation? £10 in 2010 was worth £13.64 in 2021 according to the B of E. So that's a one-third increase in tax right there accounted for by inflation.
I'd also want to know how much more the top 1% own of UK wealth, including stuff stashed in tax havens.
This article is a bit old but taxes have increased even further for the wealthy since it was published.
The idea that the rich have paid less under the Tories is just nonsense.
"Income tax." Massively evaded by the wealthy, as they can structure their income differently, aka fiddling. The Tories slashed dividend taxes during the period in question. Ditto IHT.
From the report referred to:
"Taxes on UK incomes are progressive – those at the top of the income distribution pay a greater share of their (fiscal) income in tax than those at the bottom. The top 1% of adults paid 34% of income tax in 2018–19. They paid 28% of income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) combined – a substantial increase from 20% in 2003–04. Taxes are less skewed to the top when including NICs because the marginal NICs rate falls from 12% to 2% for higher-rate taxpayers. Income taxes reduce post-tax top income inequality, and have done so to a larger degree since 2010. The top 1% (0.1%) received 11% (4.6%) of post-tax income in 2018–19, compared with 14% (6.1%) in 2009–10. The fall in post-tax top income shares is in part due to policies that raised more tax from the top, most notably through a new ‘additional rate’ of income tax."
That bloody socialist George Osborne has a lot to answer for.
It was Alastair Darling who increased the top rate of tax and there were plenty of people saying after the 2008 crash that one of the silver linings would be a fall in inequality since the astonishing pay in the financial sector couldn't continue.
It was George Osborne who took away both the personal allowance and Child Benefit from the higher paid, as well as the traditional sleight of hand by failing to index link rates bringing more of the taxable income into the higher bracket. I reckon that cost me something like £15k a year. And he was quite right to do so, of course.
Note that the report specifically says that these changes were since 2010, not before.
You live in Scotland, no? It was the Scottish government that froze the 41% rate band. It has steadily risen in rUK (maybe below inflation?)
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
Just checked and the polls didn't overestate Le Pen.
Average of the last 10 polls: Le Pen = 23%. Result: Le Pen = 23%.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
If it’s so easy why won’t the EU grant equivalence status with a right to review with 6 months notice?
Do you think it might be a bit more complicated than you suggest?
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
Just checked and the polls didn't overestate Le Pen.
Average of the last 10 polls: Le Pen = 23%. Result: Le Pen = 23%.
Haven't fully grokked quordle. did it first time yesterday and was surprised by the boringness of the solutions. Wordle words tend to be interesting, we've had nymph and foray recently.
Today's Wordle is towards challenging too.
Not managed it yet.
I had doggedly chased it down so that by row 6 - I knew the first four letters, and I also knew what the other letter was - but in a massive brain fart forgot that I also knew what the other letter was, and lost. Still annoyed with myself four hours later.
Phew.
Got it on the sixth.
Tough one.
6th here. Should have had it 5th but went for a 1 letter different word which I thought was borderline unacceptable...and was obvs right
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
The writer is editor in chief of 'The Cosmopolitan Globalist'.
Sorry, but just *what* is a Cosmopolitan Globalist?
It sounds like "I'm a citizen of somewhere; I'm just not sure where."
(Checks)
This is their definition, which looks like a positive spin on Laïcité, and is - I'll give you - interesting:
This publication was borne of the observation that genuinely global news coverage has all but disappeared from the Anglophone media. Thus the Cosmopolitan Globalist: a new publication that is neither national, nationalist, partisan, narrow-minded, nor provincial. The Cosmopolitan Globalist is, as the name suggests, cosmopolitan and worldly—and the center of our world is not Washington, D.C.
We are 68 writers, journalists, academics, politicians, and analysts around the globe, shepherded into a single platform by Claire Berlinski in Paris and Vivek Kelkar in Mumbai. We are united by our attachment to 18th-century Enlightenment ideals: rational inquiry, free speech, free trade, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional governance, the rule of law, and the separation of state from church, temple, and mosque alike. We are united, too, by concern that these ideals can’t survive the digital age.
We firmly reject the far-right, the far-left, and populism, but beyond favoring decency and common sense, we are not passionately ideological. Our aim is to offer educated, erudite, and credible reporting and analysis from the world around, treating issues of genuinely global import.
Sounds rather like liberalism.
“Cosmopolitan Globalist” is uncomfortably close to Hitler’s definition of “International Jewry”
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
"More than they have ever done." Hmm, please, is that corrected for inflation? £10 in 2010 was worth £13.64 in 2021 according to the B of E. So that's a one-third increase in tax right there accounted for by inflation.
I'd also want to know how much more the top 1% own of UK wealth, including stuff stashed in tax havens.
This article is a bit old but taxes have increased even further for the wealthy since it was published.
The idea that the rich have paid less under the Tories is just nonsense.
"Income tax." Massively evaded by the wealthy, as they can structure their income differently, aka fiddling. The Tories slashed dividend taxes during the period in question. Ditto IHT.
From the report referred to:
"Taxes on UK incomes are progressive – those at the top of the income distribution pay a greater share of their (fiscal) income in tax than those at the bottom. The top 1% of adults paid 34% of income tax in 2018–19. They paid 28% of income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) combined – a substantial increase from 20% in 2003–04. Taxes are less skewed to the top when including NICs because the marginal NICs rate falls from 12% to 2% for higher-rate taxpayers. Income taxes reduce post-tax top income inequality, and have done so to a larger degree since 2010. The top 1% (0.1%) received 11% (4.6%) of post-tax income in 2018–19, compared with 14% (6.1%) in 2009–10. The fall in post-tax top income shares is in part due to policies that raised more tax from the top, most notably through a new ‘additional rate’ of income tax."
That bloody socialist George Osborne has a lot to answer for.
It was Alastair Darling who increased the top rate of tax and there were plenty of people saying after the 2008 crash that one of the silver linings would be a fall in inequality since the astonishing pay in the financial sector couldn't continue.
It was George Osborne who took away both the personal allowance and Child Benefit from the higher paid, as well as the traditional sleight of hand by failing to index link rates bringing more of the taxable income into the higher bracket. I reckon that cost me something like £15k a year. And he was quite right to do so, of course.
Note that the report specifically says that these changes were since 2010, not before.
You live in Scotland, no? It was the Scottish government that froze the 41% rate band. It has steadily risen in rUK (maybe below inflation?)
Yes, the SNP have made a bad situation worse but then I wouldn't really expect anything else.
The unfairness of the system is that capital is taxed so much more lightly than earned income, as is the income that is generated from it. Between IT, NI and unpaid VAT collection the government makes more out of my business than I do. That is quite harsh but the taxation of capital gains at 20%, all so easily reduced to 10% with Entrepreneur Relief makes it feel so much harsher.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock pushes for the delivery of "heavy weapons" — meaning tanks — to Ukraine.
"One thing is clear: Ukraine needs more military material, especially heavy weapons," Baerbock said at EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.
Last week we reported that Baerbock and her Green party colleague Robert Habeck push internally for the delivery of German tanks to Ukraine, but that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has held up the decision.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Cheers. So to clarify if we do formally align, it could impact on other deals? I agree with you that we should align with the EU and I hope/suspect the next government will do so, but I'm trying to see why we have chosen 3rd party status?
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
If it’s so easy why won’t the EU grant equivalence status with a right to review with 6 months notice?
Do you think it might be a bit more complicated than you suggest?
You want the EU to impose this on us? We have to want it. And we don't.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
It's a) complicated and b) poorly understood.
Some people have gender dysphoria - believing that they are in the wrong body for their sex. The UK's only Transgender NHS service has pursued a policy of "affirmation" that, yes, anyone who thinks they are in the wrong body should be supported and reinforced in that belief, leading ultimately to a pathway of hormone treatment which can have long term fertility effects.
The concern with this approach is that for some people that may be an incorrect diagnosis - and what really is going on is "internalised homophobia" - "I am a girl, but I like girls, and only boys like girls, therefore I must be a boy." In this case the affirmation approach is disastrous, potentially leading down the road to detransitioning and loss of fertility.
This is why the government has paused the ban on "trans conversion" therapy - because in some cases, transitioning might be the wrong solution. It's important to have discussions with children/young adults who think they might be trans to make sure that that is indeed the correct diagnosis, because a) its complicated and b) poorly understood.
If you want to know how poorly understood here's the interim review into the Gender Identity Service:
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
My French tenses aren't what they used to be, was that poll done after yesterday's result?
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
I don't think thats true, but there are limits on what can be done. We can argue about that, and certainly many on here would support going after unearned income more, but its not possible to completely mitigated all the issues right now.
Take the NHS. Arguably it needs a shed load of cash to hire more staff and more capacity for patients. Money alone won't fix that - either you get staff from overseas or you train more at home, Covid has had a big impact on training. But medical schools are expanding, pharmacy admissions are on the up. But these will take years to reach the front line.
I think you believe all tories are heartless and uncaring about other people, I don't think thats true. Most want to support people in need, but also don't like people getting something for nothing. They read stories about free loaders on benefits and come to believe that there is a life out there on state handouts. They believe people who can work should. Where this breaks down is now we have work not paying enough to support a family. Housing costs too much, inflation and the rises in fuels costs are horrific. Tories do understand this, its just that the solutions are not easy.
I'm going to offer up two realpolitik simplistic observations
1. The problem in the NHS isn't the amount of money going in, its what it gets spent on. Both "record amounts being spent" and "a crisis in front-line budgets" are true/ Why? Because the structure hoovers up cash at absurd rates. A mass of bureaucratic complexity with endless tiers of overlapping and competing management. Remove much of the marketisation and more of the money gets to where it needs to get to. The Tories know this but its their people syphoning off the cash so we continue as is
2. Benefit fraud is a spectacularly low percentage - half a percent or so. Lets assume that only captures some of the anecdotage and increase it by a factor of 10 - so 5% is fraud and 95% is genuine. So the war against freeloaders and scroungers is done by ministers knowing it is an outright lie told to weaponise "benefits" and harden voters against human misery. Simply pointing this out, and asking that people treat others as they would be tret themselves will take away so much of the angst around the subject so we can have a grown up discussion.
Spot on.
My only addition, which might not sit well with you, is that much of your paragraph 1 began under Tony Blair. The ludicrous top-loading of the NHS: stuffing it full of middle managers earning huge amounts of money and clogging the system with bureaucracy also coincided with the insistence that nurses have degrees: why should a nurse have to have a degree?! This latter by the way then created a two-tier attitude in nursing so that some nurses would refuse to do jobs deemed beneath them.
The NHS does need proper funding. It also needs a serious clear out of the kind of bureaucratic complexity of which you rightly speak.
I'm not against nurses having degrees - much of the course is on placements on wards anyway and generally more training is a good thing. Regards two tiers of nurses, staff should be managed and should be able to do and do the tasks they are paid to do.
Pharmacy is in an interesting place - Health Education England is trying to shoe-horn a lot more placement time into the course. This is probably meaning we will remove science content. Its arguable what science content a pharmacist needs (OKC will know this - you don't get asked much about science in practice). But it will also push pharmacy down a similar route to nursing in terms of how we train.
Hmm. Thanks for that. Over my lifetime the pharmacy course has changed from a primarily technical and supply base to a much more scientific one. When I qualified 60 years ago I'd done a course which was rather out of date and orientated towards a world were I would expect to prepare medicines in much the same way as one of my 3 x Gt Grandfathers did, as an apprentice to an Apothecary in the 1830's. Except that we didn't. We 'dispensed' a decreasing number of medicines but supplied an increasing number of pre-prepared ones. What we did meet up with in practice was an increasing number of interactions of medicines, both with each other and with life styles. (See Ms Heatherners posts about inability to tolerate morphine.) And one has to know something of the 'science' to be able to handle this. Secondly there's a considerable difference in the way medicines are handled in hospital and community, and the problems with which one is faced and a two-level course might well create a situation where a pharmacy student would have to make a decision at 18 which would forever bar him or her from moving, as I did out of the 'shop' environment and into hospital.
Yes - its interesting times in the profession. There is a huge emphasis on soft skills coming in. Science content is still important and some of us are fighting to retain it. Interactions is interesting - does a pharmacist need to know that A and B interact so cannot be jointly given or do they need to know that interact and WHY? We believe its the latter, but I'm not sure that all at the top of the profession do.
Plus the demands on a community pharmacist are very different from a hospital role. Most in the community just want to get their medication, and would not ask why they couldn't say have grapefruit juice with it...
Fun times!
I had no idea that grapefruit juice could be a problem (though had some dim notion of red wines, broad beans etc. interacting with certain drugs).
Grapefruit juice can be a problem with drugs to reduce blood pressure. And yes, although my experience is from long ago, patients do ask why.
On the why and how question, I agree that one needs to know why interactions occur because, see my reply above. And in the community one gets, or at least I certainly used to get, a wide range of questions on medicine related (sometimes but distantly related) topics.
It's a fairly recent (1989) discovery, but it affects uptake of dozens of different (orally delivered) drugs primarily by inhibiting an enzyme which helps clear them from your system - and so effectively increasing the dose received. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_P450
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
Pecresses vote splits equally, quite a few abstentions with Zemmour.
It is hard to see those figures getting Le Pen over the line. It looks a pretty safe majority for Macron, and the rare feat of re-election despite the prelediction of the French for decapitating their monarchs.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
My French tenses aren't what they used to be, was that poll done after yesterday's result?
I believe it was a snap poll after the first two were known. It gave a projection of Macron: 51%, Le Pen: 49%.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
There are however other reasons out there
Yes, under current rules living as the opposite gender for 2 years is a prerequisite for surgery. That implies that even the most bone fide Transfolk will have to use opposite sex facilities for 2 years.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1513461867976536066 Unblocking Mariupol impossible 🇺🇦 troops will not cross the steppe under air strikes from Rostov and Crimea. The siege can be removed and alleviated indirectly - Prez advisor Arestovych speaking to 🇷🇺lawyer Feygin... ...🔹As well, 🇺🇦 Army conduct actions in Zaporizhia Oblast to distract 🇷🇺troops from siege of Mariupol 🔹Huge ongoing effort to find solution to save Mariupol. Each second that city holds on allows searching for more solutions 🔹City's resistance allows to contrain 🇷🇺offensive on 🇺🇦
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers:
Macron net loses 400k of his own vote -> 1m lead Le Pen gains net 1.75m Zemmour votes -> 750k lead Pecresse neutral Macron gains 750k net Melenchon votes -> level Macron gains 750k net green votes -> 750k Macron win
600k socialists, 1m communists, 700k liberal right and 1m awkward squad right not polled.
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Le Pen is heading for defeat. Not a landslide defeat but definitely defeat
She has one game-changer left, however. The last debate. If she excels and Macron sneers, she can scrape a narrow win
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers:
Macron net loses 400k of his own vote -> 1m lead Le Pen gains net 1.75m Zemmour votes -> 750k lead Pecresse neutral Macron gains 750k net Melenchon votes -> level Macron gains 750k net green votes -> 750k Macron win
600k socialists, 1m communists, 700k liberal right and 1m awkward squad right not polled.
According to that poll, it would be 51/49 to Macron.
I don't think it is fully accurate, but if we assume MLP wins, this is how she does it. Splits the Pecresse and Melenchon votes, adds Zemmour's, and the Greens stay at home.
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Le Pen is heading for defeat. Not a landslide defeat but definitely defeat
She has one game-changer left, however. The last debate. If she excels and Macron sneers, she can scrape a narrow win
I might actually watch it
In 2017 she crashed and burned in the final debate, so will be v interesting this time.
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Lets all be clear here - the election of the far right would be a catastrophe for the post-war settlement. Even a more cuddly far right as MLP now proposes. Forget Orban in Hungary, this is the ball game.
The problem in French politics is that the electoral system has proven beneficial to the far right so that they can usually now make the final two which means whichever berk is on top wins. But what if people can't bring themselves to vote for another 5 years of En Berke?
How would the EU manage the hard right running its second member?
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
"More than they have ever done." Hmm, please, is that corrected for inflation? £10 in 2010 was worth £13.64 in 2021 according to the B of E. So that's a one-third increase in tax right there accounted for by inflation.
I'd also want to know how much more the top 1% own of UK wealth, including stuff stashed in tax havens.
This article is a bit old but taxes have increased even further for the wealthy since it was published.
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Le Pen is heading for defeat. Not a landslide defeat but definitely defeat
She has one game-changer left, however. The last debate. If she excels and Macron sneers, she can scrape a narrow win
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
There are however other reasons out there
Yes, under current rules living as the opposite gender for 2 years is a prerequisite for surgery. That implies that even the most bone fide Transfolk will have to use opposite sex facilities for 2 years.
Or do what she did and just use disabled facilities. In her case she had a valid medical diagnosis. I think what most of what people are objecting to is the "hey I am a woman because I say so and should be allowed to use womens safe spaces"
We have already have had examples of this going badly wrong and yes maybe it is a handful of cases and small in number.
Here is the question how many women are you willing to have raped as acceptable collateral damage to allow self ID'ed people access?
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Lets all be clear here - the election of the far right would be a catastrophe for the post-war settlement. Even a more cuddly far right as MLP now proposes. Forget Orban in Hungary, this is the ball game.
The problem in French politics is that the electoral system has proven beneficial to the far right so that they can usually now make the final two which means whichever berk is on top wins. But what if people can't bring themselves to vote for another 5 years of En Berke?
How would the EU manage the hard right running its second member?
With considerable difficulty, since Le Pen has committed to breaching single market principles wholesale.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
It's a) complicated and b) poorly understood.
Some people have gender dysphoria - believing that they are in the wrong body for their sex. The UK's only Transgender NHS service has pursued a policy of "affirmation" that, yes, anyone who thinks they are in the wrong body should be supported and reinforced in that belief, leading ultimately to a pathway of hormone treatment which can have long term fertility effects.
The concern with this approach is that for some people that may be an incorrect diagnosis - and what really is going on is "internalised homophobia" - "I am a girl, but I like girls, and only boys like girls, therefore I must be a boy." In this case the affirmation approach is disastrous, potentially leading down the road to detransitioning and loss of fertility.
This is why the government has paused the ban on "trans conversion" therapy - because in some cases, transitioning might be the wrong solution. It's important to have discussions with children/young adults who think they might be trans to make sure that that is indeed the correct diagnosis, because a) its complicated and b) poorly understood.
If you want to know how poorly understood here's the interim review into the Gender Identity Service:
There's a lot of ideology (and some questionable medical practice) bound up in this.
Thank you, Miss Vance. Really, this is the Labour Party's problem, because they have chosen to make it one.
Presumably, I would be on safe ground if I continue to treat people as what they seem to be. If I am not picking sports teams, nor all-women shortlists, let alone trying to seduce somebody, I should be safe enough.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
"More than they have ever done." Hmm, please, is that corrected for inflation? £10 in 2010 was worth £13.64 in 2021 according to the B of E. So that's a one-third increase in tax right there accounted for by inflation.
I'd also want to know how much more the top 1% own of UK wealth, including stuff stashed in tax havens.
This article is a bit old but taxes have increased even further for the wealthy since it was published.
The idea that the rich have paid less under the Tories is just nonsense.
Do the richest 1% pay more in tax now because inequality has grown, so that the richest 1% today are richer than the richest 1% of the past?
I’d happily see the tax burden spread more widely if that was a result of returning to the lower inequality of decades past.
Yes, as a multiple of average incomes the top 10%, and even more the top 1%, earn a much higher multiple than they did before the post war settlement ended round about 1979. The gap between average incomes and those at the top is now huge. So a) of course the highest earners will pay more tax, and b) of course the highest earners can afford to pay more tax, as they still have oodles of spending money left.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
The writer is editor in chief of 'The Cosmopolitan Globalist'.
Agree. An interesting piece. And an interesting pic of de Gaulle they choose to use.
I always think that one of the most interesting things about de Gaulle is that the map of France looks a little like his face from side aspect, where Basse makes up his eyebrows, Brittany his nose, and the Garonne river providing his permanently grumpy downturned mouth. He is the personification of the pompous Frenchman.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
This is why I was so disappointed with Sunak's mini budget (and indeed Labour's response which barely touched on the point). The cost of living crisis is always the worst for the poorest and he did absolutely nothing to help them when faced with a doubling of heating costs. It was wrong.
Worse than doing nothing, your party deny there is a crisis at all. Why do something to fix something that doesn't exist? This is Boris - boosterism is all he knows. So no, not the highest peacetime taxes, not an inflation bomb, not a brutal tax rise, not a fuel and food price crisis. No no, the real issue is chicks with dicks on Channel 4.
It's not my party, I have never been a member of it.
I don't think that your description is accurate either. Sunak acknowledged the rise of inflation but also the problems we face on the back of the pandemic which has wreaked havoc on our public finances. I agree with the problem and accept that there are limits on what can be done but I think within those limits his priorities were wrong. Increasing NI instead of IT increasing the burden on earned money was wrong. Failing to prioritise the indexation of benefits was wrong. The loan scheme for heating bills is a ridiculous waste of money and time. But it is delusional to think for a moment there were easy choices. There aren't.
Didn't say you were a member. But you openly support them on here...
As for their recognition of an issue, their response is always "look here we are investing £x". Which always fails at recognise the depth of the issue. Or that £x is a drop in the ocean. Or that £x solves nothing without a change of direction.
Whilst you're right that the Pandemic did egregious damage to the economy, we can't use that as an excuse. Social Security payments were unlivable before, the NHS was experiencing on the limit crises before, the cost of living was absurd in so many areas before. The *structural* crisis - that the economy doesn't provide a viable income for so many people working flat out - has been around for ages.
The only way we are going to change this is to vote them out. If its not your party are you prepared to vote for whichever party is best positioned in your constituency to remove them from office?
This is a regular reminder that those on benefits in the UK are in the top 10% of incomes worldwide. We achieve this because we actually have a very successful economy that produces considerable quantities of wealth for distribution.
Your posts are, with respect, verging on the hysterical. There is room for both debate and action on whether incomes are distributed fairly. There is every right to criticise the priorities of this government or indeed any government. Things can indeed be better. But we are fortunate to live in a free, democratic, prosperous country where the rule of law is rigorously applied by an independent judiciary. You make good points which I often agree with but you do so in apocalyptic terms which are unnecessary.
Disingenuous David and old Tory trick. In the developed world out benefits are pathetic and thinking we are stupid enough to believe the cost of living In the poor countries you compare us to makes the benefits a windfall is beneath you. If you compare reality in is the very bottom of the pile. Just compare Irish pensions with UK as an example.
That price on the Green Slime is ludicrous. The tories are not going to put forward a candidate for PM who is a French citizen married to a French judge.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
With selfID it might be physically apparent
In the case of MtF it is usually fairly easy to work it out.
On the refugee front is there much sign of people going back yet?
I'm torn. On the one hand people returning, certainly west of the Dniper, would be a real morale boost. At the same time it's more mouths to feed, people to take care of at a time when the country remains at war.
I don't think thats true, but there are limits on what can be done. We can argue about that, and certainly many on here would support going after unearned income more, but its not possible to completely mitigated all the issues right now.
Take the NHS. Arguably it needs a shed load of cash to hire more staff and more capacity for patients. Money alone won't fix that - either you get staff from overseas or you train more at home, Covid has had a big impact on training. But medical schools are expanding, pharmacy admissions are on the up. But these will take years to reach the front line.
I think you believe all tories are heartless and uncaring about other people, I don't think thats true. Most want to support people in need, but also don't like people getting something for nothing. They read stories about free loaders on benefits and come to believe that there is a life out there on state handouts. They believe people who can work should. Where this breaks down is now we have work not paying enough to support a family. Housing costs too much, inflation and the rises in fuels costs are horrific. Tories do understand this, its just that the solutions are not easy.
I'm going to offer up two realpolitik simplistic observations
1. The problem in the NHS isn't the amount of money going in, its what it gets spent on. Both "record amounts being spent" and "a crisis in front-line budgets" are true/ Why? Because the structure hoovers up cash at absurd rates. A mass of bureaucratic complexity with endless tiers of overlapping and competing management. Remove much of the marketisation and more of the money gets to where it needs to get to. The Tories know this but its their people syphoning off the cash so we continue as is
2. Benefit fraud is a spectacularly low percentage - half a percent or so. Lets assume that only captures some of the anecdotage and increase it by a factor of 10 - so 5% is fraud and 95% is genuine. So the war against freeloaders and scroungers is done by ministers knowing it is an outright lie told to weaponise "benefits" and harden voters against human misery. Simply pointing this out, and asking that people treat others as they would be tret themselves will take away so much of the angst around the subject so we can have a grown up discussion.
Spot on.
My only addition, which might not sit well with you, is that much of your paragraph 1 began under Tony Blair. The ludicrous top-loading of the NHS: stuffing it full of middle managers earning huge amounts of money and clogging the system with bureaucracy also coincided with the insistence that nurses have degrees: why should a nurse have to have a degree?! This latter by the way then created a two-tier attitude in nursing so that some nurses would refuse to do jobs deemed beneath them.
The NHS does need proper funding. It also needs a serious clear out of the kind of bureaucratic complexity of which you rightly speak.
I'm not against nurses having degrees - much of the course is on placements on wards anyway and generally more training is a good thing. Regards two tiers of nurses, staff should be managed and should be able to do and do the tasks they are paid to do.
Pharmacy is in an interesting place - Health Education England is trying to shoe-horn a lot more placement time into the course. This is probably meaning we will remove science content. Its arguable what science content a pharmacist needs (OKC will know this - you don't get asked much about science in practice). But it will also push pharmacy down a similar route to nursing in terms of how we train.
Hmm. Thanks for that. Over my lifetime the pharmacy course has changed from a primarily technical and supply base to a much more scientific one. When I qualified 60 years ago I'd done a course which was rather out of date and orientated towards a world were I would expect to prepare medicines in much the same way as one of my 3 x Gt Grandfathers did, as an apprentice to an Apothecary in the 1830's. Except that we didn't. We 'dispensed' a decreasing number of medicines but supplied an increasing number of pre-prepared ones. What we did meet up with in practice was an increasing number of interactions of medicines, both with each other and with life styles. (See Ms Heatherners posts about inability to tolerate morphine.) And one has to know something of the 'science' to be able to handle this. Secondly there's a considerable difference in the way medicines are handled in hospital and community, and the problems with which one is faced and a two-level course might well create a situation where a pharmacy student would have to make a decision at 18 which would forever bar him or her from moving, as I did out of the 'shop' environment and into hospital.
Yes - its interesting times in the profession. There is a huge emphasis on soft skills coming in. Science content is still important and some of us are fighting to retain it. Interactions is interesting - does a pharmacist need to know that A and B interact so cannot be jointly given or do they need to know that interact and WHY? We believe its the latter, but I'm not sure that all at the top of the profession do.
Plus the demands on a community pharmacist are very different from a hospital role. Most in the community just want to get their medication, and would not ask why they couldn't say have grapefruit juice with it...
Fun times!
I had no idea that grapefruit juice could be a problem (though had some dim notion of red wines, broad beans etc. interacting with certain drugs).
Grapefruit juice can be a problem with drugs to reduce blood pressure. And yes, although my experience is from long ago, patients do ask why.
On the why and how question, I agree that one needs to know why interactions occur because, see my reply above. And in the community one gets, or at least I certainly used to get, a wide range of questions on medicine related (sometimes but distantly related) topics.
It's a fairly recent (1989) discovery, but it affects uptake of dozens of different (orally delivered) drugs primarily by inhibiting an enzyme which helps clear them from your system - and so effectively increasing the dose received. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_P450
Indeed it does. It does though go back to my question about what a pharmacist needs to know - enough to tell a patient not to drink grapefruit juice if taking certain meds, or WHY and be able to explain to the patient.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Something of a divide within the Church of England on this between liberals and evangelicals.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy even if Welby has not.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengelicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York?
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Le Pen is heading for defeat. Not a landslide defeat but definitely defeat
She has one game-changer left, however. The last debate. If she excels and Macron sneers, she can scrape a narrow win
I might actually watch it
In 2017 she crashed and burned in the final debate, so will be v interesting this time.
Easier to land blows on Macron now he has five years of being President to defend. I still don't expect Le Pen to win, but a tin ear moment from Macron and who knows...
The French have never struck me as an ornery bunch, so the idea of shaking things up by going for Le Pen is surely not something they would consider. Ahem.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Something of a divide within the Church of England on this between liberals and evangelicals.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengalicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Interesting rant, bearing in mind that ++Justin did not have a signature on the letter.
His position as ABC would prevent him taking that kind of campaigning position.
One thing you can be sure of is that the time will be taken to think about it carefully. Which is also one of the best features of the HoL, in general.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers:
Macron net loses 400k of his own vote -> 1m lead Le Pen gains net 1.75m Zemmour votes -> 750k lead Pecresse neutral Macron gains 750k net Melenchon votes -> level Macron gains 750k net green votes -> 750k Macron win
600k socialists, 1m communists, 700k liberal right and 1m awkward squad right not polled.
Also worth remembering that lots of people who didn't vote in the first round last time, came out for Macron in the second.
Whether that repeats or not could determine the results of this election.
The writer is editor in chief of 'The Cosmopolitan Globalist'.
Agree. An interesting piece. And an interesting pic of de Gaulle they choose to use.
I always think that one of the most interesting things about de Gaulle is that the map of France looks a little like his face from side aspect, where Basse makes up his eyebrows, Brittany his nose, and the Garonne river providing his permanently grumpy downturned mouth. He is the personification of the pompous Frenchman.
There’s a group of rocks off far-west Cornwall known as the Brisons. They are always described as looking like “Charles de Gaulle in the bath”
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
There are however other reasons out there
From a science perspective the whole area is fascinating. As someone who feels 100% heterosexual, I can't understand same sex attraction, as to me it would be impossible. To someone wired differently it makes perfect sense.
How it all works is a huge enigma. How much of sexual attraction is genetic and how much derived from your upbringing? Things where desirable characteristic vary - some societies favour overweight women (Pacific Islands etc), whereas others don't (the west, generally). If you took an infant from each culture and swapped them, what would be the outcome? Who knows?
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
There are however other reasons out there
Yes, under current rules living as the opposite gender for 2 years is a prerequisite for surgery. That implies that even the most bone fide Transfolk will have to use opposite sex facilities for 2 years.
Or do what she did and just use disabled facilities. In her case she had a valid medical diagnosis. I think what most of what people are objecting to is the "hey I am a woman because I say so and should be allowed to use womens safe spaces"
We have already have had examples of this going badly wrong and yes maybe it is a handful of cases and small in number.
Here is the question how many women are you willing to have raped as acceptable collateral damage to allow self ID'ed people access?
None, and that is a complete misrepresentation of the proposals for self ID.
1) Self ID does not negate the need for a GRC, it just makes it easier and demedicalises it.
2) Single sex (not gender) facilities are a legitimate exclusion under the Equality act if there is a proportionate reason.
Its all in the parliamentary paper on the subject.
For the record, it ended Macron 28%, Le Pen 23%, Mélenchon 22%, Zemmour 7%, everyone else below 5%.
Mentioning this for 2 reasons. First, a lot of people were looking at early results and some were focused on how Le Pen was polling closer to Macron than Mélenchon. But of course Paris was yet to report. Second, everyone below 5% is now out of pocket by millions of euro, particularly Pécresse and Jadot who would have expected to be above the bar.
The writer is editor in chief of 'The Cosmopolitan Globalist'.
Agree. An interesting piece. And an interesting pic of de Gaulle they choose to use.
I always think that one of the most interesting things about de Gaulle is that the map of France looks a little like his face from side aspect, where Basse makes up his eyebrows, Brittany his nose, and the Garonne river providing his permanently grumpy downturned mouth. He is the personification of the pompous Frenchman.
There’s a group of rocks off far-west Cornwall known as the Brisons. They are always described as looking like “Charles de Gaulle in the bath”
And not without reason:
I was more taken with the 2 rather pretty eyes in the sky looking down on him.
Haven't fully grokked quordle. did it first time yesterday and was surprised by the boringness of the solutions. Wordle words tend to be interesting, we've had nymph and foray recently.
Today's Wordle is towards challenging too.
Not managed it yet.
I had doggedly chased it down so that by row 6 - I knew the first four letters, and I also knew what the other letter was - but in a massive brain fart forgot that I also knew what the other letter was, and lost. Still annoyed with myself four hours later.
Phew.
Got it on the sixth.
Tough one.
6th here. Should have had it 5th but went for a 1 letter different word which I thought was borderline unacceptable...and was obvs right
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Lets all be clear here - the election of the far right would be a catastrophe for the post-war settlement. Even a more cuddly far right as MLP now proposes. Forget Orban in Hungary, this is the ball game.
The problem in French politics is that the electoral system has proven beneficial to the far right so that they can usually now make the final two which means whichever berk is on top wins. But what if people can't bring themselves to vote for another 5 years of En Berke?
How would the EU manage the hard right running its second member?
As you have argued on another issue this morning, you have to start by recognising the nature of the problem. And the nature of the problem is not an aberration of politics in one or two countries, it is not a French problem (or a Hungarian problem, or a British, American or Polish problem). The problem is a deep and spreading discontent with democratic politics generally, which is failing to deliver economic security and a sense of purpose and meaning to its people.
A bit of tinkering here and there, and some frowning faces at EU summits, is not going to change this trajectory. I had thought that the shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have an effect, but Le Pen is at yet untouched.
We have to start with an admission that, fundamentally, the politics of the last couple of decades, or so, has failed. There might be many on here who have fond memories of the Coalition years, or of life under Blair, but it was their policies that created the conditions for this discontent. This is their doing. We have to do something different. We will do something different. If we don't think of a better idea the different thing that will be done with be more or less authoritarian right-wing populism.
French pollsters are generally pretty good. I know they sometimes get things somewhat wrong - eg overstating Le Pen. But they rarely seem to have disasters
I therefore see no reason to doubt their 2nd round predictions. A rather narrow but tolerable win for Macron
The key is turnout. There will be lots of voters who don't like Macron, but would be horrified by Le Pen. The ideal outcome for them would be for other people to elect Macron, so that they didn't have to. But if enough of these voters rely on others to do the dirty work of voting for Macron for them, then he can lose.
Le Pen is heading for defeat. Not a landslide defeat but definitely defeat
She has one game-changer left, however. The last debate. If she excels and Macron sneers, she can scrape a narrow win
I might actually watch it
Lots of polls are still making it 51/49 or 52/48.
52/48 sounds close... But it actually means one candidate got close to 10% more votes than the other.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers Macron is getting more Pecresse voters in the runoff than Melenchon voters (even if more Pecresse than Melenchon voters are also voting for Le Pen).
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
That price on the Green Slime is ludicrous. The tories are not going to put forward a candidate for PM who is a French citizen married to a French judge.
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
For the record, it ended Macron 28%, Le Pen 23%, Mélenchon 22%, Zemmour 7%, everyone else below 5%.
Mentioning this for 2 reasons. First, a lot of people were looking at early results and some were focused on how Le Pen was polling closer to Macron than Mélenchon. But of course Paris was yet to report. Second, everyone below 5% is now out of pocket by millions of euro, particularly Pécresse and Jadot who would have expected to be above the bar.
Both she and Hidalgo as Socialist candidate fell below 5%, putting the old 2 established parties at a disadvantage compared to Macron, Le Pen and Melenchon's parties in the legislative elections
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
There are however other reasons out there
Yes, under current rules living as the opposite gender for 2 years is a prerequisite for surgery. That implies that even the most bone fide Transfolk will have to use opposite sex facilities for 2 years.
Or do what she did and just use disabled facilities. In her case she had a valid medical diagnosis. I think what most of what people are objecting to is the "hey I am a woman because I say so and should be allowed to use womens safe spaces"
We have already have had examples of this going badly wrong and yes maybe it is a handful of cases and small in number.
Here is the question how many women are you willing to have raped as acceptable collateral damage to allow self ID'ed people access?
None, and that is a complete misrepresentation of the proposals for self ID.
1) Self ID does not negate the need for a GRC, it just makes it easier and demedicalises it.
2) Single sex (not gender) facilities are a legitimate exclusion under the Equality act if there is a proportionate reason.
Its all in the parliamentary paper on the subject.
As I have said to you before. It really doesn't matter what the law says about being able to exclude if its a can not must.
The fact is the NHS is accepting self id and not segragating patients from single sex wards even though they could and the prison service is allowing mtf self id's into womens prisons even though they could use the law.
It is no good you keep bleating on and on that the law says they can exclude if public servants aren't damn well using it.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Interesting rant, bearing in mind that ++Justin did not have a signature on the letter.
His position as ABC would prevent him taking that kind of campaigning position.
One thing you can be sure of is that the time will be taken to think about it carefully. Which is also one of the best features of the HoL, in general.
Them bleating ninnies, and indeed ++bleating ninnies, all looks the same to me
Nobody who wrote or signed that letter is capable of thinking about anything carefully if they can't see the ludicrous asymmetry in what it says.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Something of a divide within the Church of England on this between liberals and evangelicals.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengalicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York
Or they could just make up their bloody minds.
The whole point of the Church of England is it is a broad church, comprising liberals and conservative evangelicals and still a few Anglo Catholics too
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1513461867976536066 Unblocking Mariupol impossible 🇺🇦 troops will not cross the steppe under air strikes from Rostov and Crimea. The siege can be removed and alleviated indirectly - Prez advisor Arestovych speaking to 🇷🇺lawyer Feygin... ...🔹As well, 🇺🇦 Army conduct actions in Zaporizhia Oblast to distract 🇷🇺troops from siege of Mariupol 🔹Huge ongoing effort to find solution to save Mariupol. Each second that city holds on allows searching for more solutions 🔹City's resistance allows to contrain 🇷🇺offensive on 🇺🇦
According to the Guardian blog, the Ukrainian marines defending Mariupol will surrender tomorrow - they're out of ammunition and say their infantry have all been killed. They complain that the central leadership has "written them off", and the statement above is probably in response to that.
I don't think that this is the end of the battle, as the Ukrainian defenders were in two pockets, and this will be just one of them - not even sure it's all of that?
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers Macron is getting more Pecresse voters in the runoff than Melenchon voters (even if more Pecresse than Melenchon voters are also voting for Le Pen).
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
Wouldn't be surprised if Melenchon's vote splits about a third Macron, a third Le Pen, a third abstention.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1513461867976536066 Unblocking Mariupol impossible 🇺🇦 troops will not cross the steppe under air strikes from Rostov and Crimea. The siege can be removed and alleviated indirectly - Prez advisor Arestovych speaking to 🇷🇺lawyer Feygin... ...🔹As well, 🇺🇦 Army conduct actions in Zaporizhia Oblast to distract 🇷🇺troops from siege of Mariupol 🔹Huge ongoing effort to find solution to save Mariupol. Each second that city holds on allows searching for more solutions 🔹City's resistance allows to contrain 🇷🇺offensive on 🇺🇦
Looks like there are a couple of airfields in Rostov na Donu and Krim they need to drop some munitions on.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Something of a divide within the Church of England on this between liberals and evangelicals.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengalicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York
Or they could just make up their bloody minds.
The whole point of the Church of England is it is a broad church, comprising liberals and conservative evangelicals and still a few Anglo Catholics too
yes well let's worry less about what "wing" of the whole ludicrous edifice anyone is on and more about what is actually right.
As PB seems to have circled back to the trans issue I thought this was a very good article on the subject. My sister, who is shall we say more on the @Cyclefree side of the debate, sent it to me saying how good it was which indicates it must be ok.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers Macron is getting more Pecresse voters in the runoff than Melenchon voters (even if more Pecresse than Melenchon voters are also voting for Le Pen).
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
Wouldn't be surprised if Melenchon's vote splits about a third Macron, a third Le Pen, a third abstention.
If it does, the runoff will certainly be much closer than 2017
Another fun* morning doing recruitment. Have found the perfect candidates for the big 3 roles, the Romanian CEO is flying in on Wednesday for chats with the shortlist (of 1) candidates. Need to hurry them along with regards to contracts as offers need to be made asap.
Nothing so dull as employment contracts and employee policies handbooks...
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
I don't think many are looking at income on the 1% being a big new source of revenue. Hasn't the debate moved elsewhere? Land, property, gains, inheritance etc.
Yes there needs to be significant extra tax on UNEARNED wealth 👍
Why do people view returns on capital as unearned?
Wages are the earnings from labour Investment income is just the earnings from capital
We should tax land more appropriately though as the third element of production
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
"More than they have ever done." Hmm, please, is that corrected for inflation? £10 in 2010 was worth £13.64 in 2021 according to the B of E. So that's a one-third increase in tax right there accounted for by inflation.
I'd also want to know how much more the top 1% own of UK wealth, including stuff stashed in tax havens.
This article is a bit old but taxes have increased even further for the wealthy since it was published.
The idea that the rich have paid less under the Tories is just nonsense.
"Income tax." Massively evaded by the wealthy, as they can structure their income differently, aka fiddling. The Tories slashed dividend taxes during the period in question. Ditto IHT.
From the report referred to:
"Taxes on UK incomes are progressive – those at the top of the income distribution pay a greater share of their (fiscal) income in tax than those at the bottom. The top 1% of adults paid 34% of income tax in 2018–19. They paid 28% of income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) combined – a substantial increase from 20% in 2003–04. Taxes are less skewed to the top when including NICs because the marginal NICs rate falls from 12% to 2% for higher-rate taxpayers. Income taxes reduce post-tax top income inequality, and have done so to a larger degree since 2010. The top 1% (0.1%) received 11% (4.6%) of post-tax income in 2018–19, compared with 14% (6.1%) in 2009–10. The fall in post-tax top income shares is in part due to policies that raised more tax from the top, most notably through a new ‘additional rate’ of income tax."
That bloody socialist George Osborne has a lot to answer for.
It was Alastair Darling who increased the top rate of tax and there were plenty of people saying after the 2008 crash that one of the silver linings would be a fall in inequality since the astonishing pay in the financial sector couldn't continue.
It was George Osborne who took away both the personal allowance and Child Benefit from the higher paid, as well as the traditional sleight of hand by failing to index link rates bringing more of the taxable income into the higher bracket. I reckon that cost me something like £15k a year. And he was quite right to do so, of course.
Note that the report specifically says that these changes were since 2010, not before.
You live in Scotland, no? It was the Scottish government that froze the 41% rate band. It has steadily risen in rUK (maybe below inflation?)
Are you barking , we pay more than rUK, assuming you are a high rate taxpayer
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Something of a divide within the Church of England on this between liberals and evangelicals.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengalicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York
Or they could just make up their bloody minds.
The whole point of the Church of England is it is a broad church, comprising liberals and conservative evangelicals and still a few Anglo Catholics too
yes well let's worry less about what "wing" of the whole ludicrous edifice anyone is on and more about what is actually right.
Each of them will have their own opinions of what is right (much as the liberal v conservative divide in the culture wars between the political parties and in the population as a whole).
Liberals in the Church of England are relatively socially liberal and pro women priests but also a but more high church and pro traditional Parish.
Evangelicals in the Church of England are more socially conservative and a bit less pro women priests but also much more bible based and low church and fans of worship bands rather than traditional choirs and spreading the gospel and converting rather than just relying on the traditional Parish church.
Anglo Catholics are also generally socially conservative like the evangelicals and the most anti women priests but also the most focused on the Eucharist and the most high church, so on that actually closer to the liberals in their view of the importance of the Parish
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
Some of the definitions for "trans" that I have seen used for the purposes of estimating population levels are absurd, though. For example, I saw one definition that would include anyone with behaviour that was not stereotypical of their gender defined as being trans. As a result you get wildly varying estimates depending on the definition used.
I still have not caught with all this. When people are born, they are either male or female. It is supposed that people in one group feel attracted by people in the other group.
Some people find that they are attracted by people in the same group. These call themselves gay. I can understand that, and have no problem with it.
But this latest fashion - which I understand started in American - I am finding much more difficult, and I don't really believe in it. The nearest I can get to making sense of it is that some people who are really gay don't want to face up to it, and think that an operation will make life easier for them.
Or is there something more to it than that?
Apologies if I sound like a backwoods Tory, but I have not yet identified the problem that these people have. Perhaps the only real Conservative in the village can help sort this out for me?
I can only answer anecdotally from a friend going mtf. She believed she was in fact a female and a quirk of biology gave her a male body. She went through the whole rigmarole of living as a woman for 2 years and is now looking forward to an operation.
There are however other reasons out there
Yes, under current rules living as the opposite gender for 2 years is a prerequisite for surgery. That implies that even the most bone fide Transfolk will have to use opposite sex facilities for 2 years.
Or do what she did and just use disabled facilities. In her case she had a valid medical diagnosis. I think what most of what people are objecting to is the "hey I am a woman because I say so and should be allowed to use womens safe spaces"
We have already have had examples of this going badly wrong and yes maybe it is a handful of cases and small in number.
Here is the question how many women are you willing to have raped as acceptable collateral damage to allow self ID'ed people access?
None, and that is a complete misrepresentation of the proposals for self ID.
1) Self ID does not negate the need for a GRC, it just makes it easier and demedicalises it.
2) Single sex (not gender) facilities are a legitimate exclusion under the Equality act if there is a proportionate reason.
Its all in the parliamentary paper on the subject.
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
As long at that? Was that 17 minutes of 'How was your weekend?' followed by 'Guilty? - All agreed'
They’ve got to leave the court room, walk to the jury room, get settled in, have an usher tell them arrangements, sit down, ‘Guilty? All agreed’, get up, summon usher, who tells the judge, go back to the court room.
So about 1% are out as trans. True figure may be a lot higher.
A minority but not a minority to drive a bulldozer into.
"We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK" does not equate to "about 1% are out as trans," it is 0.4%-1% and it is a tentative estimate of everyone, not just the "out."
Define transgender. It is a very elastic term these days. Much harder to define than woman.
Does it just mean those with gender dysphoria? Or anybody who dresses from time to time in woman's clothes? Or those with autogynephilia? (Men who become sexually aroused at the thought or image of themselves as a woman) Or those who would just like to be a woman - well just because. Or those who decide to identify as a woman if it is convenient eg male sex offenders who identify as women when sent to prison?
Or what?
I'd like to see that question posed to politicians.
Until you have clarity on the terms used, I'd be sceptical of drawing any conclusions from statistics.
As Mandy Rhodes writes:
And legislators are rightly nervous about cementing in statute a gender ideology which currently has no status in law and no clear definitions. What can you ban that you can’t name?
Agree that that is where the debate has to actually start, rather than try and wrap a package of rights around a Cloud of Unknowing.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
Bleating ninnydom from Welby, and further evidence for my thesis that Old Etonians should be barred from public office of any kind for the next 200 years. Why does the idiot think anyone is confused between gay conversion vs Christian conversion? If I say I am going to convert my garden shed into a sauna does he feel the need to rush into print to clarify the difference?
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
Something of a divide within the Church of England on this between liberals and evangelicals.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengalicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York
Or they could just make up their bloody minds.
The whole point of the Church of England is it is a broad church, comprising liberals and conservative evangelicals and still a few Anglo Catholics too
Can someone please explain to me the issue with trans being excluded from the government's 'conversion therapy' ban? My understanding is that conversion therapy was a a form of therapy that sought to persuade homosexuals that they weren't really gay? What does that have to do with trans people? Is there a form of conversion therapy going on with trans people? I haven't heard about.
And can we please acknowledge that sexual preference and gender identity are two different things?
As PB seems to have circled back to the trans issue I thought this was a very good article on the subject. My sister, who is shall we say more on the @Cyclefree side of the debate, sent it to me saying how good it was which indicates it must be ok.
I'm not sure that people would have confidence in a Royal Commission to chart a way forward on this. I fear that the past record and statements of every member of the Commission would be pored over in exhaustive detail to find reasons to exclude people, and this would create a cloud of controversy that would make it hard for all sides to accept any recommendations.
I'd therefore suggest that the model of a citizen's assembly, as used on contentious issues like abortion in Ireland, might be a better way for the evidence and the arguments to be heard and discussed, and compromises explored.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers Macron is getting more Pecresse voters in the runoff than Melenchon voters (even if more Pecresse than Melenchon voters are also voting for Le Pen).
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
Wouldn't be surprised if Melenchon's vote splits about a third Macron, a third Le Pen, a third abstention.
Very hard to see that. Le Pen is Putin-backed nasty racist and her pro-Putin links over the years are not going to help her.
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers Macron is getting more Pecresse voters in the runoff than Melenchon voters (even if more Pecresse than Melenchon voters are also voting for Le Pen).
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
Wouldn't be surprised if Melenchon's vote splits about a third Macron, a third Le Pen, a third abstention.
Very hard to see that. Le Pen is Putin-backed nasty racist and her pro-Putin links over the years are not going to help her.
Except Melenchon is also pro Putin and even more anti NATO
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
As long at that? Was that 17 minutes of 'How was your weekend?' followed by 'Guilty? - All agreed'
They’ve got to leave the court room, walk to the jury room, get settled in, have an usher tell them arrangements, sit down, ‘Guilty? All agreed’, get up, summon usher, who tells the judge, go back to the court room.
Can someone please explain to me the issue with trans being excluded from the government's 'conversion therapy' ban? My understanding is that conversion therapy was a a form of therapy that sought to persuade homosexuals that they weren't really gay? What does that have to do with trans people? Is there a form of conversion therapy going on with trans people? I haven't heard about.
And can we please acknowledge that sexual preference and gender identity are two different things?
I don't know what the issue is about gay conversion therapy either (in the literal sense of, I do not know what group of people is doing it to what other group of people). religious fundamentalists to their children?
I'm also unhappy with the consensus on banning it. the first thing is, I'd have thought it was entirely, 100% ineffective, but if I am a religious and gay adult who wants to pay a therapist to enact God's will by turning me straight why would that be anyone else's business?
A bit of French number crunching, comparing first round 2017 with first round 2022.
- Macron increased his first round lead over Le Pen by 1.5%, so a small first round swing in Macron's favour. - Swing from right of centre candidates to left of centre candidates was around 6%, 48-28 -> 40-32. Drop on right because the Republican vote was not fully compensated, rise on left because Greens fully balanced Socialist losses, whilst the remainder of the left edged up across the board. - If you include Macron on the left swing is slightly bigger. - That said Melenchon was only up 2.5% again with tiny swings relative to Macron and Le Pen.
So looking at Macron-Le Pen-Melenchon 2022 first round is remarkably similar to 2017.
If you are looking for reasons that 2022 might be different, you are mainly banking on this:
- A substantial drop in the vote for mainstream, comfortably coalitionable parties, from 56 to 40%, including the uncomfortable right rising from 22.5 to 34% (the uncomfortable right vote was just a smidge below Le Pen's second round share last time).
Also, an increased unwillingness on the part of left wing voters to hold their noses and vote for Macron.
The challenge is this for Le Pen. Damaged though Macron is by incumbency, she has to be significantly more transfer friendly than Macron to win and it is tricky to see where her 1.4m vote gain comes from, given transfers broke 80 : 20 for Macron last time. Le Pen needs around a 55 : 45 win on transfers this time, depending on turnout.
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead) 2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level) 1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead) 10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Did you see this poll?
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
On those numbers Macron is getting more Pecresse voters in the runoff than Melenchon voters (even if more Pecresse than Melenchon voters are also voting for Le Pen).
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
Wouldn't be surprised if Melenchon's vote splits about a third Macron, a third Le Pen, a third abstention.
Very hard to see that. Le Pen is Putin-backed nasty racist and her pro-Putin links over the years are not going to help her.
Melenchon said it's a good thing Crimea was annexed by Russia to prevent NATO getting it.
"A man has been found guilty of murdering Sir David Amess MP.
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
As long at that? Was that 17 minutes of 'How was your weekend?' followed by 'Guilty? - All agreed'
They’ve got to leave the court room, walk to the jury room, get settled in, have an usher tell them arrangements, sit down, ‘Guilty? All agreed’, get up, summon usher, who tells the judge, go back to the court room.
Electing a foreman would take a few minutes.
Does that happen at the start of the deliberations? Always assumed it was done at the start of the trial, but I know nothing about the legal system!
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
Tax the wealthy? if only it was that easy
Oh well, now you've explained in detail why it can't be done...
The top 1% of earners already pay around 28-29% of all income tax collected.
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
I don't think many are looking at income on the 1% being a big new source of revenue. Hasn't the debate moved elsewhere? Land, property, gains, inheritance etc.
Yes there needs to be significant extra tax on UNEARNED wealth 👍
Why do people view returns on capital as unearned?
Wages are the earnings from labour Investment income is just the earnings from capital
We should tax land more appropriately though as the third element of production
Because you have to put a lot more active effort in for labor than for capital.
There are good reasons for taxes on land, but as an element of production, it is a bit of an archaic view.
And also I see that I leave PB for one weekend and come back to see that there was a discussion about my (and Dura's) supposed military knowledge or lack of it.
I would go with the latter. For me.
Look on me as a frog in a well. A well that was built five hundred years ago. I know a very specific amount about a very specific theatre (two, actually) and the relevance of that knowledge ran out many years ago.
I would say, however, that having been in the "milieu" then some, very limited stuff I (and no doubt Dura) take as read and we have some context for (whether or not the complete destruction of an armoured column was likely by hand held anti-tank weapons or not, say) but there is a world of google out there otherwise for everyone to look and learn.
Comments
Average of the last 10 polls: Le Pen = 23%.
Result: Le Pen = 23%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_French_presidential_election#2022
https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/presidentielle-2022/FE.html
Do you think it might be a bit more complicated than you suggest?
Either way, they are notably accurate
I don't think Macron runs away with this, but I can't quite see which blocs turn over his lead from:
2.5m Zemmour voters (heavily Le Pen -> LP 500k lead)
2.25m very traditional core Republican and Socialist voters (quite heavily Macron -> level)
1.8m alternative centre right voters (slightly Le Pen -> 300k LP lead)
10.5m hard leftists and greens
So, Le Pen has to defend a small.lead in the few 100k range amongst 10 million leftists.
Perhaps that is defiantly deliberate?
The unfairness of the system is that capital is taxed so much more lightly than earned income, as is the income that is generated from it. Between IT, NI and unpaid VAT collection the government makes more out of my business than I do. That is quite harsh but the taxation of capital gains at 20%, all so easily reduced to 10% with Entrepreneur Relief makes it feel so much harsher.
Oh, hang on...
Macron is only getting a third of Melenchon's vote. The election will be won and lost on how many of the remaining Melenchon voters who won't vote for Macron can be persuaded to press the button marked 'do not press'.
There was a very fluffy letter from essentially a group of 'inclusive church' campaigners featured on LDV the other day, which sounds very good but imo did not contribute very much to moving a complex conversation forward:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/church-leaders-join-to-oppose-trans-conversion-therapy-in-a-beautifully-written-letter-70297.html
Some people have gender dysphoria - believing that they are in the wrong body for their sex. The UK's only Transgender NHS service has pursued a policy of "affirmation" that, yes, anyone who thinks they are in the wrong body should be supported and reinforced in that belief, leading ultimately to a pathway of hormone treatment which can have long term fertility effects.
The concern with this approach is that for some people that may be an incorrect diagnosis - and what really is going on is "internalised homophobia" - "I am a girl, but I like girls, and only boys like girls, therefore I must be a boy." In this case the affirmation approach is disastrous, potentially leading down the road to detransitioning and loss of fertility.
This is why the government has paused the ban on "trans conversion" therapy - because in some cases, transitioning might be the wrong solution. It's important to have discussions with children/young adults who think they might be trans to make sure that that is indeed the correct diagnosis, because a) its complicated and b) poorly understood.
If you want to know how poorly understood here's the interim review into the Gender Identity Service:
https://cass.independent-review.uk/publications/interim-report/
There's a lot of ideology (and some questionable medical practice) bound up in this.
At the old border post and looking down at Cerbère (which looks a lot like Portbou)
https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1513451071166889989
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_P450
There are however other reasons out there
It is hard to see those figures getting Le Pen over the line. It looks a pretty safe majority for Macron, and the rare feat of re-election despite the prelediction of the French for decapitating their monarchs.
https://twitter.com/DariusRochebin/status/1513249132558827521
https://twitter.com/TF1Info/status/1513250116681019397
Truss 7.4 / 8
Tugendhat 9.2 / 9.6
Sunak 9.6 / 10.5
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.160663234
Unblocking Mariupol impossible 🇺🇦 troops will not cross the steppe under air strikes from Rostov and Crimea. The siege can be removed and alleviated indirectly - Prez advisor Arestovych speaking to 🇷🇺lawyer Feygin...
...🔹As well, 🇺🇦 Army conduct actions in Zaporizhia Oblast to distract 🇷🇺troops from siege of Mariupol
🔹Huge ongoing effort to find solution to save Mariupol. Each second that city holds on allows searching for more solutions
🔹City's resistance allows to contrain 🇷🇺offensive on 🇺🇦
Macron net loses 400k of his own vote -> 1m lead
Le Pen gains net 1.75m Zemmour votes -> 750k lead
Pecresse neutral
Macron gains 750k net Melenchon votes -> level
Macron gains 750k net green votes -> 750k Macron win
600k socialists, 1m communists, 700k liberal right and 1m awkward squad right not polled.
She has one game-changer left, however. The last debate. If she excels and Macron sneers, she can scrape a narrow win
I might actually watch it
I don't think it is fully accurate, but if we assume MLP wins, this is how she does it. Splits the Pecresse and Melenchon votes, adds Zemmour's, and the Greens stay at home.
The problem in French politics is that the electoral system has proven beneficial to the far right so that they can usually now make the final two which means whichever berk is on top wins. But what if people can't bring themselves to vote for another 5 years of En Berke?
How would the EU manage the hard right running its second member?
I’d happily see the tax burden spread more widely if that was a result of returning to the lower inequality of decades past.
We have already have had examples of this going badly wrong and yes maybe it is a handful of cases and small in number.
Here is the question how many women are you willing to have raped as acceptable collateral damage to allow self ID'ed people access?
Presumably, I would be on safe ground if I continue to treat people as what they seem to be. If I am not picking sports teams, nor all-women shortlists, let alone trying to seduce somebody, I should be safe enough.
More importantly does he not see that "the attempt to induce vulnerable and isolated people to deny who they truly are" cuts both ways? If you are faced with say a 14 year old who says they need to transition you are going to want to have a long on-the-one-hand, on-the-other conversation with them, and you can't just cut out one side of the argument. And further for every twat who wants to say that it is flying in the face of nature, messing with God's handiwork etc, there is an equal and opposite twat who thinks that transism is a kind of gospel to be spread and every convert is sticking it to the squares. And boringly but inevitably, there are huge prudential arguments and they are on the side of caution, of not commiting, because irreversible means irreversible.
The thought that people as stupid as this are ex officio members of the legislature is concerning.
I'm torn. On the one hand people returning, certainly west of the Dniper, would be a real morale boost. At the same time it's more mouths to feed, people to take care of at a time when the country remains at war.
Note Rowan Williams, Welby's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, has signed that inclusive church letter opposing the government's failure to include trans people in its ban on homosexual conversion therapy even if Welby has not.
Williams is on the liberal Catholic wing of the Church of England, Welby is on the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England. Normally the Archbishop of Canterbury rotates between liberal Catholics and conservative Evengelicals eg Runcie liberal Catholic, Carey conservative Evangelical, Williams liberal Catholic, Welby conservative Evangelical. So you would expect the next Archbishop to be a liberal Catholic, maybe Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York?
The French have never struck me as an ornery bunch, so the idea of shaking things up by going for Le Pen is surely not something they would consider. Ahem.
His position as ABC would prevent him taking that kind of campaigning position.
One thing you can be sure of is that the time will be taken to think about it carefully. Which is also one of the best features of the HoL, in general.
Whether that repeats or not could determine the results of this election.
And not without reason:
How it all works is a huge enigma. How much of sexual attraction is genetic and how much derived from your upbringing? Things where desirable characteristic vary - some societies favour overweight women (Pacific Islands etc), whereas others don't (the west, generally). If you took an infant from each culture and swapped them, what would be the outcome? Who knows?
1) Self ID does not negate the need for a GRC, it just makes it easier and demedicalises it.
2) Single sex (not gender) facilities are a legitimate exclusion under the Equality act if there is a proportionate reason.
Its all in the parliamentary paper on the subject.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmwomeq/977/report.html
Mentioning this for 2 reasons. First, a lot of people were looking at early results and some were focused on how Le Pen was polling closer to Macron than Mélenchon. But of course Paris was yet to report. Second, everyone below 5% is now out of pocket by millions of euro, particularly Pécresse and Jadot who would have expected to be above the bar.
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If anyone cares (they don't)
A bit of tinkering here and there, and some frowning faces at EU summits, is not going to change this trajectory. I had thought that the shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have an effect, but Le Pen is at yet untouched.
We have to start with an admission that, fundamentally, the politics of the last couple of decades, or so, has failed. There might be many on here who have fond memories of the Coalition years, or of life under Blair, but it was their policies that created the conditions for this discontent. This is their doing. We have to do something different. We will do something different. If we don't think of a better idea the different thing that will be done with be more or less authoritarian right-wing populism.
Macron urgently needs to get more Melenchon voters to vote for him rather than stay home if he is to get a clear victory in the runoff
Non. Non non non. Just non
Macron 27.84
Le Pen 23.15
Melenchon 21.95
Macron leads by 1,649,000.
Melenchon misses out by 421,000.
https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/presidentielle-2022/FE.html
The Southend West MP was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex on 15 October 2021. Ali Harbi Ali, 26, of Kentish Town, north London, was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by jurors at the Old Bailey. Ali had denied the charges and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
The jury took 18 minutes to reach its verdicts."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-61026210
https://twitter.com/vpecresse/status/1513434989379174406?s=20&t=C3TER-oEaorMjzfK8giFDQ.
Both she and Hidalgo as Socialist candidate fell below 5%, putting the old 2 established parties at a disadvantage compared to Macron, Le Pen and Melenchon's parties in the legislative elections
The fact is the NHS is accepting self id and not segragating patients from single sex wards even though they could and the prison service is allowing mtf self id's into womens prisons even though they could use the law.
It is no good you keep bleating on and on that the law says they can exclude if public servants aren't damn well using it.
Nobody who wrote or signed that letter is capable of thinking about anything carefully if they can't see the ludicrous asymmetry in what it says.
It just feels to me that enough of the french have had enough and are mad as hell, that she will scrape a win.
I don't think that this is the end of the battle, as the Ukrainian defenders were in two pockets, and this will be just one of them - not even sure it's all of that?
https://www.nickherbert.com/news/2022/4/9/royal-commission
Wages are the earnings from labour
Investment income is just the earnings from capital
We should tax land more appropriately though as the third element of production
Liberals in the Church of England are relatively socially liberal and pro women priests but also a but more high church and pro traditional Parish.
Evangelicals in the Church of England are more socially conservative and a bit less pro women priests but also much more bible based and low church and fans of worship bands rather than traditional choirs and spreading the gospel and converting rather than just relying on the traditional Parish church.
Anglo Catholics are also generally socially conservative like the evangelicals and the most anti women priests but also the most focused on the Eucharist and the most high church, so on that actually closer to the liberals in their view of the importance of the Parish
And can we please acknowledge that sexual preference and gender identity are two different things?
I'd therefore suggest that the model of a citizen's assembly, as used on contentious issues like abortion in Ireland, might be a better way for the evidence and the arguments to be heard and discussed, and compromises explored.
“DPR’s Basurin just straight up announced impending use of chemical weapons in Mariupol. Here we go”
https://twitter.com/juliaskripkaser/status/1513490025178177545?s=21&t=ydlsqrs6cIbaE1lHwHXPZw
I'm also unhappy with the consensus on banning it. the first thing is, I'd have thought it was entirely, 100% ineffective, but if I am a religious and gay adult who wants to pay a therapist to enact God's will by turning me straight why would that be anyone else's business?
https://twitter.com/benjaminhaddad/status/1500878977627471874
There are good reasons for taxes on land, but as an element of production, it is a bit of an archaic view.
The French Socialist Party presidential candidate, Mme Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, came seventh… in Paris
I would go with the latter. For me.
Look on me as a frog in a well. A well that was built five hundred years ago. I know a very specific amount about a very specific theatre (two, actually) and the relevance of that knowledge ran out many years ago.
I would say, however, that having been in the "milieu" then some, very limited stuff I (and no doubt Dura) take as read and we have some context for (whether or not the complete destruction of an armoured column was likely by hand held anti-tank weapons or not, say) but there is a world of google out there otherwise for everyone to look and learn.