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2 weeks to go till the by-elections and more want BoJo OUT – politicalbetting.com

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  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited June 2022

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Intriguing as to how it is only now that the UK government has lost market credibility. The danger signs have been there for a long time. Since 2019.
    Covid obscured everything for quite a while.
    The underlying reality is that politicians are ultimately just a reflection of the people that vote them in.
    The options in 2019 were two variations of 'too good to be true'.
    People have given up on reality, preferring a fantasy world.
    The dam was bust around about 2015.
    I still don't really know if Johnson was a bad choice, compared with the alternative.
    I know people disagree with me on this, but I blame George Osborne. He talked a really good talk on the need to balance the books, and to do so fairly, but in practice he ensured that favoured interest groups were sheltered from the costs of austerity, while those who were not favoured suffered more. We were not all in it together.

    And then he encouraged a spurt in house prices in a desperate attempt to win the 2015 general election. Then he missed all his fiscal targets anyway.

    The thing is that the public were receptive to the political message. They accepted that there was no money left, and that recovering the position would mean we couldn't have everything we wanted. And Osborne squandered that support. This puts us in a much weaker position politically.
    Yes.

    Having said that, the general mainstream analysis was broadly supportive, because he charted a course out of the GFC.

    It is only with hindsight really that economists now understand that austerity stunted productivity and probably weakened some government functions to the point of effective collapse.

    Osborne of course was only Chancellor for 6 years. We’ve had 6 more years of denial, inactivity and increasing fantasy.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,775

    I just want to repeat @Stuartinromford’s last para because it’s a bloody vital point.

    …the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    EU membership isn't really the be-all and end-all and most important factor in determining Britain's economic destiny, though. The quality of its economic and political leadership is.

    Imagine the counterfactual where the Brexit referendum went to plan, and Boris Johnson becomes PM of a UK still within the EU after Cameron retires in 2018, as the standard bearer of diehard Leavers not willing to accept the result of the referendum. How well would that have gone?

    We know what Johnson is like. We know what his instincts for profligacy are, from debacles like the Garden Bridge. As a country we would fundamentally be in the same deep hole because of his poor leadership, and the political damage wrought by Osborne's botched and partial austerity.

    And if you mainly blame Brexit for our difficult situation then how can you do the right things to fix it? You end up thinking that we just have to renegotiate membership of the Single Market and avoid all the hard choices.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    pm215 said:

    That's interesting, thanks. My instinctive reaction is twofold: *anything* can be used to fray the social fabric of society if we let it. Even if it does not matter. Secondly, what would be the effects of not having significant inequalities? A lot of progress happens because people want to be part of that upper grouping. If the rewards are not there, would they strive as much?

    My dad started a company in the 1970s; mortgaged his house and took risks. Those risks paid off and he became a moderately well-off person - not very rich, but comfortable. He did not take those risks just because of the joy of the work, but also because of the potential rewards. Does that make him greedy or a bad person? Was it bad that he employed dozens of people?

    I think this is where we get into the difference between moderate amounts of relative inequality (as between a comfortably well-off small business owner and one of their employees, for example) and enormous amounts of relative inequality (as between Jeff Bezos and an Amazon warehouse worker, for example). I think most people would be fairly comfortable with the former; the latter I think is well beyond the level of reward needed to incentivise a bit of risk-taking and innovation, and I would be in favour of wealth tax or similar policy that evens things out a bit. (Bezos of course is an extreme outlier, but I think the principle applies further down the wealth scale too; there's a debate to be had about where and how progressively a wealth tax should kick in.)

    Among other things, there's got to be a lot of potential entrepreneurs in the least wealthy 50% of the population who are currently unable to have a go because they don't have, say, a house they could mortgage or a similar level of seed capital. So a bit less inequality might increase progress...
    Yes, like most things there's a scale from the reasonable to the nutty. My attitudes were shaped partly by growing up in Denmark, where there were certainly different levels of wealth and some very rich people, but because taxation was pretty high and the services that it paid for were generally good, there was both an element of redistribution and a sense that it didn't matter so much. State schools were so good and well-funded that private schools were only there to cater for specialist interests, e.g. a music academy. Public transport was good, but anyway nearly everyone cycled on the separate cycle paths - we knew a Supreme Court judge who unaffectedly cycled to the Court every day. When everyone is living well, you don't much care if some are living exceptionally well and have a big villa and a yacht. Conversely, if you pay up to 50% of tax on your whole income, you really don't feel any inhibttion about spending the rest on whatever you like - and by and large, everyone's fine with you doing that too.

    In Britain, many people's experience of life is that they only just get by, while others are extraordinarily wealthy and have education and other benefits which are simply out of reach of the rest. It feels an unreasonable result of what is probably partly hard work but also partly good luck.
    When I said my prayers last night, which I always do kneeling naked, I prayed for you Nick, to see some love action soon. So if something happens, you know why, it’s we have a caring God.

    In the meantime, have you tried Crusader Kings III? https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/crusader-kings-iii/about
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    I just want to repeat @Stuartinromford’s last para because it’s a bloody vital point.

    …the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    EU membership isn't really the be-all and end-all and most important factor in determining Britain's economic destiny, though. The quality of its economic and political leadership is.

    Imagine the counterfactual where the Brexit referendum went to plan, and Boris Johnson becomes PM of a UK still within the EU after Cameron retires in 2018, as the standard bearer of diehard Leavers not willing to accept the result of the referendum. How well would that have gone?

    We know what Johnson is like. We know what his instincts for profligacy are, from debacles like the Garden Bridge. As a country we would fundamentally be in the same deep hole because of his poor leadership, and the political damage wrought by Osborne's botched and partial austerity.

    And if you mainly blame Brexit for our difficult situation then how can you do the right things to fix it? You end up thinking that we just have to renegotiate membership of the Single Market and avoid all the hard choices.
    The two things (Brexit and leadership) are to me inseparable. Brexit was a sign of deep decadence among both the political class and voters.

    Or course Brexit is not the be-all and end-all.
    Other models are available. But they require a wrestling with reality, choices, and indeed much sacrifice during any transition.

    To date it is still not clear what model Britain thinks it is aiming at.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,093
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.
    But is Keir Starmer a Healy or a Wilson? No. He's simply incapable of carrying Labour and it's voters who want perpetual unfunded spending rises into austerity and the kind of public spending cuts we need to balance the books.
    Starmer's not ideal, sure. However, he has quietly but effectively locked the Corbynites back in the nursery. And a politician who is mediocre at the retail stuff might be what we need- a more ruthless electoral machine will always be tempted to sugar the pill too much.

    Most importantly of all, unlike the current Conservative leadership or followership, he shows some evidence of a grip on reality. Johnson doesn't have that, indeed has made a career out of casting those who try to force reality on him into the outer darkness. Once you acknowledge reality, a lot of the necessary follows.

    Starmer might not be able to make all this work. But unless the Conservatives do an impossible flip-flop over Johnson and his works he's the least bad immediate hope.

    Don't have nightmares, everyone.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited June 2022
    carnforth said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61718906

    Fun article on inflation in a country unused to it for decades - Japan.

    Between 75 and 100 % per cent in Turkey currebtly. These things are feeding geopolitical tensions.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,265



    When I said my prayers last night, which I always do kneeling naked, I prayed for you Nick, to see some love action soon. So if something happens, you know why, it’s we have a caring God.

    In the meantime, have you tried Crusader Kings III? https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/crusader-kings-iii/about

    Thank you! Haven't tried Crusader Kings III - is it good?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    I just want to repeat @Stuartinromford’s last para because it’s a bloody vital point.

    …the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    EU membership isn't really the be-all and end-all and most important factor in determining Britain's economic destiny, though. The quality of its economic and political leadership is.

    Imagine the counterfactual where the Brexit referendum went to plan, and Boris Johnson becomes PM of a UK still within the EU after Cameron retires in 2018, as the standard bearer of diehard Leavers not willing to accept the result of the referendum. How well would that have gone?

    We know what Johnson is like. We know what his instincts for profligacy are, from debacles like the Garden Bridge. As a country we would fundamentally be in the same deep hole because of his poor leadership, and the political damage wrought by Osborne's botched and partial austerity.

    And if you mainly blame Brexit for our difficult situation then how can you do the right things to fix it? You end up thinking that we just have to renegotiate membership of the Single Market and avoid all the hard choices.
    The two things (Brexit and leadership) are to me inseparable. Brexit was a sign of deep decadence among both the political class and voters.

    Or course Brexit is not the be-all and end-all.
    Other models are available. But they require a wrestling with reality, choices, and indeed much sacrifice during any transition.

    To date it is still not clear what model Britain thinks it is aiming at.
    It's trying to aim at something?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    Is there any evidence that the current Labour leadership are even thinking of doing the tough measures you say will be needed?

    None at all as far as I can see.

    And as for @MaxPB - he is probably right that Britain's economic prospects are poor. But I note that he omits to mention one of the reasons for this - Brexit - which he supported.

    Until we accept that and think about how to deal with the damage that has caused we won't get anywhere. The Tories won't. Labour seem too scared even to utter the word. So things will continue to get worse.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    Is there any evidence that the current Labour leadership are even thinking of doing the tough measures you say will be needed?

    None at all as far as I can see.

    And as for @MaxPB - he is probably right that Britain's economic prospects are poor. But I note that he omits to mention one of the reasons for this - Brexit - which he supported.

    Until we accept that and think about how to deal with the damage that has caused we won't get anywhere. The Tories won't. Labour seem too scared even to utter the word. So things will continue to get worse.
    Once again, what specifically would it have changed? The issue is that we, as a nation, are living beyond our means and the older generation is impoverishing those below it to do so. Brexit doesn't change anything except potentially holding down wages and service costs for those older people. No, it isn't Brexit, it's the selfish baby boomer generation who are unwilling to make the same sacrifices their parents made for the good of the nation. They don't just want to keep all of their own accumulated wealth, they also want to leech off the incomes of younger people through rent and tax transfers.

    You're the person complaining about the trains being late when the issue is the giant asteroid in the sky about to annihilate the population.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,287

    pm215 said:

    That's interesting, thanks. My instinctive reaction is twofold: *anything* can be used to fray the social fabric of society if we let it. Even if it does not matter. Secondly, what would be the effects of not having significant inequalities? A lot of progress happens because people want to be part of that upper grouping. If the rewards are not there, would they strive as much?

    My dad started a company in the 1970s; mortgaged his house and took risks. Those risks paid off and he became a moderately well-off person - not very rich, but comfortable. He did not take those risks just because of the joy of the work, but also because of the potential rewards. Does that make him greedy or a bad person? Was it bad that he employed dozens of people?

    I think this is where we get into the difference between moderate amounts of relative inequality (as between a comfortably well-off small business owner and one of their employees, for example) and enormous amounts of relative inequality (as between Jeff Bezos and an Amazon warehouse worker, for example). I think most people would be fairly comfortable with the former; the latter I think is well beyond the level of reward needed to incentivise a bit of risk-taking and innovation, and I would be in favour of wealth tax or similar policy that evens things out a bit. (Bezos of course is an extreme outlier, but I think the principle applies further down the wealth scale too; there's a debate to be had about where and how progressively a wealth tax should kick in.)

    Among other things, there's got to be a lot of potential entrepreneurs in the least wealthy 50% of the population who are currently unable to have a go because they don't have, say, a house they could mortgage or a similar level of seed capital. So a bit less inequality might increase progress...
    Yes, like most things there's a scale from the reasonable to the nutty. My attitudes were shaped partly by growing up in Denmark, where there were certainly different levels of wealth and some very rich people, but because taxation was pretty high and the services that it paid for were generally good, there was both an element of redistribution and a sense that it didn't matter so much. State schools were so good and well-funded that private schools were only there to cater for specialist interests, e.g. a music academy. Public transport was good, but anyway nearly everyone cycled on the separate cycle paths - we knew a Supreme Court judge who unaffectedly cycled to the Court every day. When everyone is living well, you don't much care if some are living exceptionally well and have a big villa and a yacht. Conversely, if you pay up to 50% of tax on your whole income, you really don't feel any inhibttion about spending the rest on whatever you like - and by and large, everyone's fine with you doing that too.

    In Britain, many people's experience of life is that they only just get by, while others are extraordinarily wealthy and have education and other benefits which are simply out of reach of the rest. It feels an unreasonable result of what is probably partly hard work but also partly good luck.
    I was surprised to learn recently that Sweden apparently has a very big wealth gap, with the top 10% owning 60-70% of the nation's wealth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_Sweden
  • TresTres Posts: 2,165
    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    Is there any evidence that the current Labour leadership are even thinking of doing the tough measures you say will be needed?

    None at all as far as I can see.

    And as for @MaxPB - he is probably right that Britain's economic prospects are poor. But I note that he omits to mention one of the reasons for this - Brexit - which he supported.

    Until we accept that and think about how to deal with the damage that has caused we won't get anywhere. The Tories won't. Labour seem too scared even to utter the word. So things will continue to get worse.
    Once again, what specifically would it have changed? The issue is that we, as a nation, are living beyond our means and the older generation is impoverishing those below it to do so. Brexit doesn't change anything except potentially holding down wages and service costs for those older people. No, it isn't Brexit, it's the selfish baby boomer generation who are unwilling to make the same sacrifices their parents made for the good of the nation. They don't just want to keep all of their own accumulated wealth, they also want to leech off the incomes of younger people through rent and tax transfers.

    You're the person complaining about the trains being late when the issue is the giant asteroid in the sky about to annihilate the population.
    it's the selfish baby boomer generation that inflicted an inane brexit on the rest of us.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    Is there any evidence that the current Labour leadership are even thinking of doing the tough measures you say will be needed?

    None at all as far as I can see.

    And as for @MaxPB - he is probably right that Britain's economic prospects are poor. But I note that he omits to mention one of the reasons for this - Brexit - which he supported.

    Until we accept that and think about how to deal with the damage that has caused we won't get anywhere. The Tories won't. Labour seem too scared even to utter the word. So things will continue to get worse.
    Once again, what specifically would it have changed? The issue is that we, as a nation, are living beyond our means and the older generation is impoverishing those below it to do so. Brexit doesn't change anything except potentially holding down wages and service costs for those older people. No, it isn't Brexit, it's the selfish baby boomer generation who are unwilling to make the same sacrifices their parents made for the good of the nation. They don't just want to keep all of their own accumulated wealth, they also want to leech off the incomes of younger people through rent and tax transfers.

    You're the person complaining about the trains being late when the issue is the giant asteroid in the sky about to annihilate the population.
    it's the selfish baby boomer generation that inflicted an inane brexit on the rest of us.
    Egged on in fact by Max.
  • https://twitter.com/danlp86/status/1535021851893800960

    Wes is superb. Future leader.

    He should be fronting Labour at every chance.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited June 2022
    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    Is there any evidence that the current Labour leadership are even thinking of doing the tough measures you say will be needed?

    None at all as far as I can see.

    And as for @MaxPB - he is probably right that Britain's economic prospects are poor. But I note that he omits to mention one of the reasons for this - Brexit - which he supported.

    Until we accept that and think about how to deal with the damage that has caused we won't get anywhere. The Tories won't. Labour seem too scared even to utter the word. So things will continue to get worse.
    Once again, what specifically would it have changed? The issue is that we, as a nation, are living beyond our means and the older generation is impoverishing those below it to do so. Brexit doesn't change anything except potentially holding down wages and service costs for those older people. No, it isn't Brexit, it's the selfish baby boomer generation who are unwilling to make the same sacrifices their parents made for the good of the nation. They don't just want to keep all of their own accumulated wealth, they also want to leech off the incomes of younger people through rent and tax transfers.

    You're the person complaining about the trains being late when the issue is the giant asteroid in the sky about to annihilate the population.
    it's the selfish baby boomer generation that inflicted an inane brexit on the rest of us.
    A large number of Brexit voters were between 50 and 60. These are not the Baby Boomer generation.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,287
    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    Perfectly obvious trajectory since 2016.
    Sorry. I take no pleasure from it, I’m British, my kids are British. Besides which, I still own property there.

    A lost decade or two decades.
    That's such a lazy answer when we consider the same is happening all across Europe. The working population is being squeezed by the non-working population everywhere and the UK is no exception. Old people want their 11% pension rises and will impoverish younger people to feather their nests.
    That's not entirely new though. The same generation who now ferociously vote themselves pension increases and house price rises are the same ones who supported the squeezing of their parents' pensions in the 1980s to help make the Thatcher tax cuts add up.

    A potential Labour government has a few things going for it, though. For a start, their client vote looks like being "people in work", as opposed to the retired and rentiers. Also, Labour in government have been able to do austerity when they absolutely have to (think of Healey or Cripps)- if there's unpleasant medicine to be given, Labour are trusted to give it in a way that Conservatives never can be. Makes sense, because even good Conservative ministers can't shake off the impression that they are enjoying meanness.

    Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not. It needs the present government to fail so utterly, the be so discredited, that the opposition can take over and do the necessary thing without electoral pushback. But anyone has to be better than a Prime Minister willing to do to business what happens to stepmoms in those videos. Or the kind of casual decadance that says it's OK for the enconomy to have fifty years of meh because then we will realise the benefits of Renewed National Vigour. That's pretty much my daughter's entire working lifetime, and she hasn't started her GCSEs yet.

    Is there any evidence that the current Labour leadership are even thinking of doing the tough measures you say will be needed?

    None at all as far as I can see.

    And as for @MaxPB - he is probably right that Britain's economic prospects are poor. But I note that he omits to mention one of the reasons for this - Brexit - which he supported.

    Until we accept that and think about how to deal with the damage that has caused we won't get anywhere. The Tories won't. Labour seem too scared even to utter the word. So things will continue to get worse.
    Once again, what specifically would it have changed? The issue is that we, as a nation, are living beyond our means and the older generation is impoverishing those below it to do so. Brexit doesn't change anything except potentially holding down wages and service costs for those older people. No, it isn't Brexit, it's the selfish baby boomer generation who are unwilling to make the same sacrifices their parents made for the good of the nation. They don't just want to keep all of their own accumulated wealth, they also want to leech off the incomes of younger people through rent and tax transfers.

    You're the person complaining about the trains being late when the issue is the giant asteroid in the sky about to annihilate the population.
    it's the selfish baby boomer generation that inflicted an inane brexit on the rest of us.
    Baby-boomers didn't vote for Brexit per se. Working-class ones did, middle-class ones didn't.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    https://twitter.com/danlp86/status/1535021851893800960

    Wes is superb. Future leader.

    He should be fronting Labour at every chance.

    He’s brilliant. And he gets it.
  • https://twitter.com/danlp86/status/1535021851893800960

    Wes is superb. Future leader.

    He should be fronting Labour at every chance.

    He’s brilliant. And he gets it.
    He does, I'd vote for him any day of the week.

    What he understands, is that to change things Labour needs to get elected. Nadia Whitmore does not.

    Side note, Rory was excellent, the Tory was an absolute lightweight on QT tonight.

    Another side note, Tories, strong on the economy?

    Weakest growth other than Russia. It's the economy stupid.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,287
    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    https://twitter.com/danlp86/status/1535021851893800960

    Wes is superb. Future leader.

    He should be fronting Labour at every chance.

    He’s brilliant. And he gets it.
    He does, I'd vote for him any day of the week.

    What he understands, is that to change things Labour needs to get elected. Nadia Whitmore does not.

    Side note, Rory was excellent, the Tory was an absolute lightweight on QT tonight.

    Another side note, Tories, strong on the economy?

    Weakest growth other than Russia. It's the economy stupid.
    The Tories are weak on the economy, weak on crime, and weak on the NHS. It should be an open goal.

    I’d like to see Reeves and Cooper with the same level of fire, but they also need someone who can explain that there is another, better way.

    The hope thing.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited June 2022
    Andy_JS said:

    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.

    https://twitter.com/danlp86/status/1535021851893800960

    Wes is superb. Future leader.

    He should be fronting Labour at every chance.

    He’s brilliant. And he gets it.
    He does, I'd vote for him any day of the week.

    What he understands, is that to change things Labour needs to get elected. Nadia Whitmore does not.

    Side note, Rory was excellent, the Tory was an absolute lightweight on QT tonight.

    Another side note, Tories, strong on the economy?

    Weakest growth other than Russia. It's the economy stupid.
    <<The Tories are weak on the economy, weak on crime, and weak on the NHS. It should be an open goal.

    I’d like to see Reeves and Cooper with the same level of fire, but they also need someone who can explain that there is another, better way.

    The hope thing.>>

    Cooper often seems to have to be slightly restrained from harshness, to me. I don't think she has the interpersonal skills of Rayner, Nandy or Mordaunt.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,056
    Wordle 356 3/6

    🟩🟨⬜🟨⬜
    🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,884
    rcs1000 said:

    @guyverhofstadt
    Europe is not fit for the world of tomorrow.

    Only a European Union without veto’s can survive !

    https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1534804165326737408

    Why does he have the apostrophe in there? How can I take someone seriously who doesn't know how apostrophes work?
    Because GV is a native Flemish speaker and English loanwords ending in a vowel or 'y' that get pluralised in Flemish (and Dutch) take an apostrophe in the plural.

    It's still wrong in English though but the origins of his slip are obvious.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,056
    Dura_Ace said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @guyverhofstadt
    Europe is not fit for the world of tomorrow.

    Only a European Union without veto’s can survive !

    https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1534804165326737408

    Why does he have the apostrophe in there? How can I take someone seriously who doesn't know how apostrophes work?
    Because GV is a native Flemish speaker and English loanwords ending in a vowel or 'y' that get pluralised in Flemish (and Dutch) take an apostrophe in the plural.

    It's still wrong in English though but the origins of his slip are obvious.
    Is the space before the exclamation mark also correct in Flemish or Dutch?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,884



    Imagine the counterfactual where the Brexit referendum went to plan, and Boris Johnson becomes PM of a UK still within the EU after Cameron retires in 2018, as the standard bearer of diehard Leavers not willing to accept the result of the referendum. How well would that have gone?

    It's telling that leavers have given up on defending brexit and now salve their stinging ringpieces with criticism of an imaginary remain scenario that never happened.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    carnforth said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @guyverhofstadt
    Europe is not fit for the world of tomorrow.

    Only a European Union without veto’s can survive !

    https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1534804165326737408

    Why does he have the apostrophe in there? How can I take someone seriously who doesn't know how apostrophes work?
    Because GV is a native Flemish speaker and English loanwords ending in a vowel or 'y' that get pluralised in Flemish (and Dutch) take an apostrophe in the plural.

    It's still wrong in English though but the origins of his slip are obvious.
    Is the space before the exclamation mark also correct in Flemish or Dutch?
    In French, certainly.
  • fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,279
    Andy_JS said:

    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.

    More worryingly for us non Boris supporting Conservatives, he comes across as far more authentic than Tony Blair ever did even at the height of his success. I really rate Wes Streeting as a very talented politician, he is by far the strongest future Labour leadership candidate in the Shadow Cabinet.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    From the Jan 6 hearing…

    Committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney led her speech with Trump’s own words: “President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol were, and I quote, ‘doing what they should be doing’,” she said.

    She referenced Trump’s reaction to rioters’ chants of “Hang Mike Pence”: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea … Mike Pence deserves it.”
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    100% Chris Curtis has been contacted by either Yougov or Zahawi 's lawyers..
    His deletions and retractions make me think his statement today regarding Zahawi pressuring to nix the poll rather than a sampling /methodology SNAFU we're the main reason Yougov pulled it
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191
    fitalass said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.

    More worryingly for us non Boris supporting Conservatives, he comes across as far more authentic than Tony Blair ever did even at the height of his success. I really rate Wes Streeting as a very talented politician, he is by far the strongest future Labour leadership candidate in the Shadow Cabinet.
    Lisa Nandy far more shrewd than Streeting.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited June 2022
    Pensfold said:

    fitalass said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.

    More worryingly for us non Boris supporting Conservatives, he comes across as far more authentic than Tony Blair ever did even at the height of his success. I really rate Wes Streeting as a very talented politician, he is by far the strongest future Labour leadership candidate in the Shadow Cabinet.
    Lisa Nandy far more shrewd than Streeting.
    Between Streeting, Nandy, Reeves, Bryant, Benn, Lammy, Phillipson, Allin-Khan, Ashworth, Miliband, and Debbonaire they have a competent and articulate team.

    I have an issue with Starmer and Rayner.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780
    edited June 2022
    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    The Callaghan government - by the end - was not profligate*. It started profligate under Wilson**, but Callaghan, Healey and the IMF crisis led to it becoming increasingly orthodox.

    What did for them was the Second Oil Crisis of 1978-to-80, where Iranian oil production collapsed from 6m barrels a day to 1.5m - essentially a drop in oil availability very similar to what we've seen with Russia. That led to the Winter of Discontent as unions attempted to raise wages to match rising inflation.

    Mrs Thatcher was fortunate. She (a) held her nerve, (b) North Sea oil started flowing and (c) Iranian oil production started to recover.

    * Government spending as a percent of GDP dropped from 47% under Wilson to 42% under Callaghan on the eve of the Winter of Disconvent
    ** Well technically it started under Anthony Barber, but Wilson did nothing to improve things
  • fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,279
    Pensfold said:

    fitalass said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.

    More worryingly for us non Boris supporting Conservatives, he comes across as far more authentic than Tony Blair ever did even at the height of his success. I really rate Wes Streeting as a very talented politician, he is by far the strongest future Labour leadership candidate in the Shadow Cabinet.
    Lisa Nandy far more shrewd than Streeting.
    Pensfold said:

    fitalass said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Wes Streeting is the new Tony Blair. That's how he comes across to me.

    More worryingly for us non Boris supporting Conservatives, he comes across as far more authentic than Tony Blair ever did even at the height of his success. I really rate Wes Streeting as a very talented politician, he is by far the strongest future Labour leadership candidate in the Shadow Cabinet.
    Lisa Nandy far more shrewd than Streeting.
    Seriously, she is not, and if the Labour party were to elect her as their next leader I would be delighted. While she may come across as earnest, she has as much charisma as Keir Starmer which isn't saying much, just this week she proved yet again she maybe earnest but yet again she is not politically astute..
  • MPartridgeMPartridge Posts: 156
    I find it hard to believe Boris will survive the by-elections
  • fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,279

    I find it hard to believe Boris will survive the by-elections

    Sadly, I am now really worried that he will survive these by-elections despite the results proving that the electorate in these constituencies have decided to back the 148 Conservative MPs who voted they had no confidence in him rather than the 211 who still think he is an election winner... Its the local elections in May all over again, look how that turned out in Scotland and Wales never mind in England.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    Interesting from Stroud...

    https://novaramedia.com/2022/06/09/in-stroud-starmers-labour-is-undermining-local-leaders-again/

    Seems, if Novara can be believed, that a candidate who had previously worked well with Greens was blocked.

    Stroud is well Green Party territory and has been for years.

    Actually a very sensible decision. The Stroud Labour group has a tendency to be independently minded (indeed David Drew, while not an MP, sat as an independent councillor). But Cornell is not only in bed (metaphorically) with many highly dodgy individuals and organisations, she’s also running a very controversial and incompetent council.

    Between her bungled house building programme, a failed initiative to introduce massive parking charges that nearly caused riots, a substantial deficit and the ongoing chaos of attempted unitarisation selecting her would be the best imaginable way to ensure Labour come third.

    Novara typically focus on the parties and the processes of their mates while forgetting the key thing - it’s not about reaching out to the other parties, but reaching out to the voters.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,093
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Another pretty depressing day at the coalface. I really don't think people understand just how bad things are about to get in the UK (and across Europe).

    The UK government has lost market credibility, I've never seen anything like it. One of the directors said that this hasn't happened since the 70s and it won't change without the government falling and being replaced. Though that time the profligate Labour government was replaced by Mrs Thatcher, is Starmer going to bring the same economic revolution that she did? Fuck no he isn't. So our hopes lie in the coward Tory MPs deposing Boris and cleaning house within the party and moving back to fiscal responsibility and then also winning in 2024. I don't see it, the UK is too used to living beyond its means and now it will vote for a government that says it will never have to pay the bill for this.

    The last two days have been genuinely depressing. As someone who really does care about the country and where we're headed this is quite possibly the worst I've ever felt about our future. During COVID there was always the sunlit uplands of unlockdown. This time there's no immediate future I can see where the UK regains the credibility that Boris and his cohort of idiots have thrown away. Labour won't get it back so we are where we are until 2029 at least.

    The Callaghan government - by the end - was not profligate*. It started profligate under Wilson**, but Callaghan, Healey and the IMF crisis led to it becoming increasingly orthodox.

    What did for them was the Second Oil Crisis of 1978-to-80, where Iranian oil production collapsed from 6m barrels a day to 1.5m - essentially a drop in oil availability very similar to what we've seen with Russia. That led to the Winter of Discontent as unions attempted to raise wages to match rising inflation.

    Mrs Thatcher was fortunate. She (a) held her nerve, (b) North Sea oil started flowing and (c) Iranian oil production started to recover.

    * Government spending as a percent of GDP dropped from 47% under Wilson to 42% under Callaghan on the eve of the Winter of Disconvent
    ** Well technically it started under Anthony Barber, but Wilson did nothing to improve things
    One final thought on this. Consider the windfall tax/heating help plans from the two parties.

    Labour proposed a windfall tax on hydrocarbon firms to give a chunk of help to the neediest.

    The Conservatives are implementing that plus a dollop of cash for everyone funded by God Knows What.

    I don't think Labour have a plan for what needs to be done. So it will be a scramble. And it might not happen. But their instincts look about right.

    I'd much rather there were a socially liberal, fiscally continent, Conservative Party to vote for. But that's, at best, in exile. It may be dead.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,775
    Dura_Ace said:



    Imagine the counterfactual where the Brexit referendum went to plan, and Boris Johnson becomes PM of a UK still within the EU after Cameron retires in 2018, as the standard bearer of diehard Leavers not willing to accept the result of the referendum. How well would that have gone?

    It's telling that leavers have given up on defending brexit and now salve their stinging ringpieces with criticism of an imaginary remain scenario that never happened.
    I'm not a Leaver. But Brexit was an identity vote, so rehashing all the same arguments about the economic impacts are a denial of reality. People aren't going to suddenly change their view on their identity because of a little economic difficulty. We have to deal with the situation we find ourselves in, not the situation we hoped for.

    Right now Johnson is the biggest problem for Britain, not Brexit.
This discussion has been closed.