Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
I live in one. Not a Hufhaus but v similar in having lots of glass. It is quite magnificent having so much light and views. Winter is fine too. It works if you have really really good high quality glazing and a mix of in-built blinds and curtains as you desire.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
O/T and just to lighten the mood a little (or maybe not)...
I suggested a day or two ago that anyone anyone born after this past weekend may never experience a Jubilee. To which the response was 'nonsense, there is 34 years between Charles and William, and 31 between William and George, so that's two silver jubilees'.
If you use the ONS life expectancy calculator, you get a projection that (on average) shows:
- Queen Elizabeth (96) reigns until 2025 when she is 99. - Charles then accedes to the throne at the age of 77 with a life expectancy of 88, taking us until 2036. - William then accedes at the age of 54 with a life expectancy of 84 but it takes him until 2061 to reach his Silver Jubilee (with a 30% chance he doesn't make it to 77).
However, Charles (two nonagenarian parents +top-drawer health care) could quite reasonably reach his late-90s with William taking over in, say, 2045 at the age of 63, then failing to reach 88 to celebrate his Silver Jubilee in 2070. Which could could see George acceding to throne in, say, 2069 at the age of 56 and reaching that next Jubilee in 2094 at the age of 81. That's assuming he makes 81, of course.
Maybe I should get out more.
Perhaps you should. I can’t understand why anyone gives a toss about a jubilee, save for the extra holiday. But maybe that’s just me.
Presumably we will get an extra day for Royal funerals and coronations. Certainly an extra day off suits me.
Long and comprehensive list of strikes, potential strikes and scheduled ballots on R5L. Soon is the Winter of his Discontent. The man who wasn't allowed to meet Bob Crow, such was his fabled negotiating prowess.
It’s not often I agree with Daily Mail front page, but it’s true left wing union barons take money from union members so the union Fat Cat Leaders can pay themselves way more pay than they deserve to have, live in luxury on the members subscriptions, and bank roll Labour Party to stay silent about strikes asking for inflation stoking thus poor household crippling 9% pay rises. He who pays Piper plays the tune.
What’s the odds our hard left British Unions have received funding from Putin’s Kremlin? Is anyone investigating that?
If inflation is 9%, why wouldn't you ask for a 9% pay rise to keep up with the cost of living? Have you seen how much prices have gone up at the pumps, in the shops?
RMT members have to put food on the table for their families too.
Ultimately some people will be in a better position to demand pay increases during the cost of living crisis than others. But you can't blame anyone for trying.
If you want to blame anyone, blame the governments who printed billions and told us "modern monetary theory" works.
Technically it was the independent BoE which printed billions and now seems bemused as to why there is inflation.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
I don't much like curtains. Only ever draw them when it is really cold. I like to be woken by natural light. So this time of year I am usually up at 4:30 am.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
They need to find a way of building cheap prefab homes, ie for £50k per home. Actually, these structures already exist. Static caravans. They could do a lot to solve the housing crisis, but there is a stigma attached to them. .... but in many ways housing people in a static caravan would be preferable to an overcrowded, damp flat. Or being homeless. Factory built houses are more expensive to build than the standard block work construction favoured by large housebuilders. The housebuilders also generate vast amounts of construction jobs. Not so much factory built houses.
Is the building bit even the problem? I thought the issue was the price of housing land and the difficulty of getting planning permission. I don't see NIMBYs wanting prefabs in their backyard.
Yes, indeed.
In a lot of countries people buy land and build on it, often with prefabs, such as the sprawling suburbia from the quarter acre Australian section.
Yes, that’s the basic model in the Nordic countries: buy land, build house. It means folk are invested in the entire project and their local community. You also get a lovely mix of traditional and futuristic. People tolerate difference, because it allows them to be creative too. And it’s not like we are packed like sardines.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
I live in one. Not a Hufhaus but v similar in having lots of glass. It is quite magnificent having so much light and views. Winter is fine too. It works if you have really really good high quality glazing and a mix of in-built blinds and curtains as you desire.
We do actually have quite a lot of glass by UK standards but nothing like that entire glass end of the Hufhaus in the picture.
We have to have blackout blinds and curtains this time of year, otherwise our dog thinks it's time to get up at 4:00am.
Long and comprehensive list of strikes, potential strikes and scheduled ballots on R5L. Soon is the Winter of his Discontent. The man who wasn't allowed to meet Bob Crow, such was his fabled negotiating prowess.
Can you imagine Crow in a room with Boris? Splat. Next.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
They need to find a way of building cheap prefab homes, ie for £50k per home. Actually, these structures already exist. Static caravans. They could do a lot to solve the housing crisis, but there is a stigma attached to them. .... but in many ways housing people in a static caravan would be preferable to an overcrowded, damp flat. Or being homeless. Factory built houses are more expensive to build than the standard block work construction favoured by large housebuilders. The housebuilders also generate vast amounts of construction jobs. Not so much factory built houses.
Still get a terrace here for £40k. £60k in good condition. Easy.
Just about get a one bed flat in Leicester, but 85K would get you this more hipster 2 bed flat in the old telephone exchange:
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
They need to find a way of building cheap prefab homes, ie for £50k per home. Actually, these structures already exist. Static caravans. They could do a lot to solve the housing crisis, but there is a stigma attached to them. .... but in many ways housing people in a static caravan would be preferable to an overcrowded, damp flat. Or being homeless. Factory built houses are more expensive to build than the standard block work construction favoured by large housebuilders. The housebuilders also generate vast amounts of construction jobs. Not so much factory built houses.
Is the building bit even the problem? I thought the issue was the price of housing land and the difficulty of getting planning permission. I don't see NIMBYs wanting prefabs in their backyard.
Yes, indeed.
In a lot of countries people buy land and build on it, often with prefabs, such as the sprawling suburbia from the quarter acre Australian section.
Yes, that’s the basic model in the Nordic countries: buy land, build house. It means folk are invested in the entire project and their local community. You also get a lovely mix of traditional and futuristic. People tolerate difference, because it allows them to be creative too. And it’s not like we are packed like sardines.
How do you not have curtains when it is only dark for 4 hours in Summer? It's still not dark properly here and I'm in England.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Seriously? Do they not have any privacy?
I always thought it was just a feature of the Scandinoir thrillers - to add tension.
Nope. It’s real. Daft transparent things to dress the window that you can’t even draw. Would be too small even if you could draw them. Used to drive me nuts, cos I love a dark room. My wife has had to adapt, but she hates it. When I’m away the curtains remain open. And the bloody dog sleeps in my bed.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
Thankfully, in this case one needs zero hands.
One of the things Blair says it took him a long time to learn in office, was how hard it was to deliver stuff. You'd pull the lever and nothing much would happen. It took a hell of a lot of work and focus to make a lever work.
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
Long and comprehensive list of strikes, potential strikes and scheduled ballots on R5L. Soon is the Winter of his Discontent. The man who wasn't allowed to meet Bob Crow, such was his fabled negotiating prowess.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Perhaps the new concept should be called a HyufdHaus?
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Seriously? Do they not have any privacy?
I always thought it was just a feature of the Scandinoir thrillers - to add tension.
Nope. It’s real. Daft transparent things to dress the window that you can’t even draw. Would be too small even if you could draw them. Used to drive me nuts, cos I love a dark room. My wife has had to adapt, but she hates it. When I’m away the curtains remain open. And the bloody dog sleeps in my bed.
It's not only being kept awake by the light in the summer, it's looking at black windows in the winter I'd hate. Ugh!
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Seriously? Do they not have any privacy?
I always thought it was just a feature of the Scandinoir thrillers - to add tension.
Nope. It’s real. Daft transparent things to dress the window that you can’t even draw. Would be too small even if you could draw them. Used to drive me nuts, cos I love a dark room. My wife has had to adapt, but she hates it. When I’m away the curtains remain open. And the bloody dog sleeps in my bed.
Weird. is it because half the year there is no light and so the room is dark anyway?
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Perhaps the new concept should be called a HyufdHaus?
Only real Tories apply. Exception for Plaid Cymru.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
They need to find a way of building cheap prefab homes, ie for £50k per home. Actually, these structures already exist. Static caravans. They could do a lot to solve the housing crisis, but there is a stigma attached to them. .... but in many ways housing people in a static caravan would be preferable to an overcrowded, damp flat. Or being homeless. Factory built houses are more expensive to build than the standard block work construction favoured by large housebuilders. The housebuilders also generate vast amounts of construction jobs. Not so much factory built houses.
Is the building bit even the problem? I thought the issue was the price of housing land and the difficulty of getting planning permission. I don't see NIMBYs wanting prefabs in their backyard.
Yes, indeed.
In a lot of countries people buy land and build on it, often with prefabs, such as the sprawling suburbia from the quarter acre Australian section.
Yes, that’s the basic model in the Nordic countries: buy land, build house. It means folk are invested in the entire project and their local community. You also get a lovely mix of traditional and futuristic. People tolerate difference, because it allows them to be creative too. And it’s not like we are packed like sardines.
How do you not have curtains when it is only dark for 4 hours in Summer? It's still not dark properly here and I'm in England.
They love light. It is how they cope with 7 months of winter.
Long and comprehensive list of strikes, potential strikes and scheduled ballots on R5L. Soon is the Winter of his Discontent. The man who wasn't allowed to meet Bob Crow, such was his fabled negotiating prowess.
Was the NHS on the list?
Reckon so. Was quite bewildering really. It's across a huge number of areas. Transport especially.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Seriously? Do they not have any privacy?
I always thought it was just a feature of the Scandinoir thrillers - to add tension.
Nope. It’s real. Daft transparent things to dress the window that you can’t even draw. Would be too small even if you could draw them. Used to drive me nuts, cos I love a dark room. My wife has had to adapt, but she hates it. When I’m away the curtains remain open. And the bloody dog sleeps in my bed.
It's not only being kept awake by the light in the summer, it's looking at black windows in the winter I'd hate. Ugh!
And this is before we get on to Swedes not feeding guests who are staying over, which was an Internet debate a few days ago iirc.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
Thankfully, in this case one needs zero hands.
One of the things Blair says it took him a long time to learn in office, was how hard it was to deliver stuff. You'd pull the lever and nothing much would happen. It took a hell of a lot of work and focus to make a lever work.
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
It hasn't.
No prefabs will be built.
The difference being. The press release and the bluster is an end in itself He doesn't care if he delivers. So long as the short term hassle goes away.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Seriously? Do they not have any privacy?
I always thought it was just a feature of the Scandinoir thrillers - to add tension.
Nope. It’s real. Daft transparent things to dress the window that you can’t even draw. Would be too small even if you could draw them. Used to drive me nuts, cos I love a dark room. My wife has had to adapt, but she hates it. When I’m away the curtains remain open. And the bloody dog sleeps in my bed.
It's not only being kept awake by the light in the summer, it's looking at black windows in the winter I'd hate. Ugh!
And this is before we get on to Swedes not feeding guests who are staying over, which was an Internet debate a few days ago iirc.
Don’t get me on to how weird Swedes can be. I could write a book. Goodnight.
Long and comprehensive list of strikes, potential strikes and scheduled ballots on R5L. Soon is the Winter of his Discontent. The man who wasn't allowed to meet Bob Crow, such was his fabled negotiating prowess.
Can you imagine Crow in a room with Boris? Splat. Next.
Dunno. Didn't they both get the public to pay for their houses?
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
But you know what they'll be like here. And it won't be homes fit for heroes.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico If he isn't willing to engage in a major reshuffle, he might as well quit now & get it over with. His govt has to *change* to survive.
Sebastian Payne @SebastianEPayne · 3h After the confidence vote, Johnson’s colleagues say the mantra is “getting things done that we said would get done”.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
Thankfully, in this case one needs zero hands.
One of the things Blair says it took him a long time to learn in office, was how hard it was to deliver stuff. You'd pull the lever and nothing much would happen. It took a hell of a lot of work and focus to make a lever work.
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
It hasn't.
No prefabs will be built.
The difference being. The press release and the bluster is an end in itself He doesn't care if he delivers. So long as the short term hassle goes away.
And, as with the boy who cried wolf, the voters don’t believe him any more. Vague promises of tax cuts won’t work, especially when you’ve just increased tax.
He can’t cut taxes and deliver levelling up/help on the cost of living, not without borrowing. So, which is it to be? I’m quite happy with some Keynesian borrowing, but I can’t see Tory voters or MPs feeling the same.
Toby Young and Mark Steyn got it pretty spot on this evening on Hunt, he is ' “Theresa May in trousers, but without the charisma,” and he’s about the best of the bunch!’ and that is why Boris is still there, there is no clear alternative
Yes, I know Steyn's work well. But the idea that Boris is some sort of Trumpite crusader against the liberal-elite Tory Party is just crackers. Boris is a woolly lefty compared to all of his likely successors.
If you watch the link that is precisely what Steyn says, Boris has done nothing conservative apart from Brexit unlike say Thatcher and in his view has to move back to conservative principles to save his government
Nah. Steyn is just trying to help his mate Farage, by putting it about that the Tory Party is about to be seized by the Heathites.
Farage would do that himself anyway, if Hunt replaced Boris as PM and Tory leader then Farage would return to lead RefUK within 5 minutes
"“Disconnecting” children from the physical world and “plugging them” into a virtual one is the way to go when it comes to the future of education, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
This is one of the “gems” that have come out of this year’s gathering in Davos, with a post on WEF’s website arguing that this direction is necessary, among other things, to combat climate change – rather, pressure to do so will drive the digitization of education. Other reasons would be better quality, accessibility, and affordability of education.
Children, now overly “reliant” on items like textbooks, notebooks, and pencils as learning tools, should in the future become immersed in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality environments, writes Dr. Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri."
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
Thankfully, in this case one needs zero hands.
One of the things Blair says it took him a long time to learn in office, was how hard it was to deliver stuff. You'd pull the lever and nothing much would happen. It took a hell of a lot of work and focus to make a lever work.
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
It hasn't.
No prefabs will be built.
The difference being. The press release and the bluster is an end in itself He doesn't care if he delivers. So long as the short term hassle goes away.
At end of the day he is not a serious PM. Never was. Never could be. For all his dreams of being one of the 'Greats' he cannot even begin to implement change because he has no idea how change works or how to organize towards it or even what the goal is.
No one serious packs their cabinet with people who literally could not deliver a newspaper.
The contrast with Blair, as I say, or even more with the Blessed Margaret is stark. And let's not start on his hero - 'action this day'.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
I'm going to guess we won't manage to make such nice prefabs as Sweden. I'd like to be proven wrong on that.
There is no reason why you couldn’t. Ok, timber is not as cheap and plentiful, but you have other nice building materials. A lot of older English buildings are gorgeous. Why abandon proven and attractive technology?
Isn't a Hufhaus a pre-fab?
Yes.
I honestly don't know how anyone can live in a house with so much glass and so few curtains. Especially in our northern latitudes.
One of the biggest cultural shocks about moving to Sweden is that they don’t have curtains. I drew the line there.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
Thankfully, in this case one needs zero hands.
One of the things Blair says it took him a long time to learn in office, was how hard it was to deliver stuff. You'd pull the lever and nothing much would happen. It took a hell of a lot of work and focus to make a lever work.
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
It hasn't.
No prefabs will be built.
The difference being. The press release and the bluster is an end in itself He doesn't care if he delivers. So long as the short term hassle goes away.
And, as with the boy who cried wolf, the voters don’t believe him any more. Vague promises of tax cuts won’t work, especially when you’ve just increased tax.
He can’t cut taxes and deliver levelling up/help on the cost of living, not without borrowing. So, which is it to be? I’m quite happy with some Keynesian borrowing, but I can’t see Tory voters or MPs feeling the same.
I think if Johnson had his way in the Treasury then he would cut taxes and spend far more by increasing debt.
If you live in the now and all that matters is lasting another day in office who the feck cares if the kids are lumbered with another trillion in public debt?
"“Disconnecting” children from the physical world and “plugging them” into a virtual one is the way to go when it comes to the future of education, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
This is one of the “gems” that have come out of this year’s gathering in Davos, with a post on WEF’s website arguing that this direction is necessary, among other things, to combat climate change – rather, pressure to do so will drive the digitization of education. Other reasons would be better quality, accessibility, and affordability of education.
Children, now overly “reliant” on items like textbooks, notebooks, and pencils as learning tools, should in the future become immersed in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality environments, writes Dr. Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri."
I think the best way to handle the pronouncements of the 'intelligentsia' on show at Davos is nod and smile politely, say 'that raises a very interesting issue' then do the exact opposite.
Re; my post earlier on, on Starmer apparently taking what might well be a Red Wall focus-grouped, and so less anti-union stance than Blair on the RMT strikes, here is today's relevant article from the Mail below.
'Summer will be wrecked': Fury as hard-left rail unions threaten chaos in biggest walk-out since 1989 with 50,000 staff paralysing network and ruining plans for hundreds of thousands attending gigs and festivals… and Labour REFUSE to condemn it"
"“Disconnecting” children from the physical world and “plugging them” into a virtual one is the way to go when it comes to the future of education, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
This is one of the “gems” that have come out of this year’s gathering in Davos, with a post on WEF’s website arguing that this direction is necessary, among other things, to combat climate change – rather, pressure to do so will drive the digitization of education. Other reasons would be better quality, accessibility, and affordability of education.
Children, now overly “reliant” on items like textbooks, notebooks, and pencils as learning tools, should in the future become immersed in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality environments, writes Dr. Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri."
Unfortunately no-one can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself.
Interesting. Ukraine already has 18, donated by Poland in May.
Poland signed "one of largest in the last 30 years" export contract to sell weapons to Ukraine, Polish PM said today at 🇵🇱defense plant Huta Stalowa Wola
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico If he isn't willing to engage in a major reshuffle, he might as well quit now & get it over with. His govt has to *change* to survive.
It does sound absurd, but I suppose we should take into account there was Covid. Whatever legislative agenda Boris did have would have been very much derailed by that.
Like I said, I like desperation Boris - it's good to see him running about trying to do good things to save his skin. I don't really know why he's so keen to stay on, but I am open to seeing what happens.
Sun Politics @SunPolitics · 8m Embattled Boris Johnson to cut taxes, make childcare cheaper and launch prefab homes revolution
'Prefabs' ugh. At least try and give it a name that covers up that its shit sub standard housing
Prefab doesn’t have to be shit. Many Swedish villas are really just posh timber kit houses, pumped out a factory. They are usually gorgeous to live in. Helped of course by the generous ground they are usually assembled in.
There are a few still left in Britain. These ones in Moseley are Grade 2 listed.
There are 90 not more than a quarter mile from me.
The map sites in Leicester are all demolished, I think.
OK. They are definitely still there down the road from me. Got gardens. My Dad grew up in one. Not near me now but similar. They don't have to be crap. However. Hands up who think they will be built. Then hands up who think they'll be on time and budget. Then hands up who think they'll be quality. You haven't got three hands.
Thankfully, in this case one needs zero hands.
One of the things Blair says it took him a long time to learn in office, was how hard it was to deliver stuff. You'd pull the lever and nothing much would happen. It took a hell of a lot of work and focus to make a lever work.
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
It hasn't.
No prefabs will be built.
The difference being. The press release and the bluster is an end in itself He doesn't care if he delivers. So long as the short term hassle goes away.
And, as with the boy who cried wolf, the voters don’t believe him any more. Vague promises of tax cuts won’t work, especially when you’ve just increased tax.
He can’t cut taxes and deliver levelling up/help on the cost of living, not without borrowing. So, which is it to be? I’m quite happy with some Keynesian borrowing, but I can’t see Tory voters or MPs feeling the same.
There's a damn good case for Keynesianism. There always was. Just governments ignored the other side of the equation. Paying back as the economy upturned. Tax cuts. Spending. With a solemn message that this has to be paid back. Way to go now. But that's intellectually coherent. Unfortunately, there is an ideological faction who believe you cut to grow. So he can't. Cos he's pissed everyone off.
It seems to be the case that the only reason Boris survives as PM is that, as Dominic Raab correctly points out, there is "no credible alternative". It's seems extraordinary for this to be the case.
I've thought for a while that Greg Clark, former Business Minister, would make an excellent PM and wondered why he is never considered and has disappeared into obscurity? So I've just googled him. He was of course one of the 2019 Tory rebels who lost the whip when they voted with the opposition to prevent the possibility of a "no deal Brexit". They were a talented bunch, the class of 2019 rebels. Clarke, Gauke, Greening, Grieve, Letwin, Nokes, Stewart. All MPs I admired. All cast into the wilderness.
Apart from Gove, who seems to have become a bit erratic, and perhaps Javid, I can't think of anyone in the cabinet I would rate above or at least equal to this lot. Nor the leadership contenders outside the cabinet, including Hunt and Mordaunt.
So maybe Boris survives because "There is no Alternative".
It seems to be the case that the only reason Boris survives as PM is that, as Dominic Raab correctly points out, there is "no credible alternative". It's seems extraordinary for this to be the case.
I've thought for a while that Greg Clark, former Business Minister, would make an excellent PM and wondered why he is never considered and has disappeared into obscurity? So I've just googled him. He was of course one of the 2019 Tory rebels who lost the whip when they voted with the opposition to prevent the possibility of a "no deal Brexit". They were a talented bunch, the class of 2019 rebels. Clarke, Gauke, Greening, Grieve, Letwin, Nokes, Stewart. All MPs I admired. All cast into the wilderness.
Apart from Gove, who seems to have become a bit erratic, and perhaps Javid, I can't think of anyone in the cabinet I would rate above or at least equal to this lot. Nor the leadership contenders outside the cabinet, including Hunt and Mordaunt.
So maybe Boris survives because "There is no Alternative".
Disagree, I think lots of them would be fine.
Boris survives because he won a pretty big majority, his polling isn't disastrous for mid-term given a serious inflation problem that the government can't do much about, and because it's not enough to have a good alternative, you also have to somehow persuade the membership to pick them.
It seems to be the case that the only reason Boris survives as PM is that, as Dominic Raab correctly points out, there is "no credible alternative". It's seems extraordinary for this to be the case.
I've thought for a while that Greg Clark, former Business Minister, would make an excellent PM and wondered why he is never considered and has disappeared into obscurity? So I've just googled him. He was of course one of the 2019 Tory rebels who lost the whip when they voted with the opposition to prevent the possibility of a "no deal Brexit". They were a talented bunch, the class of 2019 rebels. Clarke, Gauke, Greening, Grieve, Letwin, Nokes, Stewart. All MPs I admired. All cast into the wilderness.
Apart from Gove, who seems to have become a bit erratic, and perhaps Javid, I can't think of anyone in the cabinet I would rate above or at least equal to this lot. Nor the leadership contenders outside the cabinet, including Hunt and Mordaunt.
So maybe Boris survives because "There is no Alternative".
I'm not sure who really believes that, but it's totally wrong. As I've been saying all along, almost anyone else would be better. Rory Stewart said as much today. Boris Johnson is a thug, a criminal, a liar, a selfish, power-hungry egomaniac, a bad father, a terrible husband, a self-obsessed psychopath, a lazy, unstable, dangerous fool, a bigot, and, since we might as well complete the full set, prominently ugly. We'd literally be better with a garden gnome in charge. At least that wouldn't make things actively worse.
It seems to be the case that the only reason Boris survives as PM is that, as Dominic Raab correctly points out, there is "no credible alternative". It's seems extraordinary for this to be the case.
I've thought for a while that Greg Clark, former Business Minister, would make an excellent PM and wondered why he is never considered and has disappeared into obscurity? So I've just googled him. He was of course one of the 2019 Tory rebels who lost the whip when they voted with the opposition to prevent the possibility of a "no deal Brexit". They were a talented bunch, the class of 2019 rebels. Clarke, Gauke, Greening, Grieve, Letwin, Nokes, Stewart. All MPs I admired. All cast into the wilderness.
Apart from Gove, who seems to have become a bit erratic, and perhaps Javid, I can't think of anyone in the cabinet I would rate above or at least equal to this lot. Nor the leadership contenders outside the cabinet, including Hunt and Mordaunt.
So maybe Boris survives because "There is no Alternative".
I'm not sure who really believes that, but it's totally wrong. As I've been saying all along, almost anyone else would be better. Rory Stewart said as much today. Boris Johnson is a thug, a criminal, a liar, a selfish, power-hungry egomaniac, a bad father, a terrible husband, a self-obsessed psychopath, a lazy, unstable, dangerous fool, a bigot, and, since we might as well complete the full set, prominently ugly. We'd literally be better with a garden gnome in charge. At least that wouldn't make things actively worse.
It seems to be the case that the only reason Boris survives as PM is that, as Dominic Raab correctly points out, there is "no credible alternative". It's seems extraordinary for this to be the case.
I've thought for a while that Greg Clark, former Business Minister, would make an excellent PM and wondered why he is never considered and has disappeared into obscurity? So I've just googled him. He was of course one of the 2019 Tory rebels who lost the whip when they voted with the opposition to prevent the possibility of a "no deal Brexit". They were a talented bunch, the class of 2019 rebels. Clarke, Gauke, Greening, Grieve, Letwin, Nokes, Stewart. All MPs I admired. All cast into the wilderness.
Apart from Gove, who seems to have become a bit erratic, and perhaps Javid, I can't think of anyone in the cabinet I would rate above or at least equal to this lot. Nor the leadership contenders outside the cabinet, including Hunt and Mordaunt.
So maybe Boris survives because "There is no Alternative".
I'm not sure who really believes that, but it's totally wrong. As I've been saying all along, almost anyone else would be better. Rory Stewart said as much today. Boris Johnson is a thug, a criminal, a liar, a selfish, power-hungry egomaniac, a bad father, a terrible husband, a self-obsessed psychopath, a lazy, unstable, dangerous fool, a bigot, and, since we might as well complete the full set, prominently ugly. We'd literally be better with a garden gnome in charge. At least that wouldn't make things actively worse.
But other than that he's doing OK?
Yes. He's the best PM we've ever had, excluding all the others.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
Boosterism works in good times. Both Thatcher and Cameron made a virtue of fessing up that times were gonna be hard. Very hard. One reason I don't see an imminent Labour government, who feed on positivity. Folk aren't daft. But they aren't being given a sensible choice.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
I've already said that I think Hunt is the best bet, but I'm not really fussed too much. There are a few people I think would be worse, but anyone ANYONE will do.
I don't want charisma. That's for game show hosts. I want someone who can do the job. We need to quit this destructive pattern of thinking that says politics is entertainment.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
Boosterism works in good times. Both Thatcher and Cameron made a virtue of fessing up that times were gonna be hard. Very hard. One reason I don't see an imminent Labour government, who feed on positivity. Folk aren't daft. But they aren't being given a sensible choice.
As did Callaghan.
This is from his speech - as Leader - the Labour Party Conference back in 1976:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment.
That is the history of the last 20 years. Each time we did this the twin evils of unemployment and inflation have hit hardest those least able to stand them. Not those with the strongest bargaining power, no, it has not hit those. It has hit the poor, the old and the sick. We have struggled, as a Party, to try to maintain their standards, and indeed to improve them, against the strength of the free collective bargaining power that we have seen exerted as some people have tried to maintain their standards against this economic policy.
Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail - and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back - if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce.
It’s not often I agree with Daily Mail front page, but it’s true left wing union barons take money from union members so the union Fat Cat Leaders can pay themselves way more pay than they deserve to have, live in luxury on the members subscriptions, and bank roll Labour Party to stay silent about strikes asking for inflation stoking thus poor household crippling 9% pay rises. He who pays Piper plays the tune.
What’s the odds our hard left British Unions have received funding from Putin’s Kremlin? Is anyone investigating that?
Talk about desperate.
After 2 weeks of their Scottish edition exulting over Scottish train drivers giving the SNP a bloody nose. Some of the finest hypocrites known to man.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
That's really not the question, though. Boris is a slow poison both to his arty and his country.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
Boosterism works in good times. Both Thatcher and Cameron made a virtue of fessing up that times were gonna be hard. Very hard. One reason I don't see an imminent Labour government, who feed on positivity. Folk aren't daft. But they aren't being given a sensible choice.
As did Callaghan.
This is from his speech - as Leader - the Labour Party Conference back in 1976:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment.
That is the history of the last 20 years. Each time we did this the twin evils of unemployment and inflation have hit hardest those least able to stand them. Not those with the strongest bargaining power, no, it has not hit those. It has hit the poor, the old and the sick. We have struggled, as a Party, to try to maintain their standards, and indeed to improve them, against the strength of the free collective bargaining power that we have seen exerted as some people have tried to maintain their standards against this economic policy.
Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail - and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back - if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
I've already said that I think Hunt is the best bet, but I'm not really fussed too much. There are a few people I think would be worse, but anyone ANYONE will do.
I don't want charisma. That's for game show hosts. I want someone who can do the job. We need to quit this destructive pattern of thinking that says politics is entertainment.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
Boosterism works in good times. Both Thatcher and Cameron made a virtue of fessing up that times were gonna be hard. Very hard. One reason I don't see an imminent Labour government, who feed on positivity. Folk aren't daft. But they aren't being given a sensible choice.
As did Callaghan.
This is from his speech - as Leader - the Labour Party Conference back in 1976:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment.
That is the history of the last 20 years. Each time we did this the twin evils of unemployment and inflation have hit hardest those least able to stand them. Not those with the strongest bargaining power, no, it has not hit those. It has hit the poor, the old and the sick. We have struggled, as a Party, to try to maintain their standards, and indeed to improve them, against the strength of the free collective bargaining power that we have seen exerted as some people have tried to maintain their standards against this economic policy.
Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail - and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back - if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce.
It was too little too late, so Thatcher won.
Oh, Callaghan was wrong on a lot of things, and was head of a party that included people like Tony Benn.
But... I think he "got it" (as did various others in the labour party by the end), and I therefore think fondly of him relative to (say) Corbyn.
Before I went on my hols, petrol was 162.9p per litre at my local Tesco's. Last Sunday, it was 171.9p and tonight it's 180.9p per litre. At this rate, the £2 litre is probably 10 days away.
And yet...
The drivers were still queueing up to fill up - it's as though the dependency is such we will pay anything to keep the show (or the car) on the road. The demand still seems very strong but are we like Wile E Coyote and have gone over the cliff and yet to look down?
I can't believe this won't have an impact - it is having an impact - 2 litres of milk now £1.29 at the aforementioned Tesco's. I suppose inevitably those who have less in terms of disposable income will fell it hardest, quickest and longest.
A collapse in demand should send the oil price back down - it did in 2008 and 2020 (very different scenarios of course).
West Texas Intermediate back above $120 a barrel.
Were all the drivers thanking Sunak for that "biggest ever cut in fuel duty" of 5p just a few weeks ago? It's almost as if it's got lost in the post and was a waste of time.
It’s still 52p a litre, plus VAT. I’d scrap it completely as a temporary measure, nothing else feeds inflation everywhere than petrol and diesel prices being so high.
OPEC has agreed to raise production, but they are restrained by capacity themselves and can’t raise it much.
So the big revelation of the evening is that @Nigel_Foremain is gay
That's as maybe, but why does it matter?
Because they started it, Miss
No, really, if you go back over the previous debate it began quite civilised until @JosiasJessop started questioning my worth as a father and a male, so I (naturally) gave it back and then it all kicked off from there
And during this unseemly fracas we learned that @JosiasJessop is probably a cuck, and @Nigel_Foremain is likely gay
PB’s finest hour? No. But talk to them, not me
I thought your posts even ruder and less funny than normal, so I thought I would add a little psychological spice. I am also not reactionary enough to be offended by you assuming that I am gay. I think it is quite a compliment. xxx
So the big revelation of the evening is that @Nigel_Foremain is gay
Whether I am or not is immaterial, and of no consequence. What is more interesting is your obsession with proving your masculinity and your obvious horror at my suggestion that it might be a psychological consequence of your repressed homoerotic fantasies. Just as a further point of interest, how tall are you? About 5'7 perhaps? (Don't worry I wouldn't possibly dream of asking you about whether you are smaller than average in the trouser department)
Regarding the discussion on housing, what I am seeing is a major crisis unfolding because of build costs. The houses for sale for £40k in the north of England, or £85k for a city centre flat in Leicester, could not be built for anything close to these amounts, the build costs are coming through at £2-£3k per square metre. So, £150k+ to BUILD a bog standard 50sqm flat. That is before you buy the land. If you take a 20% profit margin, this means that no flats can be sold for less than £180k, and that is if the land was acquired for free. The whole industry could be forced to shut down in large parts of the country because development is no longer economic.
It’s not often I agree with Daily Mail front page, but it’s true left wing union barons take money from union members so the union Fat Cat Leaders can pay themselves way more pay than they deserve to have, live in luxury on the members subscriptions, and bank roll Labour Party to stay silent about strikes asking for inflation stoking thus poor household crippling 9% pay rises. He who pays Piper plays the tune.
What’s the odds our hard left British Unions have received funding from Putin’s Kremlin? Is anyone investigating that?
Still be a fraction of what the Tories pocketed from the Kremlin
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
That's really not the question, though. Boris is a slow poison both to his arty and his country.
I‘m glad he won, for the simple reason that, if he had lost, it would have been very negative ramifications for what’s happening in the Ukraine:
1. Russia would have seen it as a major boost and would boost their likelihood of thinking they can grind out a victory by wearing down the West’s resolve;
2. Conversely, losing him would have hit Ukraine’s confidence about Western support. Zelensky didn’t comment until after the result came out but it was clear from his comments he was relieved. Ditto for the Central / Eastern Europeans (ex-Hungary) and the Baltics;
3. Whatever you think of him domestically, he has been the most steadfast of the major western powers in pushing back against Putin and supporting Ukraine. The US has wobbled alarmingly on more than one occasion (the fighter jets being the obvious one) and we all know about France and Germany. It’s fair to say that the U.K. has been the glue for a lot of the support to the Ukraine. And, if he had gone, the likes of Macron and Scholz would have been pushing more for “accommodation” with Russia;
4. I don’t think any of his likely successors would have the same influence on Western policy direction. Wallace, obviously, would continue the policy and would have been the best bet. I could see Truss, Raab or Patel also been quite steely but, again all of the above, would have been coming in as a new PM and so with less influence. Hunt would have been a disaster - while he would have trotted out the smooth, silky lines, in reality he would be edging the U.K. to be taking more of a stance with France and Germany.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
Boosterism works in good times. Both Thatcher and Cameron made a virtue of fessing up that times were gonna be hard. Very hard. One reason I don't see an imminent Labour government, who feed on positivity. Folk aren't daft. But they aren't being given a sensible choice.
As did Callaghan.
This is from his speech - as Leader - the Labour Party Conference back in 1976:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment.
That is the history of the last 20 years. Each time we did this the twin evils of unemployment and inflation have hit hardest those least able to stand them. Not those with the strongest bargaining power, no, it has not hit those. It has hit the poor, the old and the sick. We have struggled, as a Party, to try to maintain their standards, and indeed to improve them, against the strength of the free collective bargaining power that we have seen exerted as some people have tried to maintain their standards against this economic policy.
Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail - and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back - if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce.
It was too little too late, so Thatcher won.
Oh, Callaghan was wrong on a lot of things, and was head of a party that included people like Tony Benn.
But... I think he "got it" (as did various others in the labour party by the end), and I therefore think fondly of him relative to (say) Corbyn.
Yes, I think that's right.
He was also the last of the generation of "old Labour" who sympathised with the views and values of the WWC around the country, rather than looking down his nose at them and viewing them only as voting fodder.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
That's really not the question, though. Boris is a slow poison both to his arty and his country.
I‘m glad he won, for the simple reason that, if he had lost, it would have been very negative ramifications for what’s happening in the Ukraine:
1. Russia would have seen it as a major boost and would boost their likelihood of thinking they can grind out a victory by wearing down the West’s resolve;
2. Conversely, losing him would have hit Ukraine’s confidence about Western support. Zelensky didn’t comment until after the result came out but it was clear from his comments he was relieved. Ditto for the Central / Eastern Europeans (ex-Hungary) and the Baltics;
3. Whatever you think of him domestically, he has been the most steadfast of the major western powers in pushing back against Putin and supporting Ukraine. The US has wobbled alarmingly on more than one occasion (the fighter jets being the obvious one) and we all know about France and Germany. It’s fair to say that the U.K. has been the glue for a lot of the support to the Ukraine. And, if he had gone, the likes of Macron and Scholz would have been pushing more for “accommodation” with Russia;
4. I don’t think any of his likely successors would have the same influence on Western policy direction. Wallace, obviously, would continue the policy and would have been the best bet. I could see Truss, Raab or Patel also been quite steely but, again all of the above, would have been coming in as a new PM and so with less influence. Hunt would have been a disaster - while he would have trotted out the smooth, silky lines, in reality he would be edging the U.K. to be taking more of a stance with France and Germany.
I don't see the evidence for that. Hunt is quite hawkish on foreign policy.
I don't think any alternative Tory leader would have been a dove, unless we'd had someone like Ken Clarke in the running.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
That's really not the question, though. Boris is a slow poison both to his arty and his country.
I‘m glad he won, for the simple reason that, if he had lost, it would have been very negative ramifications for what’s happening in the Ukraine:
1. Russia would have seen it as a major boost and would boost their likelihood of thinking they can grind out a victory by wearing down the West’s resolve;
2. Conversely, losing him would have hit Ukraine’s confidence about Western support. Zelensky didn’t comment until after the result came out but it was clear from his comments he was relieved. Ditto for the Central / Eastern Europeans (ex-Hungary) and the Baltics;
3. Whatever you think of him domestically, he has been the most steadfast of the major western powers in pushing back against Putin and supporting Ukraine. The US has wobbled alarmingly on more than one occasion (the fighter jets being the obvious one) and we all know about France and Germany. It’s fair to say that the U.K. has been the glue for a lot of the support to the Ukraine. And, if he had gone, the likes of Macron and Scholz would have been pushing more for “accommodation” with Russia;
4. I don’t think any of his likely successors would have the same influence on Western policy direction. Wallace, obviously, would continue the policy and would have been the best bet. I could see Truss, Raab or Patel also been quite steely but, again all of the above, would have been coming in as a new PM and so with less influence. Hunt would have been a disaster - while he would have trotted out the smooth, silky lines, in reality he would be edging the U.K. to be taking more of a stance with France and Germany.
I agree with this, to a point. Johnson was willing to take enormous risks in supporting Ukraine, to try and deflect from his domestic woes, in a manner that no other politician would do; they would have rather pursued 'robust dialogue' or something like that. It is one way in which he has changed history, with unknown long term consequences. Certainly it has transformed how the UK is viewed in Europe, it is now seen in a much more favourable light. I think the policy on Ukraine is now set, but to be fair, it is a continuation of many years work, that predated Johnson being PM. The problem for Ukraine is that Boris Johnson might not turn out to be a particularly reliable friend over the long term. If things start going seriously bad for them, how likely is it that Johnson will want to be on the losing side?
Regarding the discussion on housing, what I am seeing is a major crisis unfolding because of build costs. The houses for sale for £40k in the north of England, or £85k for a city centre flat in Leicester, could not be built for anything close to these amounts, the build costs are coming through at £2-£3k per square metre. So, £150k+ to BUILD a bog standard 50sqm flat. That is before you buy the land. If you take a 20% profit margin, this means that no flats can be sold for less than £180k, and that is if the land was acquired for free. The whole industry could be forced to shut down in large parts of the country because development is no longer economic.
Ok It'll be interesting to see what happens near me. I believe my house is worth around 2.2k per square metre, absolute tops would be 2.5k - I bought for 1722. There's a large Gleeson and a couple of other housing estates in the next village down the 3 mile or so drive to the Co-op. In addition there's also another couple of housing estates being built in nearby villages. The very north of Nottinghamshire has (or had) some of the lowest land values in England I think (Its perfectly nice here, just unfashionable)
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Well exactly. A lot of the muck throwing directed at the rail unions is all about train drivers' pay and how they ought to be delighted to accept below inflation settlements because they already get a generous wage (this argument being particularly popular amongst elderly Conservatives who would throw an Earth shaking tantrum if their state pension rises were capped at inflation for over a decade, never mind the real terms decreases that a lot of workers have had to put up with since the banking crisis.)
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
I don't know if they're mortgageable but I don't see anything wrong with building more fleets of static homes.
I've been canvassing in such estates before in Southampton and Bournemouth and they were far nicer than I thought they'd be, and the people perfectly normal.
If people can buy a prefab house for £80-100k then it brings ownership within the range of anyone working full-time on minimum wage. Deposits could be subsidised for those that need help.
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Well exactly. A lot of the muck throwing directed at the rail unions is all about train drivers' pay and how they ought to be delighted to accept below inflation settlements because they already get a generous wage (this argument being particularly popular amongst elderly Conservatives who would throw an Earth shaking tantrum if their state pension rises were capped at inflation for over a decade, never mind the real terms decreases that a lot of workers have had to put up with since the banking crisis.)
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
The rail unions help to deliver well paid jobs with good working conditions for their largely white working class memberships. You'd have thought the Daily Mail would be delighted!
I don't know if they're mortgageable but I don't see anything wrong with building more fleets of static homes.
I've been canvassing in such estates before in Southampton and Bournemouth and they were far nicer than I thought they'd be, and the people perfectly normal.
If people can buy a prefab house for £80-100k then it brings ownership within the range of anyone working full-time on minimum wage. Deposits could be subsidised for those that need help.
As I understand it, the model is that the unit can be bought on secured loan finance and the land is rented. You can buy a brand new static caravan for as little as £20k, but a decent one would be £50k.
So, if housebuilding is uneconomic due to a combination of excessive environmental and safety regulation, material and labour costs... this could be done instead. Although it is never going to be a good investment, because it is a depreciating asset, like a car.
The problem is that you have to find the land, and housing static caravans is not the most efficient way of using land.
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Well exactly. A lot of the muck throwing directed at the rail unions is all about train drivers' pay and how they ought to be delighted to accept below inflation settlements because they already get a generous wage (this argument being particularly popular amongst elderly Conservatives who would throw an Earth shaking tantrum if their state pension rises were capped at inflation for over a decade, never mind the real terms decreases that a lot of workers have had to put up with since the banking crisis.)
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
This might be a convincing argument if it weren't for the fact that the RMT, and other unions you described, had regularly gone on strike for more pay over the last 20 years regardless of the rate of inflation.
It's another example of the tragedy of the commons: if the whole public and private sector was heavily unionised as you describe then the entire country would grind to a halt with strikes and we'd enter an inflationary spiral, just as we did in the 1970s.
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Well exactly. A lot of the muck throwing directed at the rail unions is all about train drivers' pay and how they ought to be delighted to accept below inflation settlements because they already get a generous wage (this argument being particularly popular amongst elderly Conservatives who would throw an Earth shaking tantrum if their state pension rises were capped at inflation for over a decade, never mind the real terms decreases that a lot of workers have had to put up with since the banking crisis.)
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
This might be a convincing argument if it weren't for the fact that the RMT, and other unions you described, had regularly gone on strike for more pay over the last 20 years regardless of the rate of inflation.
It's another example of the tragedy of the commons: if the whole public and private sector was heavily unionised as you describe then the entire country would grind to a halt with strikes and we'd enter an inflationary spiral, just as we did in the 1970s.
Why doesn't that happen in other countries where there are strong trade union movements?
Conservative rebels are determined to change the party’s leadership rules and force another vote on Boris Johnson’s leadership within months.
Leading figures among the 148 MPs who voted for a new leader on Monday said they did not believe the prime minister should be afforded the usual year-long period of immunity from a further challenge.
The rule protecting Johnson until next June can be changed by a simple majority of officers of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. There are 18 officers on the committee.
“There is a majority of 1922 officers who will agree to change the rules when the time is right,” one influential opponent of Johnson told The Times. They said they expected the change to happen before the party’s annual conference in October. “If we let him get to conference, he will effectively launch the election campaign and people will feel it’s too late,” the MP said.
Another rebel said that they wanted a new confidence vote straight after a pair of by-elections later this month. Conservative MPs widely expect their party to lose in both Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Wakefield is an archetypal red wall seat, which flipped to the Conservatives in 2019, while Tiverton and Honiton has been Conservative since universal suffrage.
A complicating factor to any move to change the rules is that there are likely to be elections for the 1922 Committee’s executive in the coming weeks. Officers of the 1922 are braced for Downing Street to attempt to replace them with loyalists. But crucially only backbenchers are able to vote in 1922 elections.
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Well exactly. A lot of the muck throwing directed at the rail unions is all about train drivers' pay and how they ought to be delighted to accept below inflation settlements because they already get a generous wage (this argument being particularly popular amongst elderly Conservatives who would throw an Earth shaking tantrum if their state pension rises were capped at inflation for over a decade, never mind the real terms decreases that a lot of workers have had to put up with since the banking crisis.)
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
This might be a convincing argument if it weren't for the fact that the RMT, and other unions you described, had regularly gone on strike for more pay over the last 20 years regardless of the rate of inflation.
It's another example of the tragedy of the commons: if the whole public and private sector was heavily unionised as you describe then the entire country would grind to a halt with strikes and we'd enter an inflationary spiral, just as we did in the 1970s.
Why doesn't that happen in other countries where there are strong trade union movements?
More responsible trade unions and better management is my guess, together with a more constructive (and less adversarial) relationship between the two of them.
But, the laws of economics will apply there too. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I suspect they have more modest wage settlements negotiated more regularly and fewer strikes.
It’s not often I agree with Daily Mail front page, but it’s true left wing union barons take money from union members so the union Fat Cat Leaders can pay themselves way more pay than they deserve to have, live in luxury on the members subscriptions, and bank roll Labour Party to stay silent about strikes asking for inflation stoking thus poor household crippling 9% pay rises. He who pays Piper plays the tune.
What’s the odds our hard left British Unions have received funding from Putin’s Kremlin? Is anyone investigating that?
Talk about desperate.
After 2 weeks of their Scottish edition exulting over Scottish train drivers giving the SNP a bloody nose. Some of the finest hypocrites known to man.
Which one of the Wail, the train drivers or the SNP are you referring to there?
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
Reducing VAT on fuel would make no difference at all to the price for the commercial user, who claims VAT back anyway.
With regard to the rail unions, last year I went to catch a pre booked train. My ticket cost £150. Needed to pick up the ticket from the machine. It didn't work, because I had replaced the debit card I bought it with since buying the ticket. I went to the ticket office to ask for help, and the guy said that he couldn't help me. He clearly had a dim view of people buying tickets on the internet. He said I would need to log on to the website on my phone, and change my payment details to the new card. The train was coming in 5 minutes and I told him I didn't have time. In the end he made an 'exception' and decided to print off my ticket for me. Another time, the ticket office initially refused to sell me a ticket, because I had a folding bike and didn't have a bike reservation. I told her I didn't need one because it was a folding bike. She insisted that I get permission from the guard before buying the ticket. None of this was necessary because there was no such need for any permission. I don't like generalising about the rail industry, but there are clearly a lot of people in it with terrible anti customer attitudes.
A keen observer of Tory politics thinks the juxtaposition of Boris Johnson arbitrarily changing the Northern Ireland Protocol today and then moaning about the 1922 changing the leadership rules about no confidence until 12 months after the last one is 'funny as fuck'.
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have to do far more with free school meals, food banks and fuel subsidies.
We're not far off quasi-war time conditions and the usual rules of free market economics don't deliver the goods for everyone in such circumstances.
"The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it's inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe—not home, not liberty, not life itself."
Exclusive: Concerns have been raised at the top of government over the legality of contentious Northern Ireland Protocol legislation, which ministers are set to bring forward in the next few days.
Correspondence seen by PoliticsHome has cast doubt over the government's argument that its plan to override parts of the post-Brexit treaty without an agreement with the European Union would not breach international law.
Genuine question: what is this “international law”?
There are certain specific treaty courts, etc (like WTO) and the Netherlands war crime one (ICJ?) but what is the law saying a government can’t do something like this and who made it binding on us?
(Nb for avoidance of doubt this is not saying they should do this)
Generally it is accepted that countries that have democratic and politically advanced administrations do not ignore international law, and certainly do not break the conventions therein. The UK is normally an upholder of International Law
So conventions not law. Basically calling it a “breach of international law” is misleading to the non technical expert because there is no enforcement mechanism or penalty for doing so
Its more what you call guidelines than actual rules.
I see that people who are not lawyers and certainly not experts in international law are now opining on what international law is or is not.
I would not claim to be an expert in this area. But for what it's worth I spent the first few years of my career working on the International Tin Council case, which went to the House of Lords and which opined at length on international law, justiciability and a whole lot more besides.
The idea that a Conservative government of Britain should simply ignore a treaty it has signed up to or deliberately break its legal obligations freely entered into in order to save the sorry behind of a politician who has shown little regard for domestic law is a mark of how low the Conservative party has sunk and the damage it is prepared to do to Britain to save itself.
Let the last word be these:-
"When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons - I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate."
Well, quite.
And the author?
Oh, one Boris Johnson - in February 2011. Whatever happened to him?
If you want a serious response rather than a joke, my serious opinion was given earlier in the thread. As far as I am concerned the Protocol comes with a safeguard, which is Article 16, so unless the proposed legislation invokes that safeguard, as far as I am concerned it must be breaking international law, but as I said IANAL.
The legislation should be passed, but the legislation should invoke Article 16. That would be legal and consistent with international law since that is what Article 16 is there for; IANAL but I fail to see how it can be legal without invoking A16 first as that is the safeguard in the Protocol.
If Starmer is taking a neutral rather than Blair-era line on the RMT, as the Mail seems to be reporting, it's very likely to be researched on working-class voters in key constituencies, and to be good politics. Note the Tories' recent hollow rhetoric after the public backlash against P&O. Much of the public has realised that the pendulum was swung too far from one extreme to another, from excessive union power to excessive employer power. He may even understand that Britain's economy, and arguably that of America too, cannot even be successfully rebalanced without at least some limited shift of bargaining power back to the forces of labour. Biden understands this too, as an old union man.
Well exactly. A lot of the muck throwing directed at the rail unions is all about train drivers' pay and how they ought to be delighted to accept below inflation settlements because they already get a generous wage (this argument being particularly popular amongst elderly Conservatives who would throw an Earth shaking tantrum if their state pension rises were capped at inflation for over a decade, never mind the real terms decreases that a lot of workers have had to put up with since the banking crisis.)
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
This might be a convincing argument if it weren't for the fact that the RMT, and other unions you described, had regularly gone on strike for more pay over the last 20 years regardless of the rate of inflation.
It's another example of the tragedy of the commons: if the whole public and private sector was heavily unionised as you describe then the entire country would grind to a halt with strikes and we'd enter an inflationary spiral, just as we did in the 1970s.
Why doesn't that happen in other countries where there are strong trade union movements?
More responsible trade unions and better management is my guess, together with a more constructive (and less adversarial) relationship between the two of them.
But, the laws of economics will apply there too. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I suspect they have more modest wage settlements negotiated more regularly and fewer strikes.
Exactly this. We can do so much better as a country than we are currently. Adversarialism seems to be inbuilt here - from the voting system, through the way policy is decided to industrial relations. It means so much that needs to be addressed, so much that could be changed, can't be. Throw people like Johnson or the loons who run the RMT into the equation and you have a very serious problem.
Conservative rebels are determined to change the party’s leadership rules and force another vote on Boris Johnson’s leadership within months.
Leading figures among the 148 MPs who voted for a new leader on Monday said they did not believe the prime minister should be afforded the usual year-long period of immunity from a further challenge.
The rule protecting Johnson until next June can be changed by a simple majority of officers of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. There are 18 officers on the committee.
“There is a majority of 1922 officers who will agree to change the rules when the time is right,” one influential opponent of Johnson told The Times. They said they expected the change to happen before the party’s annual conference in October. “If we let him get to conference, he will effectively launch the election campaign and people will feel it’s too late,” the MP said.
Another rebel said that they wanted a new confidence vote straight after a pair of by-elections later this month. Conservative MPs widely expect their party to lose in both Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Wakefield is an archetypal red wall seat, which flipped to the Conservatives in 2019, while Tiverton and Honiton has been Conservative since universal suffrage.
A complicating factor to any move to change the rules is that there are likely to be elections for the 1922 Committee’s executive in the coming weeks. Officers of the 1922 are braced for Downing Street to attempt to replace them with loyalists. But crucially only backbenchers are able to vote in 1922 elections.
"The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it's inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe—not home, not liberty, not life itself."
Overriding the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Northern Ireland, damaging the Northern Irish economy, harming Northern Irish farmers and shredding Britain’s international standing to appease hard right English nationalists in order to save his own skin is exactly what you’d expect Boris Johnson to do. He has no interest in anything but himself. No-one who has any genuine concerns for the well-being of the UK could possibly support him. So it’s no surprise most Tory MPs do.
Regarding the discussion on housing, what I am seeing is a major crisis unfolding because of build costs. The houses for sale for £40k in the north of England, or £85k for a city centre flat in Leicester, could not be built for anything close to these amounts, the build costs are coming through at £2-£3k per square metre. So, £150k+ to BUILD a bog standard 50sqm flat. That is before you buy the land. If you take a 20% profit margin, this means that no flats can be sold for less than £180k, and that is if the land was acquired for free. The whole industry could be forced to shut down in large parts of the country because development is no longer economic.
Is that correct for a flat?
I’d assume you may be double counting some of the foundational / utilities / structural work where a bunch of cost goes.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
I've already said that I think Hunt is the best bet, but I'm not really fussed too much. There are a few people I think would be worse, but anyone ANYONE will do.
I don't want charisma. That's for game show hosts. I want someone who can do the job. We need to quit this destructive pattern of thinking that says politics is entertainment.
How about Theresa May?
Theresa May shows why charisma is a part of the job.
Its not just relevant at election time, its also about being able to connect with others in order to get them to get the job done in Parliament and elsewhere by passing votes etc
Theresa May was the worst PM in centuries and was utterly unable to get her flagship policy through Parliament despite it being the one thing she spent her premiership working on for years and spending months trying to ram it through Parliament.
Modern Prime Ministers who have been able to get stuff done have all had charisma, different types of charisma, but they've all had it.
A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.
Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.
Comments
Soon is the Winter of his Discontent. The man who wasn't allowed to meet Bob Crow, such was his fabled negotiating prowess.
But I get your general point.
Night all.
We have to have blackout blinds and curtains this time of year, otherwise our dog thinks it's time to get up at 4:00am.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/86292202
Johnson hasn't even started the lessons on this.
He thinks a press release and some bluster in Cabinet and a 'thing' has happened.
It hasn't.
No prefabs will be built.
Exception for Plaid Cymru.
He doesn't care if he delivers. So long as the short term hassle goes away.
@andrew_lilico
If he isn't willing to engage in a major reshuffle, he might as well quit now & get it over with. His govt has to *change* to survive.
https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1534284735404441602
@SebastianEPayne
·
3h
After the confidence vote, Johnson’s colleagues say the mantra is “getting things done that we said would get done”.
===
Genuine fecking LOL.
He can’t cut taxes and deliver levelling up/help on the cost of living, not without borrowing. So, which is it to be? I’m quite happy with some Keynesian borrowing, but I can’t see Tory voters or MPs feeling the same.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/rory-stewart-anybody-would-be-better-pm-than-shoddy-boris-johnson/
https://yournews.com/2022/05/28/2349451/wef-wants-kids-to-learn-in-the-metaverse-to-curb/
"“Disconnecting” children from the physical world and “plugging them” into a virtual one is the way to go when it comes to the future of education, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
This is one of the “gems” that have come out of this year’s gathering in Davos, with a post on WEF’s website arguing that this direction is necessary, among other things, to combat climate change – rather, pressure to do so will drive the digitization of education. Other reasons would be better quality, accessibility, and affordability of education.
Children, now overly “reliant” on items like textbooks, notebooks, and pencils as learning tools, should in the future become immersed in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality environments, writes Dr. Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri."
No one serious packs their cabinet with people who literally could not deliver a newspaper.
The contrast with Blair, as I say, or even more with the Blessed Margaret is stark. And let's not start on his hero - 'action this day'.
If you live in the now and all that matters is lasting another day in office who the feck cares if the kids are lumbered with another trillion in public debt?
He could be still the member for Penrith fighting from the backbench for a better government.
'Summer will be wrecked': Fury as hard-left rail unions threaten chaos in biggest walk-out since 1989 with 50,000 staff paralysing network and ruining plans for hundreds of thousands attending gigs and festivals… and Labour REFUSE to condemn it"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10893537/RMT-union-bosses-announce-rail-strikes-June-21-23-25-plus-24-hour-Tube-stoppage.html
Ukraine already has 18, donated by Poland in May.
Poland signed "one of largest in the last 30 years" export contract to sell weapons to Ukraine, Polish PM said today at 🇵🇱defense plant Huta Stalowa Wola
Acc to Dziennik Gazeta, a contract for over 50 Krab howitzers worth around $630 mn was signed in Kyiv.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1534223897918377986
Modern piece of kit, using a Korean design chassis, and (edit) British turret and French gun.
Like I said, I like desperation Boris - it's good to see him running about trying to do good things to save his skin. I don't really know why he's so keen to stay on, but I am open to seeing what happens.
Tax cuts. Spending. With a solemn message that this has to be paid back. Way to go now. But that's intellectually coherent. Unfortunately, there is an ideological faction who believe you cut to grow. So he can't. Cos he's pissed everyone off.
I've thought for a while that Greg Clark, former Business Minister, would make an excellent PM and wondered why he is never considered and has disappeared into obscurity? So I've just googled him. He was of course one of the 2019 Tory rebels who lost the whip when they voted with the opposition to prevent the possibility of a "no deal Brexit". They were a talented bunch, the class of 2019 rebels. Clarke, Gauke, Greening, Grieve, Letwin, Nokes, Stewart. All MPs I admired. All cast into the wilderness.
Apart from Gove, who seems to have become a bit erratic, and perhaps Javid, I can't think of anyone in the cabinet I would rate above or at least equal to this lot. Nor the leadership contenders outside the cabinet, including Hunt and Mordaunt.
So maybe Boris survives because "There is no Alternative".
Boris survives because he won a pretty big majority, his polling isn't disastrous for mid-term given a serious inflation problem that the government can't do much about, and because it's not enough to have a good alternative, you also have to somehow persuade the membership to pick them.
We'd literally be better with a garden gnome in charge. At least that wouldn't make things actively worse.
I accept Boris is a deeply flawed PM but he does have charisma and "boosterism" which I think all the alternatives lack. Some may be quite competent but it's not obvious to me that that is the case. Who would you make the case for on the grounds of competence or better still ability?
One reason I don't see an imminent Labour government, who feed on positivity. Folk aren't daft. But they aren't being given a sensible choice.
I don't want charisma. That's for game show hosts. I want someone who can do the job.
We need to quit this destructive pattern of thinking that says politics is entertainment.
“Why have @UKLabour deleted all the PartyGate tweets?”
https://twitter.com/atticrahman/status/1534299658805202950?s=21&t=9vi8POtsdXkVaMKI3RvFpA
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yellows? Who needs ‘em?
Does anyone know when Sloth Week is? I'm looking forward to that one.
https://metro.co.uk/2014/06/20/its-sloth-week-so-heres-10-great-facts-about-sloths-4768039/amp/
This is from his speech - as Leader - the Labour Party Conference back in 1976:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment.
That is the history of the last 20 years. Each time we did this the twin evils of unemployment and inflation have hit hardest those least able to stand them. Not those with the strongest bargaining power, no, it has not hit those. It has hit the poor, the old and the sick. We have struggled, as a Party, to try to maintain their standards, and indeed to improve them, against the strength of the free collective bargaining power that we have seen exerted as some people have tried to maintain their standards against this economic policy.
Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail - and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back - if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce.
Boris is a slow poison both to his arty and his country.
But... I think he "got it" (as did various others in the labour party by the end), and I therefore think fondly of him relative to (say) Corbyn.
OPEC has agreed to raise production, but they are restrained by capacity themselves and can’t raise it much.
1. Russia would have seen it as a major boost and would boost their likelihood of thinking they can grind out a victory by wearing down the West’s resolve;
2. Conversely, losing him would have hit Ukraine’s confidence about Western support. Zelensky didn’t comment until after the result came out but it was clear from his comments he was relieved. Ditto for the Central / Eastern Europeans (ex-Hungary) and the Baltics;
3. Whatever you think of him domestically, he has been the most steadfast of the major western powers in pushing back against Putin and supporting Ukraine. The US has wobbled alarmingly on more than one occasion (the fighter jets being the obvious one) and we all know about France and Germany. It’s fair to say that the U.K. has been the glue for a lot of the support to the Ukraine. And, if he had gone, the likes of Macron and Scholz would have been pushing more for “accommodation” with Russia;
4. I don’t think any of his likely successors would have the same influence on Western policy direction. Wallace, obviously, would continue the policy and would have been the best bet. I could see Truss, Raab or Patel also been quite steely but, again all of the above, would have been coming in as a new PM and so with less influence. Hunt would have been a disaster - while he would have trotted out the smooth, silky lines, in reality he would be edging the U.K. to be taking more of a stance with France and Germany.
He was also the last of the generation of "old Labour" who sympathised with the views and values of the WWC around the country, rather than looking down his nose at them and viewing them only as voting fodder.
I don't think any alternative Tory leader would have been a dove, unless we'd had someone like Ken Clarke in the running.
The party is united on this.
Johnson was willing to take enormous risks in supporting Ukraine, to try and deflect from his domestic woes, in a manner that no other politician would do; they would have rather pursued 'robust dialogue' or something like that.
It is one way in which he has changed history, with unknown long term consequences. Certainly it has transformed how the UK is viewed in Europe, it is now seen in a much more favourable light.
I think the policy on Ukraine is now set, but to be fair, it is a continuation of many years work, that predated Johnson being PM.
The problem for Ukraine is that Boris Johnson might not turn out to be a particularly reliable friend over the long term.
If things start going seriously bad for them, how likely is it that Johnson will want to be on the losing side?
Seldom does anyone stop to ask why it is that rail workers do comparatively well with their pay settlements. It is, of course, because they have the instrument of collective action available to them. Workers in those industries and sectors where employees retain the power to kick stingy or downright rapacious bosses in the nuts are bound to do better, if only they have the will to resort to the tactic (and, if that causes collateral damage, in the form of nuisance to third parties, then that's just hard luck - what are they meant to do otherwise, roll over all the time?) Frankly I'm surprised that the likes of nurses and teachers don't do it more often.
At the end of the day, both Government and private enterprise is full of organisations that are well capable of paying decent wages but constantly plead poverty to avoid doing so - and the inflationary environment is always weaponised as an excuse. If inflation is low then wage settlements should be crap, because what do people need the extra money for and asking for it is greedy. If inflation is high then wage settlements should still be crap, because wage-price spiral. It's bollocks.
If Government really wants to up the remuneration of poorly compensated public sector workers then it can do it by raising taxes on the better off. If businesses, or at the very least the large fraction of them that are still doing well, want to pay their poorly compensated workers a better wage then they can do it by making slightly smaller profits or paying out a bit less in dividends to the shareholders.
The common theme in all of this is that squeezing the wages of ordinary workers is entirely about upwards redistribution: ensuring that a bigger slice of the cake can be enjoyed by the rich. The rich can fuck off.
I've been canvassing in such estates before in Southampton and Bournemouth and they were far nicer than I thought they'd be, and the people perfectly normal.
If people can buy a prefab house for £80-100k then it brings ownership within the range of anyone working full-time on minimum wage. Deposits could be subsidised for those that need help.
Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty.
It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
So, if housebuilding is uneconomic due to a combination of excessive environmental and safety regulation, material and labour costs... this could be done instead. Although it is never going to be a good investment, because it is a depreciating asset, like a car.
The problem is that you have to find the land, and housing static caravans is not the most efficient way of using land.
Etna!
Etna!
Etna!
It's only a model
Sssshhhh
It's another example of the tragedy of the commons: if the whole public and private sector was heavily unionised as you describe then the entire country would grind to a halt with strikes and we'd enter an inflationary spiral, just as we did in the 1970s.
Who wants to buy 15 lions from me?
Conservative rebels are determined to change the party’s leadership rules and force another vote on Boris Johnson’s leadership within months.
Leading figures among the 148 MPs who voted for a new leader on Monday said they did not believe the prime minister should be afforded the usual year-long period of immunity from a further challenge.
The rule protecting Johnson until next June can be changed by a simple majority of officers of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. There are 18 officers on the committee.
“There is a majority of 1922 officers who will agree to change the rules when the time is right,” one influential opponent of Johnson told The Times. They said they expected the change to happen before the party’s annual conference in October. “If we let him get to conference, he will effectively launch the election campaign and people will feel it’s too late,” the MP said.
Another rebel said that they wanted a new confidence vote straight after a pair of by-elections later this month. Conservative MPs widely expect their party to lose in both Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Wakefield is an archetypal red wall seat, which flipped to the Conservatives in 2019, while Tiverton and Honiton has been Conservative since universal suffrage.
A complicating factor to any move to change the rules is that there are likely to be elections for the 1922 Committee’s executive in the coming weeks. Officers of the 1922 are braced for Downing Street to attempt to replace them with loyalists. But crucially only backbenchers are able to vote in 1922 elections.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rebels-plot-rule-change-to-allow-new-confidence-vote-on-boris-johnsons-leadership-3txhrdwjw
But, the laws of economics will apply there too. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I suspect they have more modest wage settlements negotiated more regularly and fewer strikes.
I went to the ticket office to ask for help, and the guy said that he couldn't help me. He clearly had a dim view of people buying tickets on the internet. He said I would need to log on to the website on my phone, and change my payment details to the new card.
The train was coming in 5 minutes and I told him I didn't have time. In the end he made an 'exception' and decided to print off my ticket for me.
Another time, the ticket office initially refused to sell me a ticket, because I had a folding bike and didn't have a bike reservation. I told her I didn't need one because it was a folding bike. She insisted that I get permission from the guard before buying the ticket. None of this was necessary because there was no such need for any permission.
I don't like generalising about the rail industry, but there are clearly a lot of people in it with terrible anti customer attitudes.
We're not far off quasi-war time conditions and the usual rules of free market economics don't deliver the goods for everyone in such circumstances.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1534282231400759297/photo/1
Mrs Thatcher is once more turning in her grave.
"The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it's inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe—not home, not liberty, not life itself."
If you want a serious response rather than a joke, my serious opinion was given earlier in the thread. As far as I am concerned the Protocol comes with a safeguard, which is Article 16, so unless the proposed legislation invokes that safeguard, as far as I am concerned it must be breaking international law, but as I said IANAL.
The legislation should be passed, but the legislation should invoke Article 16. That would be legal and consistent with international law since that is what Article 16 is there for; IANAL but I fail to see how it can be legal without invoking A16 first as that is the safeguard in the Protocol.
[* Roth for the hard of thinking]
I’d assume you may be double counting some of the foundational / utilities / structural work where a bunch of cost goes.
Its not just relevant at election time, its also about being able to connect with others in order to get them to get the job done in Parliament and elsewhere by passing votes etc
Theresa May was the worst PM in centuries and was utterly unable to get her flagship policy through Parliament despite it being the one thing she spent her premiership working on for years and spending months trying to ram it through Parliament.
Modern Prime Ministers who have been able to get stuff done have all had charisma, different types of charisma, but they've all had it.
Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.