Im afraid thats nonsense, bidding wars above asking price are happening all the time
Not round here. Lot of apparently desirable property not shifting.
Have friends wanting to move from Richmond to Devon. Only three viewings on their VERY smart garden flat with a superb office in the garden. No offers.
Meanwhile, you don't even get to view properties in Devon unless you have the cash/firm buyer already set up.
Keir needs a reverse dead cat to KEEP Boris in situ.
Suggest the next head of the Serious Crimes Unit should be transgender or something.
There’s a real risk that Keir loses if Boris is ousted.
History suggests they'll go for Priti Truss or Raab. The only possibles who haven't compromised themselves by being over supportive nor overtly disloyal by dumping on him. All of them no-hopers. As is two-times loser Hunt.
The only real danger to Starmer-bright human and articulate-is Rishi but Johnson's screwed him before he got out of the blocks.
Almost anyone is a danger to Starmer. He has completely failed to make any impression as LOTO, he is very fortunate to be facing Johnson. He barely leads a fat discredited dog on its deathbed as best PM.
I think you underestimate him. He's not flamboyant nor particularly articulate. But he seems safe. He's a Volvo and after three years with a rust-bucket Trabant which can't pass it's MOT that what voters will settle for
Starmer is dullness, cubed.
Big Bad Dom nails Starmer in that excellent Unherd interview. Starmer is…. Rubbish. Just really poor on multiple levels. Bad communicator, no sense of humour, no fresh thinking, a slave to convention, a bore. But he might just become PM because Boris and the rest of it. The Tories are exhausted
It is an indictment of the state of British politics that someone as smart as Cummings is out of a job whereas so many time servers plod on and on. I accept that he is divisive and Marmitey
He reminds me oddly of Mandelson. Clearly an asset to UK PLC but annoys too many people
Anyone can point at things that are wrong, it's easy, especially if there are lots of things that are wrong. The difficult thing is (a) identifying a solution and (b) working towards the implementation of the solution. On (a), the one solution that Dom is best known for, Brexit, has transparently failed to make things better - in fact, the opposite. On (b), Dom got everyone's backs up then fell out with his boss because he didn't like his boss's wife and left before he really did anything. This is not a successful track record. In any case, I doubt he is out of a job, I would assume he is getting paid to do something by someone at the murkier end of the global financial ecosystem, the same kind of people who financed Brexit.
Such a killer paragraph from Mike but will the tories see sense?
'His supporters argue that Johnson’s great strength is that he is seen as an election winner. My response is that his victories over the discredited LAB figures of Livingstone and Corbyn are really no big deal.'
OGH has said that before and he's still wrong. Livingstone is only discredited because Boris beat him. Twice.
A Tory winning Labour London even once - let alone twice - really, really is a big deal. A massive deal. Boris's electoral ceiling even now is still far higher than anyone else on the Tory benches (or SKS). The only thing that has changed is that his electoral floor is much lower too.
Yes, but it is quite self fulfilling. When Johnsons electoral career ends in failure (as all political careers do) is his loss because he is discredited, or is he discredited by the loss?
It will be interesting to see how he does on his book sales and after dinner speaking. As I have said before I just don't get the fees paid to ex-PMs for after dinner speaking. I used to book speakers for conferences and you can get some great ones for a fraction of the price. I can't imagine May being any good, but she pulls in the money. Some have said it is for the contacts.
What I do believe is that Boris will be a brilliant after dinner speaker anyway and will probably earn a future on the book deals even if he is discredited when leaving office.
Surely the appeal of Theresa May as a speaker, and Blair for that matter, lies in offering an insight into the serious business of politics, government and international relations. They are serious people speaking to an audience of serious people who want a glimpse behind the curtain.
Boris is not a serious speaker; he is a clown; he tells jokes; he is an entertaining speaker. Look at how badly he was received at the CBI conference where captains of industry had not paid to be amused by tales of Peppa Pig World.
I should imagine Boris's big cheques will come from journalism — the Telegraph paid him £250,000 a year for a weekly column that probably took about two hours' work; a fee that could easily be doubled, at least — and a return to television. £5 million for his memoirs, even if part of that is spent repaying the advance for his long-delayed Shakespeare book. A couple of moosehead chairs at well-endowed American universities for another couple of million, and pretty soon we are talking about serious money for unserious commitments. If Boris can break into American television, the sky is the limit.
That is the 2nd day running where a post has been made where I have to admit I rather missed the point spectacularly. When I booked speakers I was booking them for entertainment value (hence why I think Boris will be brilliant). It never crossed my mind that people wanted serious speakers.
I've sat through Kevin Keegan. Twice. He tells some jokes about his own career. Then it gets serious and he talks about leadership and psychology and tries to apply it to the setting he is addressing. Both times the back end of the speech was different in how the same career highlights and "wasn't I stupid" gags relate to the crowd.
So yes, you need to have someone who has a purpose. Otherwise why not just book someone who came 3rd on Britain's Got Talent a decade ago to sing some songs at people?
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
If Douglas quits they might retry the Ruth effect with Meghan. She even wrote her thesis on the impact of Ruth on Scottish politics.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
If only people listened to Alex Cole-Hamilton. I honestly believe we are trying to offer a new centrist vision - we're certainly not just banging a unionist drum saying "the status quo is best". The problem remains cut-through, and with respect to every non-SNP politician since Ruth Davidson they have been shown to be boring non-entities, or have spectacular implosions, or both. ACH included.
One MP has told Sky News: "The prime minister is in more danger than he thinks he's in, and more danger than the whips realise." https://trib.al/MgMkdHc
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
The Comres is 27-29 fully after the money splurge which Nick claimed reduced the Lab lead to 2. Tories 31 lead ELEVEN Nick.
MoonRabbit poll predictor queen. 😝
Very true. I'm delighted.
Comres is very much last poll reported syndrome though. Redfield had plus 5. One of them is heading in the incorrect direction or is just an outlier. Or its really opiniums no movement that is right.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
One MP has told Sky News: "The prime minister is in more danger than he thinks he's in, and more danger than the whips realise." https://trib.al/MgMkdHc
Im going to be predictably unscientific here but there truly does feel to be a change in the air. It also feels like some MPs are feeling relieved at accepting that. And Im actually greatly looking forward to a post Dog world
Im afraid thats nonsense, bidding wars above asking price are happening all the time
Not round here. Lot of apparently desirable property not shifting.
Have friends wanting to move from Richmond to Devon. Only three viewings on their VERY smart garden flat with a superb office in the garden. No offers.
Meanwhile, you don't even get to view properties in Devon unless you have the cash/firm buyer already set up.
They are finding it rather dispiriting.
With WFH trends and the capital turning into a labour fiefdom, there must be plenty wanting to do that trade, I guess??
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
Such a killer paragraph from Mike but will the tories see sense?
'His supporters argue that Johnson’s great strength is that he is seen as an election winner. My response is that his victories over the discredited LAB figures of Livingstone and Corbyn are really no big deal.'
OGH has said that before and he's still wrong. Livingstone is only discredited because Boris beat him. Twice.
A Tory winning Labour London even once - let alone twice - really, really is a big deal. A massive deal. Boris's electoral ceiling even now is still far higher than anyone else on the Tory benches (or SKS). The only thing that has changed is that his electoral floor is much lower too.
Yes, but it is quite self fulfilling. When Johnsons electoral career ends in failure (as all political careers do) is his loss because he is discredited, or is he discredited by the loss?
It will be interesting to see how he does on his book sales and after dinner speaking. As I have said before I just don't get the fees paid to ex-PMs for after dinner speaking. I used to book speakers for conferences and you can get some great ones for a fraction of the price. I can't imagine May being any good, but she pulls in the money. Some have said it is for the contacts.
What I do believe is that Boris will be a brilliant after dinner speaker anyway and will probably earn a future on the book deals even if he is discredited when leaving office.
Surely the appeal of Theresa May as a speaker, and Blair for that matter, lies in offering an insight into the serious business of politics, government and international relations. They are serious people speaking to an audience of serious people who want a glimpse behind the curtain.
Boris is not a serious speaker; he is a clown; he tells jokes; he is an entertaining speaker. Look at how badly he was received at the CBI conference where captains of industry had not paid to be amused by tales of Peppa Pig World.
I should imagine Boris's big cheques will come from journalism — the Telegraph paid him £250,000 a year for a weekly column that probably took about two hours' work; a fee that could easily be doubled, at least — and a return to television. £5 million for his memoirs, even if part of that is spent repaying the advance for his long-delayed Shakespeare book. A couple of moosehead chairs at well-endowed American universities for another couple of million, and pretty soon we are talking about serious money for unserious commitments. If Boris can break into American television, the sky is the limit.
That is the 2nd day running where a post has been made where I have to admit I rather missed the point spectacularly. When I booked speakers I was booking them for entertainment value (hence why I think Boris will be brilliant). It never crossed my mind that people wanted serious speakers.
I've sat through Kevin Keegan. Twice. He tells some jokes about his own career. Then it gets serious and he talks about leadership and psychology and tries to apply it to the setting he is addressing. Both times the back end of the speech was different in how the same career highlights and "wasn't I stupid" gags relate to the crowd.
So yes, you need to have someone who has a purpose. Otherwise why not just book someone who came 3rd on Britain's Got Talent a decade ago to sing some songs at people?
Yes it is ideal if the speaker tailors his speech to the audience. When I have booked them they normally ask me questions. I booked a magician once who wanted to know who could take a ribbing and to get some specifics on people so he could tailor his act.
One of the best speakers I have booked was a presenter on lateral thinking (can't remember his name). Very thought provoking. Richard Noble was brilliant, not because he is a good speaker (he isn't) but because of the story of 'Thrust'. A guy at the bar afterwards said to me it wants to make you stand up, salute and sing Rule Britannia. And he was right. Lawrie McMenamy was a great speaker. He tailored his speech, very motivational and was very funny.
The Comres is 27-29 fully after the money splurge which Nick claimed reduced the Lab lead to 2. Tories 31 lead ELEVEN Nick.
MoonRabbit poll predictor queen. 😝
Very true. I'm delighted.
Comres is very much last poll reported syndrome though. Redfield had plus 5. One of them is heading in the incorrect direction or is just an outlier. Or its really opiniums no movement that is right.
Stuff always takes longer to feed into the polls than we think. But if Rishi can shovel fifteen billion quid out of the window with barely a shrug from the public, the government really are in trouble.
We won't notice the £400 come the autumn; for most of us, it just means our direct debits won't go up so much. Maybe the government should just have posted an envelope of used fifty quid notes to every address in the country, no questions asked.
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
Secondly, and completely undermining the first, why ARE you all so convinced? We've been on the verge of a leadership election for six months. You've all talked yourself into a froth about this before. Are you really that confident this time?
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
Secondly, and completely undermining the first, why ARE you all so convinced? We've been on the verge of a leadership election for six months. You've all talked yourself into a froth about this before. Are you really that confident this time?
I think it's the numbers who've gone public. I think we are up to the proportion that we had when T May was VOC ed. Maybe it won't happen. But it seems like a critical mass is here. Just before everyone heads off to their constituencies.
My new “landlord” in Tbilisi Old town recommended a place. “Really good Georgian food@. On Freedom Sqaure. Which is bit like recommending a restaurant on Oxford Circus or Leicester Square
I had grave doubts to say the least. Plus it also feels like an old Russian canteen from about 1965. Nonetheless I have turned up, thinking Why not. and my God he is right. Khinkali done so well you think Why would I ever eat anything else. and all with this intensely smoky chili sauce, Ajika
One MP has told Sky News: "The prime minister is in more danger than he thinks he's in, and more danger than the whips realise." https://trib.al/MgMkdHc
Sounds like MPs are more confident than us lot on here that Johnson would win a VOC?
I've had a couple of days away in Oxford with the family, and switch PB back on to discover super-injunctions, letters piling up and a general sense of the wheels coming off the Johnson wagon.
Is there anyone still ramping the glorious neo-Churchillian future, or are we staring into a warm glass of flat Pol Roger?
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
Secondly, and completely undermining the first, why ARE you all so convinced? We've been on the verge of a leadership election for six months. You've all talked yourself into a froth about this before. Are you really that confident this time?
We're all very good at passing our own judgements - or selectively finding comments from actual MPs that fit our preferred reality. And for a while its just sat there not really moving.
Now there is a very clear momentum that actual MPs are commenting on. In large numbers.
My new “landlord” in Tbilisi Old town recommended a place. “Really good Georgian food@. On Freedom Sqaure. Which is bit like recommending a restaurant on Oxford Circus or Leicester Square
I had grave doubts to say the least. Plus it also feels like an old Russian canteen from about 1965. Nonetheless I have turned up, thinking Why not. and my God he is right. Khinkali done so well you think Why would I ever eat anything else. and all with this intensely smoky chili sauce, Ajika
Sublime!
Adjika is great, and you can get it in pretty much any eastern European food shop here. My wife uses it in goulash instead of paprika.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
Secondly, and completely undermining the first, why ARE you all so convinced? We've been on the verge of a leadership election for six months. You've all talked yourself into a froth about this before. Are you really that confident this time?
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
Secondly, and completely undermining the first, why ARE you all so convinced? We've been on the verge of a leadership election for six months. You've all talked yourself into a froth about this before. Are you really that confident this time?
I think it's the numbers who've gone public. I think we are up to the proportion that we had when T May was VOC ed. Maybe it won't happen. But it seems like a critical mass is here. Just before everyone heads off to their constituencies.
Also they are from every wing, region and intake.
Also I do listen to Marquee Mark on these things. And his posts now carry this kind of cold expression, like that used by mafia hitmen when they carry out a job.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
What you're asking for is for Scotland to have more centrist voters. A new centrist party would sink because few people would vote for it.
The status quo isn't working for too many people, and those it is working for are all riled up and discontented too.
Some genuinely radical and new thinking is required.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
Secondly, and completely undermining the first, why ARE you all so convinced? We've been on the verge of a leadership election for six months. You've all talked yourself into a froth about this before. Are you really that confident this time?
I am out here in Tbilisi with an expensive piece of big luggage which is close to collapsing. Simply because I travel so much. Zips are fraying. Wheels are loosening
Now a steel rod has sprung from the casing and making it almost unusable. See here
That’s nasty. The metal is also strong and rigid. It won’t just snap off. I’ve tried. What can I do? I’m not sure I can find high quality luggage in Tbilisi to replace it
If I could just get 1-2 more months of use out of this suitcase, I can replace it when I get back to london. Or should I give upon on this bag and scour the Caucasus for a replacement?
What happened to the 27 cheap Chinese knock-off multi-tools you bought the other week?
Bend the metal back and hope you can replace in London.
Or buy a cheap throw away piece of luggage in Tbilisi to see you through the next 2 months
I've had a couple of days away in Oxford with the family, and switch PB back on to discover super-injunctions, letters piling up and a general sense of the wheels coming off the Johnson wagon.
Is there anyone still ramping the glorious neo-Churchillian future, or are we staring into a warm glass of flat Pol Roger?
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
Will the local now non-SNP councils blame Westminster?
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
If only people listened to Alex Cole-Hamilton. I honestly believe we are trying to offer a new centrist vision - we're certainly not just banging a unionist drum saying "the status quo is best". The problem remains cut-through, and with respect to every non-SNP politician since Ruth Davidson they have been shown to be boring non-entities, or have spectacular implosions, or both. ACH included.
ACH is OK. But Willie Rennie, when you see him speaking at Holyrood, is really excellent. Need more MSPs like him.
Scot LibDems are now only really competitive in a handful of places - west end of Edinburgh, NE Fife, the northern bit of Highland, plus the Northern Isles. That's really it. Not sure that I can really see them coming back elsewhere particularly if SLab pick up under Sarwar.
I've had a couple of days away in Oxford with the family, and switch PB back on to discover super-injunctions, letters piling up and a general sense of the wheels coming off the Johnson wagon.
Is there anyone still ramping the glorious neo-Churchillian future, or are we staring into a warm glass of flat Pol Roger?
I don’t think I’ve seen an optimistic post about the future that is being delivered by Boris/HMG/Brexit since some time last year.
Edit: I think that poster that look like a ugly fish still claims that working class wages are improving.
Public services in Scotland’s poorest areas could be harmed by widespread abstention from this year’s census in urban areas, experts fear.
Public policy specialists and opposition parties are alarmed after it emerged that by Monday only 86% of households nationwide had filled it in, well short of the 94% target, despite a four-week extension to the deadline until 31 May.
The Scottish government delayed the census until April despite it being held across the rest of the UK last year. Staged online by default for the first time at a cost of £150m, it is expected to miss all its key targets.
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
My new “landlord” in Tbilisi Old town recommended a place. “Really good Georgian food@. On Freedom Sqaure. Which is bit like recommending a restaurant on Oxford Circus or Leicester Square
I had grave doubts to say the least. Plus it also feels like an old Russian canteen from about 1965. Nonetheless I have turned up, thinking Why not. and my God he is right. Khinkali done so well you think Why would I ever eat anything else. and all with this intensely smoky chili sauce, Ajika
Sublime!
Don't get fooled by appearances. One of the reliably best places to eat I've found in Edinburgh is the Mosque Kitchen on Nicholson Sq. It looks like a student canteen, and the outdoor seating is picnic benches under an off-white tarp. But the food is good enough for Jehovah.
I concur. Although it was several years ago that I was taken. It's still OK then?
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
You're not following your thoughts on fascism to their logical conclusion:
@IndiaWilloughby When the Queen dies, wouldn’t be surprised if Boris appoints himself Fuhrer and assumes total control. That’s how close I think Britain is to Nazi Germany.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
My new “landlord” in Tbilisi Old town recommended a place. “Really good Georgian food@. On Freedom Sqaure. Which is bit like recommending a restaurant on Oxford Circus or Leicester Square
I had grave doubts to say the least. Plus it also feels like an old Russian canteen from about 1965. Nonetheless I have turned up, thinking Why not. and my God he is right. Khinkali done so well you think Why would I ever eat anything else. and all with this intensely smoky chili sauce, Ajika
Sublime!
Its great when you get tips from locals. I find that on my cycle trips in France in the middle of nowhere. In the 90s I worked in Nicosia and was taken to places where if you were a tourist you wouldn't touch with a barge pole. All were fantastic.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
Experience of Blair, Ruth & Rory isn't really confidence inspiring either; a has been and a couple of hardly ever wasses aint gonnae cut it. Change UK is available for a name tho'..
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
Good point on the census fiasco. Someone earlier asked if it has Barnet consequentials. It must have, though what they are who knows?
T’was I.
If the official population of Scotland has dropped by half a million, surely that means less money sent North by the UK gov?
True, but they're likely to make a guesstimate of some sort, acknowledging the deficiencies of the SNP govt's making. Within Scotland the distribution of UK taxpayer largesse will be less appropriately targeted than it could have been.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
Will the local now non-SNP councils blame Westminster?
No. They will blame Holyrood and the SNP who will blame Westminster. However your local council butters its toast the solution to the lack of a plate will remain independence.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
Given that May was PM from 2016 to 2019 and it takes 5 years to get a medical degree, the students who started studying medicine in 2017 will only be graduating in the new few months and starting their first year as a doctor in September.
I've had a couple of days away in Oxford with the family, and switch PB back on to discover super-injunctions, letters piling up and a general sense of the wheels coming off the Johnson wagon.
Is there anyone still ramping the glorious neo-Churchillian future, or are we staring into a warm glass of flat Pol Roger?
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
If only people listened to Alex Cole-Hamilton. I honestly believe we are trying to offer a new centrist vision - we're certainly not just banging a unionist drum saying "the status quo is best". The problem remains cut-through, and with respect to every non-SNP politician since Ruth Davidson they have been shown to be boring non-entities, or have spectacular implosions, or both. ACH included.
ACH is OK. But Willie Rennie, when you see him speaking at Holyrood, is really excellent. Need more MSPs like him.
Scot LibDems are now only really competitive in a handful of places - west end of Edinburgh, NE Fife, the northern bit of Highland, plus the Northern Isles. That's really it. Not sure that I can really see them coming back elsewhere particularly if SLab pick up under Sarwar.
We've done decently in the NE. And there is a mood in the party not to put the bus away for another 5 years but to try and build some visibility and momentum.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Interesting, but a more relevant stat would be number of GPs per 100,000 wished-for appointments. I'm guessing Cornwall and Devon have quite an old population, so probably more appointments wanted. Having more GPs would make sense. So the map on the article isn't exactly measuring shortfall. London, generally younger, probably needs a lot fewer doctors per 100,000 people.
Otoh younger people have more babies than do OAPs. And from the link:-
The two-fold variation in GPs holds even when the age and health of the local population is taken into account to factor in how often patients are likely to need a GP, the analysis showed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
You're not following your thoughts on fascism to their logical conclusion:
@IndiaWilloughby When the Queen dies, wouldn’t be surprised if Boris appoints himself Fuhrer and assumes total control. That’s how close I think Britain is to Nazi Germany.
Sterling has a whole set of problems that interest rate rises won't solve and may exacerbate.
While the emerging market label is silly (in my opinion), the point about a politicised and obfuscatory Bank of England is very valid.
It’s interesting to note the poor performance of the pound this year. Obviously some of it is the “retreat to the dollar”, but that has also afflicted other currencies.
The pound has been hit additionally because investors aren’t buying the government’s economic strategy.
Needless to say this adds to inflation outlook, and perhaps explain why some analysts believe inflation will be more persistent in the UK than in peer economies.
The view that GBP (Great British Peso) is increasingly trading like an EM currency isn't an uncommon one in financial markets, in my experience. People don't think the country has an economic strategy post Brexit, the government is seen as high tax and spend without delivering good services, and the BOE is seen as unreliable and too tolerant of inflation. Occasionally someone tries to sell the line that GBP is cheap, but it never seems to have many takers. Recall that Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world before WW1. It could happen to us if we keep making bad choices.
It's because the BoE is too scared of causing a housing crash and the wrath of the government should it do so. Bailey is no more than a Tory toady and the markets are pricing it in, a more independent governor would have pushed the MPC into much bigger rate rises already and rebuked the Treasury over its reckless borrowing for a one off fiscal stimulus that will stoke inflation. Whoever comes in next will need to move Bailey on and get some one like Raghuram Rajan in to stabilise the ship and win back market confidence. The Treasury and BoE have both completely lost it.
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
You're not following your thoughts on fascism to their logical conclusion:
@IndiaWilloughby When the Queen dies, wouldn’t be surprised if Boris appoints himself Fuhrer and assumes total control. That’s how close I think Britain is to Nazi Germany.
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
On July 17, 2020, the Scottish government announced that the next census, due to be held in 2021, would in fact be delayed until this year. According to Fiona Hyslop, then the minister responsible for the census, postponement was not a decision to be taken lightly but doing so would ensure that “the quality of the census data” would “remain robust” and moving the date would help ensure “the highest possible response rate from people across Scotland”.
Oops. Last week, Nicola Sturgeon was left with no option but to admit that Scotland’s census may be worthless. Although the deadline for submitting forms was extended by a month, as of last Saturday just 86 per cent of forms had been completed. Since the census is useless unless it is comprehensive and since the revised cut-off point for submitting returns is tomorrow, it will be a surprise if returns have reached the 90-plus per cent level deemed necessary for success.
Successfully getting the flight out may well defer some letters going in, depending on the MP, expecially if they think a successor might not stick with the policy.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
All true. As Scottish politics sits within a Unionist vs Nationalist prison which itself is within the ongoing UK Tories vs non Tories battle, the ability to oppose is difficult.
The simple reality is that for the three opposition parties to effectively work together is politically impossible. They manage it at council level where nobody is looking, but nationally Labour can't drop its pretence that its dominance is about to come back, the LibDems need to be heard so want to stand apart, and nobody will work with the Tories because morals.
I don't know how we fix it. Because despite the SNP's genuine non-scum compared to the Tories image, they are a big screw up on a whole heap of policy areas. And keep trying to drag us off down the independence rabbit hole without actually wanting to say what is on the other side.
Scotland desperately needs a new, centrist party, something like what the Tories were turning into under Ruth but with more breadth of vision and proper policy options focused on Scotland. I will be interested to see what Blair, Ruth, Rory and others are up to but the experience of Alba does not give much encouragement.
If only people listened to Alex Cole-Hamilton. I honestly believe we are trying to offer a new centrist vision - we're certainly not just banging a unionist drum saying "the status quo is best". The problem remains cut-through, and with respect to every non-SNP politician since Ruth Davidson they have been shown to be boring non-entities, or have spectacular implosions, or both. ACH included.
ACH is OK. But Willie Rennie, when you see him speaking at Holyrood, is really excellent. Need more MSPs like him.
Scot LibDems are now only really competitive in a handful of places - west end of Edinburgh, NE Fife, the northern bit of Highland, plus the Northern Isles. That's really it. Not sure that I can really see them coming back elsewhere particularly if SLab pick up under Sarwar.
We've done decently in the NE. And there is a mood in the party not to put the bus away for another 5 years but to try and build some visibility and momentum.
An area of traditional strength and an uptick might, just, result in a list seat. But no chance whatever of a constituency in either parliament. Same story in the Borders.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Why don't other large parties try compete for SNP voters, then? In a democracy, it seems fair enough that parties should move toward the voters. But perhaps the problem is that they are hidebound by disastrous British unionist identity politics.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
Given that May was PM from 2016 to 2019 and it takes 5 years to get a medical degree, the students who started studying medicine in 2017 will only be graduating in the new few months and starting their first year as a doctor in September.
Yes, we should praise Hunt and May for some long term thinking, or at least thinking beyond tomorrow's headlines. But the GP point is separate. Of course, we are short of all sorts of hospital doctors as well, and our usual solution of importing foreign quacks runs up against post-Brexit bureaucracy and the simple fact that post-Covid, every other country is fishing in the same pool.
The Comres is 27-29 fully after the money splurge which Nick claimed reduced the Lab lead to 2. Tories 31 lead ELEVEN Nick.
MoonRabbit poll predictor queen. 😝
Very true. I'm delighted.
Comres is very much last poll reported syndrome though. Redfield had plus 5. One of them is heading in the incorrect direction or is just an outlier. Or its really opiniums no movement that is right.
The EMA has the Labour lead at 6.4% and 14 seats short of an overall majority on the new boundaries.
EDIT: I think Electoral Calculus is under playing the LibDems.
Successfully getting the flight out may well defer some letters going in, depending on the MP, expecially if they think a successor might not stick with the policy.
The trouble is, as the Barwell thread indicates, it may encourage others. Which applies to almost everything they do. As gardenwalker notes, it's coming from all sides.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Why don't other large parties try compete for SNP voters, then? In a democracy, it seems fair enough that parties should move toward the voters. But perhaps the problem is that they are hidebound by disastrous British unionist identity politics.
The Conservatives in Scotland effectively made themselves a one-issue, one-person party by calling themselves "The Ruth Davidson Says No to Independence/Independence Referendums" party - very much so, certainly in terms of the actual branding. That was far more of an 'identity politics' jag than the SNP do.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Why don't other large parties try compete for SNP voters, then? In a democracy, it seems fair enough that parties should move toward the voters. But perhaps the problem is that they are hidebound by disastrous British unionist identity politics.
Whining about divisive identity politics stopping folk voting for them is the Unionist version of blaming Westminster.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Why don't other large parties try compete for SNP voters, then? In a democracy, it seems fair enough that parties should move toward the voters. But perhaps the problem is that they are hidebound by disastrous British unionist identity politics.
The Conservatives in Scotland effectively made themselves a one-issue, one-person party by calling themselves "The Ruth Davidson Says No to Independence/Independence Referendums" party - very much so, certainly in terms of the actual branding. That was far more of an 'identity politics' jag than the SNP do.
It was inevitable reaction to SNP success. Scots Tories (and all other Unionists) would much rather Scots politics was dominated by anything other than the constitution. But they have to go where the votes are, and a very significant number of Scots are passionately anti-Indy, even if they are less noisy than the other side. That's why its all so divisive and unpleasant. But that's identity politics for you.
Two things. Firstly, judging by the way everyone is talking on here, the only thing now that can save Boris is something the causes a deep and immediate political freeze that lasts the few weeks and distracts the public. So, er, long live the King I guess.
You're not following your thoughts on fascism to their logical conclusion:
@IndiaWilloughby When the Queen dies, wouldn’t be surprised if Boris appoints himself Fuhrer and assumes total control. That’s how close I think Britain is to Nazi Germany.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
At my local practice we have 4 doctors - 3 are part time women and the one full time man is south Asian.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
Yes, although that should be a constant by now, and there are other factors such as age and probably the same pension limits that are causing problems for the hospital sector, but aiui there has also been a huge increase in bureaucracy that turns people off so we are seeing more salaried GPs now rather than everyone being a partner. Also, from speaking to a now-retired GP, patients have changed so it is less about actually curing infectious diseases, especially of childhood, and more about managing long-term conditions, and the new patient mix might not have the same immediate positive feedback.
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
On July 17, 2020, the Scottish government announced that the next census, due to be held in 2021, would in fact be delayed until this year. According to Fiona Hyslop, then the minister responsible for the census, postponement was not a decision to be taken lightly but doing so would ensure that “the quality of the census data” would “remain robust” and moving the date would help ensure “the highest possible response rate from people across Scotland”.
Oops. Last week, Nicola Sturgeon was left with no option but to admit that Scotland’s census may be worthless. Although the deadline for submitting forms was extended by a month, as of last Saturday just 86 per cent of forms had been completed. Since the census is useless unless it is comprehensive and since the revised cut-off point for submitting returns is tomorrow, it will be a surprise if returns have reached the 90-plus per cent level deemed necessary for success.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
So, wait, you're lamenting the fact that the majority of GPs are women. Have I understood that right?
No. I'm lamenting the fact that we don't have enough GPs because so many are part-time. And there is indisputably a link to that being because so many are women. Very few men go part-time. It's just a fact and probably needs to be taken into account when it comes to workforce planning.
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
On July 17, 2020, the Scottish government announced that the next census, due to be held in 2021, would in fact be delayed until this year. According to Fiona Hyslop, then the minister responsible for the census, postponement was not a decision to be taken lightly but doing so would ensure that “the quality of the census data” would “remain robust” and moving the date would help ensure “the highest possible response rate from people across Scotland”.
Oops. Last week, Nicola Sturgeon was left with no option but to admit that Scotland’s census may be worthless. Although the deadline for submitting forms was extended by a month, as of last Saturday just 86 per cent of forms had been completed. Since the census is useless unless it is comprehensive and since the revised cut-off point for submitting returns is tomorrow, it will be a surprise if returns have reached the 90-plus per cent level deemed necessary for success.
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
On July 17, 2020, the Scottish government announced that the next census, due to be held in 2021, would in fact be delayed until this year. According to Fiona Hyslop, then the minister responsible for the census, postponement was not a decision to be taken lightly but doing so would ensure that “the quality of the census data” would “remain robust” and moving the date would help ensure “the highest possible response rate from people across Scotland”.
Oops. Last week, Nicola Sturgeon was left with no option but to admit that Scotland’s census may be worthless. Although the deadline for submitting forms was extended by a month, as of last Saturday just 86 per cent of forms had been completed. Since the census is useless unless it is comprehensive and since the revised cut-off point for submitting returns is tomorrow, it will be a surprise if returns have reached the 90-plus per cent level deemed necessary for success.
The department that just brought you the unusable Scottish Census:
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
On July 17, 2020, the Scottish government announced that the next census, due to be held in 2021, would in fact be delayed until this year. According to Fiona Hyslop, then the minister responsible for the census, postponement was not a decision to be taken lightly but doing so would ensure that “the quality of the census data” would “remain robust” and moving the date would help ensure “the highest possible response rate from people across Scotland”.
Oops. Last week, Nicola Sturgeon was left with no option but to admit that Scotland’s census may be worthless. Although the deadline for submitting forms was extended by a month, as of last Saturday just 86 per cent of forms had been completed. Since the census is useless unless it is comprehensive and since the revised cut-off point for submitting returns is tomorrow, it will be a surprise if returns have reached the 90-plus per cent level deemed necessary for success.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
So, wait, you're lamenting the fact that the majority of GPs are women. Have I understood that right?
No. I'm lamenting the fact that we don't have enough GPs because so many are part-time. And there is indisputably a link to that being because so many are women. Very few men go part-time. It's just a fact and probably needs to be taken into account when it comes to workforce planning.
The Comres is 27-29 fully after the money splurge which Nick claimed reduced the Lab lead to 2. Tories 31 lead ELEVEN Nick.
MoonRabbit poll predictor queen. 😝
Very true. I'm delighted.
Comres is very much last poll reported syndrome though. Redfield had plus 5. One of them is heading in the incorrect direction or is just an outlier. Or its really opiniums no movement that is right.
The EMA has the Labour lead at 6.4% and 14 seats short of an overall majority on the new boundaries.
EDIT: I think Electoral Calculus is under playing the LibDems.
Has UNS ever worked to model seats for the Liberals/Alliance/Lib Dems?
My new “landlord” in Tbilisi Old town recommended a place. “Really good Georgian food@. On Freedom Sqaure. Which is bit like recommending a restaurant on Oxford Circus or Leicester Square
I had grave doubts to say the least. Plus it also feels like an old Russian canteen from about 1965. Nonetheless I have turned up, thinking Why not. and my God he is right. Khinkali done so well you think Why would I ever eat anything else. and all with this intensely smoky chili sauce, Ajika
Sublime!
Its great when you get tips from locals. I find that on my cycle trips in France in the middle of nowhere. In the 90s I worked in Nicosia and was taken to places where if you were a tourist you wouldn't touch with a barge pole. All were fantastic.
I had tomato and cucumber and walnut salad: mmmmm
Then this intensely yummy pork barbecue kebab with Ajika, it was so juicy maybe it was suckling pig? Seared to porky perfection with crunchy burnt bits
Then the best khinkali EVUH (OK I’ve only had them twice but wow, they are worth the 25 minute wait); I can see why Anthony Bourdain spent his final years obsessed with Chinese hot soup dumplings. These are exactly the same, only Caucasian
All with highly palatable red wine at £2 a glass. A magnificent dinner for £16
EVERYONE I know who has been to Georgia has told me: Tbilisi is brilliant and the food and wine situation is great: GO
Lord Geidt has written to PM asking whether he considers a fixed penalty notice to be a breach of the ministerial code...
PM has replied: “Taking account of all the circumstances, I did not breach the Code. In coming to the conclusion I have duly considered past precedents of Ministers who have unwittingly breached regulations where there was no intent to break the law...
... I have been fully accountable to Parliament and the British people and rightly apologised for the mistake...
PM argues he has not broken rules as he has "corrected the parliamentary record in relation to statements and I have followed the principles of leadership and accountability in doing so."
PM getting it in the neck tonight from party and now Whitehall big wigs...
Geidt heaping pressure on FPN .. and demanding a explanation..
sounds like full letter to be published shortly alongside Geidt's annual report
Understand PM has also helpfully told Geidt the same excuses apply to Sunak for not breaking the code....
"In my view the same principles apply to the fixed penalty notice paid by the Chancellor”
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Why don't other large parties try compete for SNP voters, then? In a democracy, it seems fair enough that parties should move toward the voters. But perhaps the problem is that they are hidebound by disastrous British unionist identity politics.
The SNP got 45% at the last general election, exactly the same as Yes got in 2014, they are the party for pro independence Nationalists, there is no point trying to win them over if you are a Unionist party
Successfully getting the flight out may well defer some letters going in, depending on the MP, expecially if they think a successor might not stick with the policy.
No successor will stick to the Rwanda policy. It will be scrapped. Part of the coming leadership campaigns will be all candidates committed to a “look at it for improvements”.
Why? Because anyone with two brain cells know the most important thing for any “red meat” policy is that it’s actually got to work at the end of the day, you have to dine out on its record, put it in your leaflets not hand your opponents expensive failure to put in their leaflets - this scheme as currently stands is both far too expensive in tax payer money per migrant, and won’t achieve nearly enough Deterrent.
Let’s be clear, I’m calling it axed not on basis of a party tacking back to the centre, nor overlooking that tackling illegal entry isn’t vital to Tory reelection campaigns across the country, it’s because the headline costs are HUGE it’s potential of deterrent MINIMAL.
How can I be so certain it’s doomed? Because they avoided a commons vote on it knowing their back benchers not gullible enough to back it.
So, the increase in tax rates in Scotland have actually brought in about £200m less than before rather than £500m more. Why is this?
The answer, sadly, is more complicated than a Laffer curve I told you so, although that certainly plays a part. The average income in Scotland has not risen as rapidly as the average income in rUK. This may, in part, be because some of the highest paid jobs, especially in financial services, are drifting southwards. But it also reflects an economy that is becoming ever more public sector dominated where words like "profit" are dirty things.
Kate Forbes, fresh from her High School prom, states that the provision of services must be reset (another word for cut) with the priorities being health, social security and helping firms recover. Not sure how much that last one is getting but social security spending is forecast to increase from 10-14% of the budget over the next 4 years. How are firms going to recover when we don't even have a satisfactory railway service? How on earth do we attract foreign investment when people don't even know what currency we will be using in 5 years time? How can we indulge ourselves with Net Zero, another budget priority, when we have oil and gas waiting to be exploited for that nasty profit thing once again in the North Sea.
Justice is going to be cut, despite an unprecedented backlog of trials from Covid. Victims of crime are going to have to wait even longer for trials where the evidence is all the fainter.
And still we have no opposition worthy of the name. It's a sad state of affairs.
The IFS is stark:
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
The plan is to blame Westminster. Yes your services have turned to shite but its the fault of Westminster. If you vote for independence it all magically gets fixed.
It all shows how disastrous identity politics can be. In Scotland the SNP are assured of c40% whatever they do thus breaking the link between performance and electoral reward. Does not bode well.
Why don't other large parties try compete for SNP voters, then? In a democracy, it seems fair enough that parties should move toward the voters. But perhaps the problem is that they are hidebound by disastrous British unionist identity politics.
The SNP got 45% at the last general election, exactly the same as Yes got in 2014, they are the party for pro independence Nationalists, there is no point trying to win them over if you are a Unionist party
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
So, wait, you're lamenting the fact that the majority of GPs are women. Have I understood that right?
No. I'm lamenting the fact that we don't have enough GPs because so many are part-time. And there is indisputably a link to that being because so many are women. Very few men go part-time. It's just a fact and probably needs to be taken into account when it comes to workforce planning.
So, what do you want to do? Recruit more doctors? Force part timers to work full time?
It’s a well known problem in healthcare. One thing is too look at recruitment to uni courses. Why are they now dominated by women? Are we sending out the wrong messages? Have we pushed women’s careers so well at the detriment of men’s? Even simple things such as choice of photos in a propectus. Does your course onl6 show women in its photos? And then for those in the profession. Of course many will want part time work. Pay is good, they are often married to other good earners too and there is more to life than work. I’m not sure what the answer is to that.
Having been away at my godfather's funeral this afternoon, I see from earlier posts in this thread I am now described as a Fascist on here, which is apparently what those still loyal to Boris are now described as. Heaven help those posters if they ever faced a real Fascist government!
The Comres is 27-29 fully after the money splurge which Nick claimed reduced the Lab lead to 2. Tories 31 lead ELEVEN Nick.
MoonRabbit poll predictor queen. 😝
Very true. I'm delighted.
Comres is very much last poll reported syndrome though. Redfield had plus 5. One of them is heading in the incorrect direction or is just an outlier. Or its really opiniums no movement that is right.
The EMA has the Labour lead at 6.4% and 14 seats short of an overall majority on the new boundaries.
EDIT: I think Electoral Calculus is under playing the LibDems.
Has UNS ever worked to model seats for the Liberals/Alliance/Lib Dems?
No. And the Electoral Calculus tactical voting option doesn't work (not for me anyway).
So I would add 15 seats to LibDems making 26 and take 15 seats off the Tories giving Labour an overall majority of 1.
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
So, wait, you're lamenting the fact that the majority of GPs are women. Have I understood that right?
No. I'm lamenting the fact that we don't have enough GPs because so many are part-time. And there is indisputably a link to that being because so many are women. Very few men go part-time. It's just a fact and probably needs to be taken into account when it comes to workforce planning.
So, what do you want to do? Recruit more doctors? Force part timers to work full time?
It’s a well known problem in healthcare. One thing is too look at recruitment to uni courses. Why are they now dominated by women? Are we sending out the wrong messages? Have we pushed women’s careers so well at the detriment of men’s? Even simple things such as choice of photos in a propectus. Does your course onl6 show women in its photos? And then for those in the profession. Of course many will want part time work. Pay is good, they are often married to other good earners too and there is more to life than work. I’m not sure what the answer is to that.
Increasingly a problem in law, as well. They are all women and they can’t be arsed once they’ve got babies
Govt says it wants a flight to Rwanda on 14th June, 6 days before Rwanda hosts Commonwealth CHOGM
Legal action will delay that flight. But ramping up controversy over the hosts human rights record may split Commonwealth. A headache for Buckingham Palace, esp Charles & William
Is the goverment's Rwanda policy, by amplifying the controversy over the human rights record of Rwanda - exacerbating the splits in the Commonwealth that could make the sensitive issue of the Headship after the Queen's reign much more difficult?
Govt says it wants a flight to Rwanda on 14th June, 6 days before Rwanda hosts Commonwealth CHOGM
Legal action will delay that flight. But ramping up controversy over the hosts human rights record may split Commonwealth. A headache for Buckingham Palace, esp Charles & William
Is the goverment's Rwanda policy, by amplifying the controversy over the human rights record of Rwanda - exacerbating the splits in the Commonwealth that could make the sensitive issue of the Headship after the Queen's reign much more difficult?
Interesting to see from earlier posts in this thread I am now described as a Fascist on here, which is apparently what those still loyal to Boris are now described as. Heaven help those posters if they ever faced a real Fascist government!
I find the way some throw fascist around deeply unpleasant and of course you are not fascist and neither is Boris
Lord Geidt has written to PM asking whether he considers a fixed penalty notice to be a breach of the ministerial code...
PM has replied: “Taking account of all the circumstances, I did not breach the Code. In coming to the conclusion I have duly considered past precedents of Ministers who have unwittingly breached regulations where there was no intent to break the law...
... I have been fully accountable to Parliament and the British people and rightly apologised for the mistake...
PM argues he has not broken rules as he has "corrected the parliamentary record in relation to statements and I have followed the principles of leadership and accountability in doing so."
PM getting it in the neck tonight from party and now Whitehall big wigs...
Geidt heaping pressure on FPN .. and demanding a explanation..
sounds like full letter to be published shortly alongside Geidt's annual report
Understand PM has also helpfully told Geidt the same excuses apply to Sunak for not breaking the code....
"In my view the same principles apply to the fixed penalty notice paid by the Chancellor”
The Comres is 27-29 fully after the money splurge which Nick claimed reduced the Lab lead to 2. Tories 31 lead ELEVEN Nick.
MoonRabbit poll predictor queen. 😝
Very true. I'm delighted.
Comres is very much last poll reported syndrome though. Redfield had plus 5. One of them is heading in the incorrect direction or is just an outlier. Or its really opiniums no movement that is right.
The EMA has the Labour lead at 6.4% and 14 seats short of an overall majority on the new boundaries.
EDIT: I think Electoral Calculus is under playing the LibDems.
Has UNS ever worked to model seats for the Liberals/Alliance/Lib Dems?
No. And the Electoral Calculus tactical voting option doesn't work (not for me anyway).
So I would add 15 seats to LibDems making 26 and take 15 seats off the Tories giving Labour an overall majority of 1.
So Corbyn standing and winning as old Labour could leave them 1 short?
Last week it was in two places that made it certain Boris time is up. Grant Shapps face. And PB.
My reading of PB is it has crossed a sort of Rubicon – the opposition parties, Libdems, Labour, more than happy for this status quo of Boris still there and hope it will go on now all the way up to the general election. It’s the Tory posters I sense leaning towards the idea of turning a page on Boris and his government and having to defend the indefensible on the doorstep and everywhere, and getting a fresh start to rally around instead. By all means correct me if I have this wrong.
The idea Boris remains popular and becomes more popular after he is out is laughable, his time as PM wont be remembered well as time passes.
His spell has been more shit than Gordon Brown. It doesn’t deserve to be longer!
It'll be interesting to see how the Tories behave post-Boris (should he be ousted). I can easily see a split, a kind of GoP/Trump scenario with the pragmatists moving on with the new leader, whilst the Borisites bewail a terrible injustice and try desperately to keep the Boris flame alive. (Five years ago I'd have thought the latter scenario crazy, but now I'm far from sure.)
I still think the latter scenario is crazy. Who are "the Borisites"?
Who actually loves his record as PM?
Who actually likes waking up to being lied to by a once loved charismatic cad promising the earth, now revealed as fraudster who never gave a shit about you all along?
Shortages of GPs. The BBC has published a map, and I had expected it would correlate with Brexit, via left-behind and declining towns, but instead its most striking feature is the clear division between east and west. There are more doctors per 100,000 patients in the west half of the country. Not Brexit country; not the prosperous Home Counties or South-East either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Northumberland right at the top of the supply there. Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP. Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
Jeremy Hunt's new book Zero mentions that he did persuade Theresa May to open medical schools and train more doctors. Hunt says he recruited 3,000 more GPs a year but it made no difference as existing GPs retired or moved to part-time working.
You can't really say it out loud, but the number of GPs who are women is pretty disastrous. They all seem to be part-time. That obviously impacts in the surgeries but also means the medical schools are so less productive as they are full of female students who will also go part-time after a few years. But, as I say, you can't say this out loud.
So, wait, you're lamenting the fact that the majority of GPs are women. Have I understood that right?
No. I'm lamenting the fact that we don't have enough GPs because so many are part-time. And there is indisputably a link to that being because so many are women. Very few men go part-time. It's just a fact and probably needs to be taken into account when it comes to workforce planning.
So, what do you want to do? Recruit more doctors? Force part timers to work full time?
It’s a well known problem in healthcare. One thing is too look at recruitment to uni courses. Why are they now dominated by women? Are we sending out the wrong messages? Have we pushed women’s careers so well at the detriment of men’s? Even simple things such as choice of photos in a propectus. Does your course onl6 show women in its photos? And then for those in the profession. Of course many will want part time work. Pay is good, they are often married to other good earners too and there is more to life than work. I’m not sure what the answer is to that.
So... men are put off from becoming doctors because they don't feel represented in prospectuses?
Are we really having this discussion? I feel like someone's spiked me or something.
We have this discussion when professions are heavily masculine and masculine for no obvious reason. So, yes, why should we not do the same in reverse? Are you really lacking in wits to that extent?
The greater success of women/females in GCSEs and then A Levels and then University degrees is now, belatedly, feeding through into the professions. And yes it is a problem if 60-70% of lawyers or GPs or whatever are women (or even more) just as we accept that it is now an issue how women dominate primary school teaching (and it IS a problem). We have successfully made life easier for women - a good thing - but it is now extremely arguable that we have feminised education and the higher professions to an extent that is BAD
i am the father of two daughters. I want them to succeed. But not at the expense of anyone with a Y chromosome per se
Comments
Meanwhile, you don't even get to view properties in Devon unless you have the cash/firm buyer already set up.
They are finding it rather dispiriting.
In any case, I doubt he is out of a job, I would assume he is getting paid to do something by someone at the murkier end of the global financial ecosystem, the same kind of people who financed Brexit.
So yes, you need to have someone who has a purpose. Otherwise why not just book someone who came 3rd on Britain's Got Talent a decade ago to sing some songs at people?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Brutal: "On the plans set out today, the axe is set to fall on a wide range of public service areas. Budgets for local government, the police, justice, universities, rural affairs are due to fall by around 8% in real-terms over the next four years."
https://twitter.com/alistairkgrant/status/1531664418613895168?
I wonder if they were counting on having more pliant SNP local authorities in place, rather than opposition coalitions who will complain about “SNP CUTS!!!”
Mind you, since the census is fecked they won’t be able to work out local authority allocations anyway….
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/05/31/nicola-sturgeons-shambolic-scottish-census-has-disaster/
And Im actually greatly looking forward to a post Dog world
One of the best speakers I have booked was a presenter on lateral thinking (can't remember his name). Very thought provoking. Richard Noble was brilliant, not because he is a good speaker (he isn't) but because of the story of 'Thrust'. A guy at the bar afterwards said to me it wants to make you stand up, salute and sing Rule Britannia. And he was right. Lawrie McMenamy was a great speaker. He tailored his speech, very motivational and was very funny.
We won't notice the £400 come the autumn; for most of us, it just means our direct debits won't go up so much. Maybe the government should just have posted an envelope of used fifty quid notes to every address in the country, no questions asked.
Around 100 people have been told they will be on the flight - but officials are braced for fierce legal challenges
https://twitter.com/thejonnyreilly/status/1531670111668604930
Does BoZo get evicted the same day ?
Maybe it won't happen. But it seems like a critical mass is here. Just before everyone heads off to their constituencies.
My new “landlord” in Tbilisi Old town recommended a place. “Really good Georgian food@. On Freedom Sqaure. Which is bit like recommending a restaurant on Oxford Circus or Leicester Square
I had grave doubts to say the least. Plus it also feels like an old Russian canteen from about 1965. Nonetheless I have turned up, thinking Why not. and my God he is right. Khinkali done so well you think Why would I ever eat anything else. and all with this intensely smoky chili sauce, Ajika
Sublime!
Is there anyone still ramping the glorious neo-Churchillian future, or are we staring into a warm glass of flat Pol Roger?
And it's striking that when you look at the table setting out that referendum spending, you can see it comes at the direct expense of Historic Environment Scotland, which is having its budget slashed by nearly a quarter.
https://twitter.com/dhothersall/status/1531662245763112960
Now there is a very clear momentum that actual MPs are commenting on. In large numbers.
If the official population of Scotland has dropped by half a million, surely that means less money sent North by the UK gov?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15637610/boris-johnson-wanted-visit-queen-start-covid-pandemic-cummings/
Note the Ukrainian flag in the window. There are Ukrainian flags EVERYWHERE
Also I do listen to Marquee Mark on these things. And his posts now carry this kind of cold expression, like that used by mafia hitmen when they carry out a job.
The status quo isn't working for too many people, and those it is working for are all riled up and discontented too.
Some genuinely radical and new thinking is required.
Which is wondrous cos it's three weeks here to see a GP.
Better or deid by the time you see anyone.
https://twitter.com/gavinbarwell/status/1531607135536271361
Or buy a cheap throw away piece of luggage in Tbilisi to see you through the next 2 months
Scot LibDems are now only really competitive in a handful of places - west end of Edinburgh, NE Fife, the northern bit of Highland, plus the Northern Isles. That's really it. Not sure that I can really see them coming back elsewhere particularly if SLab pick up under Sarwar.
Edit: I think that poster that look like a ugly fish still claims that working class wages are improving.
Public policy specialists and opposition parties are alarmed after it emerged that by Monday only 86% of households nationwide had filled it in, well short of the 94% target, despite a four-week extension to the deadline until 31 May.
The Scottish government delayed the census until April despite it being held across the rest of the UK last year. Staged online by default for the first time at a cost of £150m, it is expected to miss all its key targets.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/30/fears-census-abstention-hit-public-services-scotland-poorest-areas
@IndiaWilloughby
When the Queen dies, wouldn’t be surprised if Boris appoints himself Fuhrer and assumes total control. That’s how close I think Britain is to Nazi Germany.
https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1528554584481927173
The two-fold variation in GPs holds even when the age and health of the local population is taken into account to factor in how often patients are likely to need a GP, the analysis showed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61598158
Oops. Last week, Nicola Sturgeon was left with no option but to admit that Scotland’s census may be worthless. Although the deadline for submitting forms was extended by a month, as of last Saturday just 86 per cent of forms had been completed. Since the census is useless unless it is comprehensive and since the revised cut-off point for submitting returns is tomorrow, it will be a surprise if returns have reached the 90-plus per cent level deemed necessary for success.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/solo-scotland-has-failed-on-census-mppq96p2q
The response rate in EW was 97%.
And it’s poorer Scots who will suffer (again).
EDIT: I think Electoral Calculus is under playing the LibDems.
Which applies to almost everything they do.
As gardenwalker notes, it's coming from all sides.
The Queen = Paul von Hindenburg?
Love to see the Nats accusing others of identity politics! “Please Miss! She started it Miss!”
On the day his Census finally crashes and burns, where’s Angus Robertson?
External Affairs Secretary @AngusRobertson and Green Skills Minister @lornaslater arrive in Brussels for a packed two-day programme.
The Ministers will meet a variety of EU and Brussels-based stakeholders and host events in @ScotGovBrussels
https://twitter.com/ScotGovBrussels/status/1531551981935988737
I’m sure Lorna took the train, rather than flew…
Prince Andrew is 'seeking to make amends' after settling sex abuse case, says Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-is-seeking-to-make-amends-after-settling-sex-abuse-case-says-archbishop-of-canterbury-justin-welby-12624897
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/workload/nhs-england-says-almost-90-of-gps-work-part-time-in-response-to-pulse-survey/
Then this intensely yummy pork barbecue kebab with Ajika, it was so juicy maybe it was suckling pig? Seared to porky perfection with crunchy burnt bits
Then the best khinkali EVUH (OK I’ve only had them twice but wow, they are worth the 25 minute wait); I can see why Anthony Bourdain spent his final years obsessed with Chinese hot soup dumplings. These are exactly the same, only Caucasian
All with highly palatable red wine at £2 a glass. A magnificent dinner for £16
EVERYONE I know who has been to Georgia has told me: Tbilisi is brilliant and the food and wine situation is great: GO
They were right
PM has replied: “Taking account of all the circumstances, I did not breach the Code. In coming to the conclusion I have duly considered past precedents of Ministers who have unwittingly breached regulations where there was no intent to break the law...
... I have been fully accountable to Parliament and the British people and rightly apologised for the mistake...
PM argues he has not broken rules as he has "corrected the parliamentary record in relation to statements and I have followed the principles of leadership and accountability in doing so."
PM getting it in the neck tonight from party and now Whitehall big wigs...
Geidt heaping pressure on FPN .. and demanding a explanation..
sounds like full letter to be published shortly alongside Geidt's annual report
Understand PM has also helpfully told Geidt the same excuses apply to Sunak for not breaking the code....
"In my view the same principles apply to the fixed penalty notice paid by the Chancellor”
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1531681342299201536
Why? Because anyone with two brain cells know the most important thing for any “red meat” policy is that it’s actually got to work at the end of the day, you have to dine out on its record, put it in your leaflets not hand your opponents expensive failure to put in their leaflets - this scheme as currently stands is both far too expensive in tax payer money per migrant, and won’t achieve nearly enough Deterrent.
Let’s be clear, I’m calling it axed not on basis of a party tacking back to the centre, nor overlooking that tackling illegal entry isn’t vital to Tory reelection campaigns across the country, it’s because the headline costs are HUGE it’s potential of deterrent MINIMAL.
How can I be so certain it’s doomed? Because they avoided a commons vote on it knowing their back benchers not gullible enough to back it.
And then for those in the profession. Of course many will want part time work. Pay is good, they are often married to other good earners too and there is more to life than work. I’m not sure what the answer is to that.
*airpunch*
“Rwanda deportation: First migrants to be sent to east African country in a fortnight, says Home Office“”
https://news.sky.com/story/rwanda-deportation-first-migrants-to-be-sent-to-east-african-country-in-a-fortnight-says-home-office-12624907
GET IN
So I would add 15 seats to LibDems making 26 and take 15 seats off the Tories giving Labour an overall majority of 1.
Govt says it wants a flight to Rwanda on 14th June, 6 days before Rwanda hosts Commonwealth CHOGM
Legal action will delay that flight. But ramping up controversy over the hosts human rights record may split Commonwealth. A headache for Buckingham Palace, esp Charles & William
Is the goverment's Rwanda policy, by amplifying the controversy over the human rights record of Rwanda - exacerbating the splits in the Commonwealth that could make the sensitive issue of the Headship after the Queen's reign much more difficult?
https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1531684787043319809
DO IT, PRITI
Lord Geidt, the official ethics watchdog, says question of whether Boris Johnson broke ministerial code is 'legitimate'
'It may be especially difficult to inspire trust in ministerial code if any PM, whose code it is, declines to refer to it'
Lord Geidt warns the ministerial code risks being placed in 'ridicule' and that his position as an independent adviser could be undermined
He says he repeatedly asked the PM to make a public comment on his obligations under ministerial code
'That advice has not been heeded'
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1531685617339359234
Who actually likes waking up to being lied to by a once loved charismatic cad promising the earth, now revealed as fraudster who never gave a shit about you all along?
The greater success of women/females in GCSEs and then A Levels and then University degrees is now, belatedly, feeding through into the professions. And yes it is a problem if 60-70% of lawyers or GPs or whatever are women (or even more) just as we accept that it is now an issue how women dominate primary school teaching (and it IS a problem). We have successfully made life easier for women - a good thing - but it is now extremely arguable that we have feminised education and the higher professions to an extent that is BAD
i am the father of two daughters. I want them to succeed. But not at the expense of anyone with a Y chromosome per se