Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
Does it make much difference that Streeting's comments about pushing Jan Moir under a train were in 2009, whilst Boris Johnson's comments about Stuart Collier were in 1990? Both were 26 at the time.
I like Wes Streeting in general. He seems to be the last sane person to leave the NUS before someone turned the lights out.
For you to decide - I was just pointing out JJ’s error.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Yes, but the fact that every one of the items you quote from Johnson turned out to be fake or dishonest makes the point. At least Blair's list was mostly achievable and they did make some sort of an effort to deliver most of it.
In an era of managerial politics, taking a sensible 'what works' approach to policy produces stacks of proposals not one of which is going to excite any voter, despite being the right thing to do. Whereas the ideas that catch the attention of voters turn out to be unachievable or not thought through, or do more harm than good.
Part of Starmer's problem is that things are going a bit too well for Labour.
His job was to clean up the mess of the Corbyn years, lose not too badly in 2023, and leave the way clear for the next Labour PM. John the Baptist, not Jesus.
Now he has a decent chance of being PM, he will need a realistic but attractive manifesto. Much harder.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Indeed, shopping lists of everything, which Labour has loved in recent years, mean that you stand for nothing. If everything is your priority, then nothing is.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
The big use of the Census is for small area statistics. Administrative or sample data just can't replicate what the Census offers.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
If you look at recent centre left winners globally, Biden, Scholz and Albanese for example, they were all at least as dull and boring as Starmer. In each case it was more the rightwing government that lost it than they that won it
The other difficulty is that Boris is leading from the centre-left in many ways - high taxes, high spending, green crap, etc. So it's actually quite difficult for Labour to outflank him having just spent years trying to ditch Corbynism.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
My last flight was to Germany with Lufthansa, can't remember which class it was but the flight out included the lounge which as Casino Royale points out makes the whole flying experience much nicer. Worse flying experience was the one where I'm fairly certain the shoulders of my skeleton wouldn't have fitted in the wretchedly small chair.
My credit card gives me lounge access as one of the add-on benefits. I really wouldn't be without that, especially in a big airport.
I had that for a bit via Amex Plat, but it was rather expensive in fee terms :-).
Sir Keir Starmer is to announce clear election positions on immigration and Brexit this summer, and unveil policies on the economy at his party conference in an attempt to reinvigorate Labour’s faltering challenge for power.
Senior party officials say that Starmer is determined to get on the front foot after renewed criticism of his leadership following two contrasting recent performances at prime minister’s questions that sparked fresh questions about his abilities.
My source comes through again, I said this weeks ago!
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
Plenty of countries don't have television licences.
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
My guess is Starmer won't be fined but if he was that Streeting would be elected to succeed him. Nandy got just 16% in the 2020 Labour leadership election, not only miles behind Starmer but even behind Long Bailey.
I also doubt there will be an autumn election unless another VONC is agreed to by the 1922 cttee for later in the year and Johnson sees it as the only way to save his leadership if he thinks he has even less chance of winning another VONC than another general election
That would be an incredible scenario.
What would HMQ do if faced by a PM who was about to be ejected by his own party and asked her to dissolve parliament win a desperate bid to save his own bacon? Surely she'd say 'sod orff' or words to that effect?
Then again, say she feels she has no choice but to grant Johnson his dissolution... How do Tory candidates campaign for re-election under Johnson when everyone knows the election is only occurring because they don't want Johnson as their leader.
It's such a ridiculously unlikely situation. It therefore might just happen.
They'd do what they just done in Devon; put out literature without either the party leader or the party name on it!
In practice I'm not sure the UK government has much leverage to change anything -- websites mostly deal with an international audience (so the EU cookie requirements resulted in US people also getting asked about cookies, for instance).
You shouldn't underestimate how much difference it makes to this effect that the UK is no longer in the EU, particularly for digital services. American sites and apps tend have a disproportionately high number of users in the UK compared with the big EU countries.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
Plenty of countries don't have television licences.
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
And there won't be but Cameron and co screwed up the BBC but not allowing the UK Media's planned consolidation / global expansion back in 2010-2014.
Because of that the BBC will still need money from somewhere and that is going to be a from a tax on either data or electricity or both.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has appealed to Labour and Green party supporters to vote tactically in Thursday’s crucial West Country byelection – to help deliver a “knockout” blow to Boris Johnson’s premiership.
The Lib Dems believe they have a realistic chance of causing one of the biggest byelection shocks of recent times by coming from third place to win in the normally safe Conservative stronghold of Tiverton and Honiton.
However, Lib Dem and Tory activists are reporting the race is too close to call, with four days of campaigning to go, despite widespread anger about Partygate and concern in the rural community that the Tories are not doing enough to help farmers or tackle the cost of living crisis.
On the ground, Lib Dem organisers are saying it has become harder to win over Tory voters to their cause in the last week and a half, as the Conservatives have emphasised what are called “wedge issues” – immigration, opposition to rail strikes, and Brexit – in order to try to persuade their supporters not to desert.
“There has definitely been a hardening among those Tory voters and it has become more difficult in the last few days,” said a Liberal Democrat source. “It is going to be very tight and the majority to overturn is very big.”
I'd almost like to see the Tories cling on just to see how over the top the candidate and Boris go in declaring how it shows the public want to move on and back the big man to take decisions on things that matter (the standard by-election fluff from any side even if is a safe seat), even though it is defending a 24k majority and even in times of common government by-election losses it should not really be under threat.
If they win with wuite a bit to spare it will be more notable.
I've said before that the Libdems win regardless of the result. Lets assume we win the seat - mega. Lets assume the Tories cling on - also mega.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
This will not be an SKS Policy. Fae too radical
Does your source agree SKS "needs to stop boring people to death"
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
VAT raises over £130bn pa currently.
I wonder if the government might return to the original days of VAT when we had a low rate for everyday stuff with a high rate for luxuries. Halving VAT would help with the cost of living crisis but retaining 20 per cent for high-value purchases is feasible. No-one is choosing between heating, eating, and buying a new Ferrari or even a new Skoda hybrid. Most help would go to the poor; the rich would pay more as they are the ones who buy high-cost items.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
This will not be an SKS Policy. Fae too radical
Does your source agree SKS "needs to stop boring people to death"
No I think he should lean into being boring and announce some good policies and get other people to front them.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
Plenty of countries don't have television licences.
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
And there won't be but Cameron and co screwed up the BBC but not allowing the UK Media's planned consolidation / global expansion back in 2010-2014.
Because of that the BBC will still need money from somewhere and that is going to be a from a tax on either data or electricity or both.
Why can't they get the funds privately?
If people want to subscribe to the BBC, let them. If they don't, let it die.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
Paid for?
Rishi's magic money tree, or is that a Tory preserve?
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
Plenty of countries don't have television licences.
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
And there won't be but Cameron and co screwed up the BBC but not allowing the UK Media's planned consolidation / global expansion back in 2010-2014.
Because of that the BBC will still need money from somewhere and that is going to be a from a tax on either data or electricity or both.
Why can't they get the funds privately?
If people want to subscribe to the BBC, let them. If they don't, let it die.
I agree.
The BBC also right royally screwed up on iplayer. As has been said before, that could have been a global subscription service. Would have paid for the whole BBC in the same way Netflix and Sky do.
Instead it runs a stupid UK-only access for licence fee payers.
Am I the only PBer who had to look up "Club Europe" (British Airways Club Class with free posh nosh and lounges, apparently)?
He has taken over from Charles who loved to boast about how he was richer than all the plebs who had to suffer in baggage class. Oh how we miss all the big shots competing on who had best seats, lounges, champagne, hotels , etc.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
VAT raises over £130bn pa currently.
I wonder if the government might return to the original days of VAT when we had a low rate with a high rate for luxuries. Halving VAT would help with the cost of living crisis but retaining 20 per cent for high-value purchases is feasible. No-one is choosing between heating, eating, and buying a new Ferrari or even a new Skoda hybrid. Most help would go to the poor; the rich would pay more as they are the ones who buy high-cost items.
The public finances don’t allow any serious meddling with VAT; over the years we’ve become highly dependent on it. That process is potentially reversible, whether or not it’s desirable, but to do so would be a very long term project.
Our debt pile is set to become more expensive to finance as interest rates rise. If we lose fiscal credibility, the cost will rise further. I don’t think a lot of people fully appreciate the potential risks to the government’s ability to raise funds at cheap long term rates. If confidence is lost, things can go very bad indeed quite quickly.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
If an idiot asks such a question why would you even lower yourself to answer such a crass load of bollox. Despite clowns like you imagining we are all sat up here chanting "we hate the English", it is only a sign of your inferiority complex. We have far better things to be doing.
Lord Geidt was due to present conclusions of his investigation into allegations of Islamophobia against a Cabinet minister on the day he quit as PM's ethics adviser, we're told… https://twitter.com/HarryYorke1/status/1538447729369784320
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
If you look at recent centre left winners globally, Biden, Scholz and Albanese for example, they were all at least as dull and boring as Starmer. In each case it was more the rightwing government that lost it than they that won it
The other difficulty is that Boris is leading from the centre-left in many ways - high taxes, high spending, green crap, etc. So it's actually quite difficult for Labour to outflank him having just spent years trying to ditch Corbynism.
I don't know where Johnson is and I don't think anyone in his party does. You're right that a lot of it fiscally is left of centre: high tax, high spend.
But he's also going increasingly red meat right on social and green issues. The former are obvious (immigrant bashing, trans bashing, and all 'woke' bashing). Re. the latter, they've just abolished overnight the green home electric charge point support.
Generally with Boris Johnson it pays not to apply any of the normal rules of behaviour and apply one simple guiding principle: What's in it for Boris?
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
If you look at recent centre left winners globally, Biden, Scholz and Albanese for example, they were all at least as dull and boring as Starmer. In each case it was more the rightwing government that lost it than they that won it
The other difficulty is that Boris is leading from the centre-left in many ways - high taxes, high spending, green crap, etc. So it's actually quite difficult for Labour to outflank him having just spent years trying to ditch Corbynism.
I don't know where Johnson is and I don't think anyone in his party does.
True dat. They were all thinking he'd be in Durham
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I totally agree.
I refused to fill it in and will do the same until I pop my clogs.
I try not to swear too often on here but the State can fuck off.
The state secretary for the Seat, Madame Justine Bénin lost her seat in Guadeoupe 2 by Christian Baptiste of Parti progressiste démocratique guadeloupéen (backed by the NUPES). She was defeated 58.6 to 41.4%. She will have to resign from the government now as it was said ministers losing would be dropped.
Left gain Guyane 2 from the LREM incumbent.
In Guadeloupe 3, MoDem incumbent won the run off against FN candidate 52 to 48%. FN had a 4% lead in Round 1.
In Polynesie Française, the NUPES backed independentists have surprisingly won all the 3 seats beating the Ensemble backed autonomists. It was 2 to 1 for autonomists in 2017. In the first constituency, a 21 year old boy overcame a 20 points gap from last week to win the seat.
Am I the only PBer who had to look up "Club Europe" (British Airways Club Class with free posh nosh and lounges, apparently)?
I seem to be in an exclusive BA club called "Boarding Group 7". It means at a foreign airport, I can sit in comfort and wait to be last onto the bus and then first onto the plane. I am not sure how much I pay for this excellent service.
Telegraph: Boris Johnson has been reportedly "airbrushed" from the Conservatives' by-election campaign literature, with leaflets and online advertisements not mentioning the Prime Minister.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? …
Genealogical information is very useful indeed for healthcare genetic studies. For a country with public funded healthcare it makes sense.
Am I the only PBer who had to look up "Club Europe" (British Airways Club Class with free posh nosh and lounges, apparently)?
I seem to be in an exclusive BA club called "Boarding Group 7". It means at a foreign airport, I can sit in comfort and wait to be last onto the bus and then first onto the plane. I am not sure how much I pay for this excellent service.
You could always join the wheelchair club: Always last off the plane, sometimes an hour or two after everyone else.
Works with just about every airline in my experience.
Invest in defence Invest in renewables Invest in health
And how does that address the CoL crisis I keep hearing about? Investing in renewables is great, but mid to long term. Little mrs Smith, 84, heats one room a day, and eats bread once a day, how does renewables help her?
That previous post explains why the UK is so fcuked up, halfwits everywhere with not a F****ng clue about anything. All 3 are getting shedloads and sucking the life out of the country already.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
Having said that was just trying to book a ticket for a gig, and it seems there is no way to do it without using a smartphone. Who takes a fucking phone with them to a gig?
Having said that was just trying to book a ticket for a gig, and it seems there is no way to do it without using a smartphone. Who takes a fucking phone with them to a gig?
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Yes, but weren't you telling us in 2017 that spending as much as Corbyn would have done was inherently dangerous and chaotic in itself? Yet that is what we have now actually done.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
The right would have attacked Corbyn if he has pursued the exact same policies as Johnson. Furlough would have been described as an unaffordable, neo communist policy,
Meanwhile this Conservative party has brought more chaos than any government I can recall.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
What a silly load of nonsense.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
And then, after all the Covid borrowing, having to borrow more to pay for equipment to fight the Nazis in Ukraine.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging
Still laughing at the use of 'dodging' adverb for not filling in a stupid census form.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
What a silly load of nonsense.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
My own view is that an accurate census is of a very large benefit to the nation, in ways that are rarely seen. And like some vaccinations, if enough people opt out for spurious reasons then everyone loses.
I will admit it, when it came to time outside I paid no attention whatsoever to the so-called rules of lockdown. No one was going to dictate to me when or how often I could walk in the countryside. I didn't drive to places but I did walk out my door, often for whole days at a time.
I was, in fact, covered to do so by my mental health diagnosis but that's beside the point. No one should have allowed politicians or police to tell them how much fresh air they were entitled to breath or how long they could be outside or whether they could sit on a park bench.
Especially as that fuckwit in No.10 was all the while boozing it up.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Yes, but weren't you telling us in 2017 that spending as much as Corbyn would have done was inherently dangerous and chaotic in itself? Yet that is what we have now actually done.
As a Conservative, I have no problem with the state aiding private sector businesses that would have vanished long before the pandemic ended. They are now still around to help rebuild the economy and minimise the hit we would undoubtedly suffer coming out the other side. It was a one-off bit of pragmatism in the worst health event in our lives.
The public sector was supported through Covid of course without any hit at all to pay or pensions. That sector would have been massively bloated by Corbyn - and would then have required cuts to get through Covid. That would have been fun....
Leaving aside the fact it is Apple (boo, hiss), I do wonder why some large and immensely rich American companies are so against unions and unionisation. Whether Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google etc are all rather anti-union.
Starbucks/Howard Shultz is having complete 'mare. Bitterly opposed to unions, spending millions to stop them yet store after store is voting to unionise.
Great isn’t it? The US unionising is a bright spot in an otherwise bleak prospectus.
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
VAT raises over £130bn pa currently.
Fuel duty raises £26 billion a year. No Chancellor is going to give up that kind of money, nor are the public finances in such a sanguine position.
The move to decarbonise transport dictates that the Chancellor is going to have to do without fuel duty in the medium term. There's an argument for scrapping it now and raising an equivalent sum from other sources.
OTOH raising that much money from other sources would likely entail soaking the wealthy. So fuel duty stays.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Yes, but weren't you telling us in 2017 that spending as much as Corbyn would have done was inherently dangerous and chaotic in itself? Yet that is what we have now actually done.
As a Conservative, I have no problem with the state aiding private sector businesses that would have vanished long before the pandemic ended. They are now still around to help rebuild the economy and minimise the hit we would undoubtedly suffer coming out the other side. It was a one-off bit of pragmatism in the worst health event in our lives.
The public sector was supported through Covid of course without any hit at all to pay or pensions. That sector would have been massively bloated by Corbyn - and would then have required cuts to get through Covid. That would have been fun....
You do realise all these new coppers, trains and hospitals Boris promised long before Covid were all in the bloated public sector?
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
VAT raises over £130bn pa currently.
Fuel duty raises £26 billion a year. No Chancellor is going to give up that kind of money, nor are the public finances in such a sanguine position.
The move to decarbonise transport dictates that the Chancellor is going to have to do without fuel duty in the medium term. There's an argument for scrapping it now and raising an equivalent sum from other sources.
OTOH raising that much money from other sources would likely entail soaking the wealthy. So fuel duty stays.
"...soaking the wealthy"? Good God are you mad? That would never do!
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging
Still laughing at the use of 'dodging' adverb for not filling in a stupid census form.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
Be free. Live free.
bet you are happy to benefit from the state with any subsidy going though.
Cut fuel duty for two years. Cut VAT to 10% for two years.
VAT raises over £130bn pa currently.
Fuel duty raises £26 billion a year. No Chancellor is going to give up that kind of money, nor are the public finances in such a sanguine position.
The move to decarbonise transport dictates that the Chancellor is going to have to do without fuel duty in the medium term. There's an argument for scrapping it now and raising an equivalent sum from other sources.
OTOH raising that much money from other sources would likely entail soaking the wealthy. So fuel duty stays.
it will just be moved to the alternatives for sure
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Yes, but weren't you telling us in 2017 that spending as much as Corbyn would have done was inherently dangerous and chaotic in itself? Yet that is what we have now actually done.
As a Conservative, I have no problem with the state aiding private sector businesses that would have vanished long before the pandemic ended. They are now still around to help rebuild the economy and minimise the hit we would undoubtedly suffer coming out the other side. It was a one-off bit of pragmatism in the worst health event in our lives.
The public sector was supported through Covid of course without any hit at all to pay or pensions. That sector would have been massively bloated by Corbyn - and would then have required cuts to get through Covid. That would have been fun....
Ducking the question, though. The opposition to the spending plans implicit in the Labour prospectus certainly wasn't "we daren't spend all that money because we might need to spend a shedload should a global pandemic comes along". It was that creating and then spending that amount of money was inherently dangerous and reckless in itself, by itself. Yet here we are....
And incidentally I believe I'm right that the level of financial support to individuals and businesses here is higher than was provided in most other countries?
Leaving aside the fact it is Apple (boo, hiss), I do wonder why some large and immensely rich American companies are so against unions and unionisation. Whether Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google etc are all rather anti-union.
Starbucks/Howard Shultz is having complete 'mare. Bitterly opposed to unions, spending millions to stop them yet store after store is voting to unionise.
Great isn’t it? The US unionising is a bright spot in an otherwise bleak prospectus.
It is gradually dawning on Yank workers that collective bargaining power gives them a stick with which to beat bully bosses. Alleluia!
Perhaps if our public sector unions kick the Government in the testicles over and over until they get a decent pay deal this year, then the penny will also drop for our largely deunionised private sector workforce as well? Then there might be some vague hope of real terms pay recovering to 2008 levels in this rotten country before the heat death of the universe.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
You're going to have to try harder than that to convince me it would have been any worse than the omnishambles we have experienced since 2017.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Yes, but weren't you telling us in 2017 that spending as much as Corbyn would have done was inherently dangerous and chaotic in itself? Yet that is what we have now actually done.
As a Conservative, I have no problem with the state aiding private sector businesses that would have vanished long before the pandemic ended. They are now still around to help rebuild the economy and minimise the hit we would undoubtedly suffer coming out the other side. It was a one-off bit of pragmatism in the worst health event in our lives.
The public sector was supported through Covid of course without any hit at all to pay or pensions. That sector would have been massively bloated by Corbyn - and would then have required cuts to get through Covid. That would have been fun....
Ducking the question, though. The opposition to the spending plans implicit in the Labour prospectus certainly wasn't "we daren't spend all that money because we might need to spend a shedload should a global pandemic comes along". It was that creating and then spending that amount of money was inherently dangerous and reckless in itself, by itself. Yet here we are....
And incidentally I believe I'm right that the level of financial support to individuals and businesses here is higher than was provided in most other countries?
why then are the worst of fcountry after all that largesse. Most went to Tory pals in cash or contracts, Tory grifters made a fortune.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
Plenty of countries don't have television licences.
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
And there won't be but Cameron and co screwed up the BBC but not allowing the UK Media's planned consolidation / global expansion back in 2010-2014.
Because of that the BBC will still need money from somewhere and that is going to be a from a tax on either data or electricity or both.
Why can't they get the funds privately?
If people want to subscribe to the BBC, let them. If they don't, let it die.
I agree.
The BBC also right royally screwed up on iplayer. As has been said before, that could have been a global subscription service. Would have paid for the whole BBC in the same way Netflix and Sky do.
Instead it runs a stupid UK-only access for licence fee payers.
Wasn't that a deliberate intervention in the Cameron-era (or possibly late New Labour)? I seem to remember them preventing the BBC 'abusing' it's position.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging
Still laughing at the use of 'dodging' adverb for not filling in a stupid census form.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
Be free. Live free.
bet you are happy to benefit from the state with any subsidy going though.
I've paid sooooooooooooooooo much tax in my time Malc.
As ever, best not to attack on here without knowing much about a person's circs.
Having said that was just trying to book a ticket for a gig, and it seems there is no way to do it without using a smartphone. Who takes a fucking phone with them to a gig?
Leaving aside the fact it is Apple (boo, hiss), I do wonder why some large and immensely rich American companies are so against unions and unionisation. Whether Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google etc are all rather anti-union.
Starbucks/Howard Shultz is having complete 'mare. Bitterly opposed to unions, spending millions to stop them yet store after store is voting to unionise.
Great isn’t it? The US unionising is a bright spot in an otherwise bleak prospectus.
It is gradually dawning on Yank workers that collective bargaining power gives them a stick with which to beat bully bosses. Alleluia!
Perhaps if our public sector unions kick the Government in the testicles over and over until they get a decent pay deal this year, then the penny will also drop for our largely deunionised private sector workforce as well? Then there might be some vague hope of real terms pay recovering to 2008 levels in this rotten country before the heat death of the universe.
From what I can see it also seems pretty youth driven. They’re realising they have to organise to prise wealth from Boomers’ swollen fingers.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
I have a Sky TV subscription that requires it by law, even if I only watch Sky Sports and not the crap output that the BBC has 'live'.
Defunding the BBC does not mean abolishing the licence fee. Plenty of countries have television licences. The government will just spend the money on something else you don't like.
Plenty of countries don't have television licences.
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
And there won't be but Cameron and co screwed up the BBC but not allowing the UK Media's planned consolidation / global expansion back in 2010-2014.
Because of that the BBC will still need money from somewhere and that is going to be a from a tax on either data or electricity or both.
Why can't they get the funds privately?
If people want to subscribe to the BBC, let them. If they don't, let it die.
I agree.
The BBC also right royally screwed up on iplayer. As has been said before, that could have been a global subscription service. Would have paid for the whole BBC in the same way Netflix and Sky do.
Instead it runs a stupid UK-only access for licence fee payers.
Wasn't that a deliberate intervention in the Cameron-era (or possibly late New Labour)? I seem to remember them preventing the BBC 'abusing' it's position.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
What a silly load of nonsense.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
My own view is that an accurate census is of a very large benefit to the nation, in ways that are rarely seen. And like some vaccinations, if enough people opt out for spurious reasons then everyone loses.
There's nothing spurious about refusing to fill in a census and it's careless, and a sleight of hand, to speak of anti-vaxx in the same breath as a bloody census.
As others have said below, the Gov't and big organisations have plenty of info on us all. We don't need to fuel their privacy invasion any more and I go further in believing that we should be taking active steps to protect our privacy. I am not a conspiracist, I'm an intelligent lady who sees the erosion of our liberties taking place year on year.
The intrusive questions on the census are highly objectionable and no one with a free mind should be completing it. (In my opinion.)
Having said that was just trying to book a ticket for a gig, and it seems there is no way to do it without using a smartphone. Who takes a fucking phone with them to a gig?
You do. If you want to get in.
Luckily I have many other ways to amuse myself. The venue will just have to miss out on selling me their expensive beer.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging
Still laughing at the use of 'dodging' adverb for not filling in a stupid census form.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
What a silly load of nonsense.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
I've spent hours trying to find my parental grandparents in the 1910 census. They don't appear to have filled it in, possibly due to my grandmother being ever so pregnant at the time!
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Blair didn't scare the horses of normally-Tory middle England. Not sure Starmer is there, not with the Corbyn Labour being such a recent memory of a bullet neatly dodged.
Maybe, maybe not.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
If you want a thought experiment, imagine Corbyn winning in 2017, spending like there was no tomorrow - then being faced with trying to fund Covid.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Yes, but weren't you telling us in 2017 that spending as much as Corbyn would have done was inherently dangerous and chaotic in itself? Yet that is what we have now actually done.
As a Conservative, I have no problem with the state aiding private sector businesses that would have vanished long before the pandemic ended. They are now still around to help rebuild the economy and minimise the hit we would undoubtedly suffer coming out the other side. It was a one-off bit of pragmatism in the worst health event in our lives.
The public sector was supported through Covid of course without any hit at all to pay or pensions. That sector would have been massively bloated by Corbyn - and would then have required cuts to get through Covid. That would have been fun....
Ducking the question, though. The opposition to the spending plans implicit in the Labour prospectus certainly wasn't "we daren't spend all that money because we might need to spend a shedload should a global pandemic comes along". It was that creating and then spending that amount of money was inherently dangerous and reckless in itself, by itself. Yet here we are....
And incidentally I believe I'm right that the level of financial support to individuals and businesses here is higher than was provided in most other countries?
why then are the worst of fcountry after all that largesse. Most went to Tory pals in cash or contracts, Tory grifters made a fortune.
The wider question of whether our spending on covid was all particuarly wise, appropriate or effective, will rise up the agenda as the immediate feeling of crisis recedes, IMO.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
Does it make much difference that Streeting's comments about pushing Jan Moir under a train were in 2009, whilst Boris Johnson's comments about Stuart Collier were in 1990? Both were 26 at the time.
I like Wes Streeting in general. He seems to be the last sane person to leave the NUS before someone turned the lights out.
"Wes Streeting's grandfather was an armed robber who hung out with the Kray Twins and his grandmother shared a cell with the infamous Christine Keeler."
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging
Still laughing at the use of 'dodging' adverb for not filling in a stupid census form.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
Be free. Live free.
That's a great ideal.
However, we live in a society, and that involves losing some of our 'freedom' for the mutual good. I cannot go around driving on the wrong side of the road in this country - a massive restriction of my liberty as a free man. I cannot go into your house and steal stuff - again, a massive restriction of my liberty as a free man. And I bet you have a bigger garden than me, so I'll come around and sunbathe in the nuddy.
Well, I could do all those things if I wanted, but there would be consequences if I got caught.
We have freedom within a framework that society allows. The more an individual's actions impinges on others, the greater the restrictions should be on those actions.
Things like vaccinations and the census are interesting ones: an individual opting out provokes no real issue, but millions of individuals opting out leads to significant issues.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging
Still laughing at the use of 'dodging' adverb for not filling in a stupid census form.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
Be free. Live free.
Opting out of society doesn't come without costs.
Of course, the country needs information about the population in order to plan for well almost everything from schools, transport to pensions.
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
What a silly load of nonsense.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
My own view is that an accurate census is of a very large benefit to the nation, in ways that are rarely seen. And like some vaccinations, if enough people opt out for spurious reasons then everyone loses.
There's nothing spurious about refusing to fill in a census and it's careless, and a sleight of hand, to speak of anti-vaxx in the same breath as a bloody census.
As others have said below, the Gov't and big organisations have plenty of info on us all. We don't need to fuel their privacy invasion any more and I go further in believing that we should be taking active steps to protect our privacy. I am not a conspiracist, I'm an intelligent lady who sees the erosion of our liberties taking place year on year.
The intrusive questions on the census are highly objectionable and no one with a free mind should be completing it. (In my opinion.)
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
Does it make much difference that Streeting's comments about pushing Jan Moir under a train were in 2009, whilst Boris Johnson's comments about Stuart Collier were in 1990? Both were 26 at the time.
I like Wes Streeting in general. He seems to be the last sane person to leave the NUS before someone turned the lights out.
"Wes Streeting's grandfather was an armed robber who hung out with the Kray Twins and his grandmother shared a cell with the infamous Christine Keeler."
Leaving aside the fact it is Apple (boo, hiss), I do wonder why some large and immensely rich American companies are so against unions and unionisation. Whether Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google etc are all rather anti-union.
Starbucks/Howard Shultz is having complete 'mare. Bitterly opposed to unions, spending millions to stop them yet store after store is voting to unionise.
Great isn’t it? The US unionising is a bright spot in an otherwise bleak prospectus.
It is gradually dawning on Yank workers that collective bargaining power gives them a stick with which to beat bully bosses. Alleluia!
Perhaps if our public sector unions kick the Government in the testicles over and over until they get a decent pay deal this year, then the penny will also drop for our largely deunionised private sector workforce as well? Then there might be some vague hope of real terms pay recovering to 2008 levels in this rotten country before the heat death of the universe.
Yep, we don't have enough inflation in this country. What we really need is more unaffordable wage claims and a wage price spiral. It worked so well in the 70s.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
Does it make much difference that Streeting's comments about pushing Jan Moir under a train were in 2009, whilst Boris Johnson's comments about Stuart Collier were in 1990? Both were 26 at the time.
I like Wes Streeting in general. He seems to be the last sane person to leave the NUS before someone turned the lights out.
Massive difference. Streeting was joking about a clearly hypothetical act of violence, while Johnson was planning an actual assault. Strongly disapprove nevertheless.
On topic, Starmer would have to resign ahead of the next election while Johnson would have remain. Either Streeting or Nandy would have to be chosen as Starmer's replacement. Labour would have to win the next election.
Half the 'traditional' East End claims to be related to the Kray twins, or friendly with people who were. Plus a significant part of south Essex.
Yes, and may I put my hand up here, OKC.
I was brought up in Hackney Wick about the time they were at their peak. I never encountered them. You tended to know where they hung out and either avoided such places or watched your ps and qs when visiting.
I believe I once boxed on the same bill as them at York Hall in Bethnal Green but that's about as close as we ever got. (I lost. They didn't. )
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
Excellent! We are agreed on something.
Census dodging is just another form of anti-vaxx nutjobbery.
What a silly load of nonsense.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
My own view is that an accurate census is of a very large benefit to the nation, in ways that are rarely seen. And like some vaccinations, if enough people opt out for spurious reasons then everyone loses.
There's nothing spurious about refusing to fill in a census and it's careless, and a sleight of hand, to speak of anti-vaxx in the same breath as a bloody census.
As others have said below, the Gov't and big organisations have plenty of info on us all. We don't need to fuel their privacy invasion any more and I go further in believing that we should be taking active steps to protect our privacy. I am not a conspiracist, I'm an intelligent lady who sees the erosion of our liberties taking place year on year.
The intrusive questions on the census are highly objectionable and no one with a free mind should be completing it. (In my opinion.)
Comments
His job was to clean up the mess of the Corbyn years, lose not too badly in 2023, and leave the way clear for the next Labour PM. John the Baptist, not Jesus.
Now he has a decent chance of being PM, he will need a realistic but attractive manifesto. Much harder.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/18/republican-party-texas-convention-cornyn/
Absolute dumpster fire at Texas GOP convention.
'Refugees, welcome to Schrodinger's Rwanda'
(Sorry I can't link it. I'm out of the country in Scotland. Soon to be Scotland libre)
Senior party officials say that Starmer is determined to get on the front foot after renewed criticism of his leadership following two contrasting recent performances at prime minister’s questions that sparked fresh questions about his abilities.
My source comes through again, I said this weeks ago!
The BBC absolutely ought to be able to raise its own funds privately however it chooses to do so, it shouldn't be "defunded". But there should not be a TV licence either.
Because of that the BBC will still need money from somewhere and that is going to be a from a tax on either data or electricity or both.
As for Corbyn "neatly" dodged, just survey the carnage, blink and question yourself, did Jeremy Corbyn actually become PM? It certainly looks like it from the chaos.
Not exactly the govt line. Grant Shapps said this morn that ministers cannot get involved.
Go on Jake, good ideas
Does your source agree SKS "needs to stop boring people to death"
Boring is not the issue, it is policy
If people want to subscribe to the BBC, let them. If they don't, let it die.
I imagine the residents of Constanintople felt the Angeli dynasty was as bad as it got.
The BBC also right royally screwed up on iplayer. As has been said before, that could have been a global subscription service. Would have paid for the whole BBC in the same way Netflix and Sky do.
Instead it runs a stupid UK-only access for licence fee payers.
Our debt pile is set to become more expensive to finance as interest rates rise. If we lose fiscal credibility, the cost will rise further.
I don’t think a lot of people fully appreciate the potential risks to the government’s ability to raise funds at cheap long term rates. If confidence is lost, things can go very bad indeed quite quickly.
We have far better things to be doing.
https://twitter.com/HarryYorke1/status/1538447729369784320
But he's also going increasingly red meat right on social and green issues. The former are obvious (immigrant bashing, trans bashing, and all 'woke' bashing). Re. the latter, they've just abolished overnight the green home electric charge point support.
Generally with Boris Johnson it pays not to apply any of the normal rules of behaviour and apply one simple guiding principle: What's in it for Boris?
I refused to fill it in and will do the same until I pop my clogs.
I try not to swear too often on here but the State can fuck off.
The state secretary for the Seat, Madame Justine Bénin lost her seat in Guadeoupe 2 by Christian Baptiste of Parti progressiste démocratique guadeloupéen (backed by the NUPES). She was defeated 58.6 to 41.4%. She will have to resign from the government now as it was said ministers losing would be dropped.
Left gain Guyane 2 from the LREM incumbent.
In Guadeloupe 3, MoDem incumbent won the run off against FN candidate 52 to 48%. FN had a 4% lead in Round 1.
In Polynesie Française, the NUPES backed independentists have surprisingly won all the 3 seats beating the Ensemble backed autonomists. It was 2 to 1 for autonomists in 2017. In the first constituency, a 21 year old boy overcame a 20 points gap from last week to win the seat.
Works with just about every airline in my experience.
If you want to get in.
THAT, my friend, would have been chaos.
Meanwhile this Conservative party has brought more chaos than any government I can recall.
There is no obligation whatsoever to complete a silly census form. That's totally different from pursuing an approach that actively spreads a harmful virus to other people.
If you can't see the difference then you are the one lost down the rabbit hole.
As if the State own me.
We had all this kind of shit during lockdown. Police sticking their bloody noses into people's time outside, even tracking and fining members of the public with drones when they were just out having a walk ffs.
It's pathetic how many people trundle like sheep to the slaughter house.
Be free. Live free.
I was, in fact, covered to do so by my mental health diagnosis but that's beside the point. No one should have allowed politicians or police to tell them how much fresh air they were entitled to breath or how long they could be outside or whether they could sit on a park bench.
Especially as that fuckwit in No.10 was all the while boozing it up.
Grrrrrrr.
The public sector was supported through Covid of course without any hit at all to pay or pensions. That sector would have been massively bloated by Corbyn - and would then have required cuts to get through Covid. That would have been fun....
OTOH raising that much money from other sources would likely entail soaking the wealthy. So fuel duty stays.
it will just be moved to the alternatives for sure
And incidentally I believe I'm right that the level of financial support to individuals and businesses here is higher than was provided in most other countries?
Perhaps if our public sector unions kick the Government in the testicles over and over until they get a decent pay deal this year, then the penny will also drop for our largely deunionised private sector workforce as well? Then there might be some vague hope of real terms pay recovering to 2008 levels in this rotten country before the heat death of the universe.
As ever, best not to attack on here without knowing much about a person's circs.
Er... everyone but you?
As others have said below, the Gov't and big organisations have plenty of info on us all. We don't need to fuel their privacy invasion any more and I go further in believing that we should be taking active steps to protect our privacy. I am not a conspiracist, I'm an intelligent lady who sees the erosion of our liberties taking place year on year.
The intrusive questions on the census are highly objectionable and no one with a free mind should be completing it. (In my opinion.)
...according to the Mail at any rate.
Neither of which will do him any harm imo.
However, we live in a society, and that involves losing some of our 'freedom' for the mutual good. I cannot go around driving on the wrong side of the road in this country - a massive restriction of my liberty as a free man. I cannot go into your house and steal stuff - again, a massive restriction of my liberty as a free man. And I bet you have a bigger garden than me, so I'll come around and sunbathe in the nuddy.
Well, I could do all those things if I wanted, but there would be consequences if I got caught.
We have freedom within a framework that society allows. The more an individual's actions impinges on others, the greater the restrictions should be on those actions.
Things like vaccinations and the census are interesting ones: an individual opting out provokes no real issue, but millions of individuals opting out leads to significant issues.
On topic, Starmer would have to resign ahead of the next election while Johnson would have remain. Either Streeting or Nandy would have to be chosen as Starmer's replacement. Labour would have to win the next election.
Four things need to align.
I was brought up in Hackney Wick about the time they were at their peak. I never encountered them. You tended to know where they hung out and either avoided such places or watched your ps and qs when visiting.
I believe I once boxed on the same bill as them at York Hall in Bethnal Green but that's about as close as we ever got. (I lost. They didn't.
While you’re entitled to your views, your stance does make you that.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/legislationandpolicy