The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
It’s the middle classes being hollowed out across the West, as large industry and manufacturing industries have largely moved to Asia, replaced by low-income warehouse and driving work.
One problem with replacing Westminster Palace, even temporarily, is that it is utterly enormous in terms of area 112,476 m2
Bucks Palace is 77,000, British Museum 99,000.
It's no Palace of the Parliament, Hofburg or Louvre but it is bigger than anywhere else in the UK.
Having said that do we need 112,476 m2 of floor space for parliament or could we get by with less.
Considering it is so vast, it is daft that not all MPs can get a seat when the Commons is full!
Churchill insisted on keeping that feature for extra edginess.
I've been, but I don't recall - it's just benches, isn't it? So pesumably the capacity varies with the mean girth of MPs? So if we elect a bunch of skinny whippets we can (partly at least) solve the problem?
Mind you, with some of the recent revelations. I can understand MPs wanting to keep their distance from some other MPs...
Although the skinniest whippet of the lot (JRM) defeats that by lounging full length.
The major reason that Westminster refurb is so expensive is that it is trying to repurpose a grandiose old building into a modern workplace - complete with IT, Security, AC, Fire supressant, etc - while working around its current inhabitants. Far better to relocate permanently to a modern purposebuilt complex (wherever) and to reinstate the core of Westminster as a tourist attraction. Should be massivley less costly.
That appears to have not been a question no-one has actually asked - but given the people running the project that's not surprising.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
Re the VONC, to be honest it’s a classic party politics game. If the Tories were doing it Labour supporters would moan about it, it’s the other way around so it’s vice-versa. Westminster fluff.
While there's been much focus on Kemi's views on wokeness and the trans issues, there's been less focus on her promise to abandon net zero, roll back the state, cut education expenditure and so on.
I can see her winning the Tory membership over. I'm less persuaded that abandoning net zero and rolling back the state so drastically will win over the typical floating voter.
I want the Tories removed a long long way from office. Whichever candidate they select as PM. But it is encouraging to think that people like Badenoch can actually be a serious contender for *the Tories*.
The threat to Labour is simple. She is far more confident, articulate and sane that so many of the various prominent BAME equivalents are in Labour. A black woman who is a successful migrant saying lets cut the crap and focus on people's priorities goes way beyond what Labour can offer.
And all that despite not ever having benefited from a single quota or "all-X" shortlist, eh?
That's not really true. She benefited from the Cameron era policy of boosting candidates from minority groups, a policy which was extremely successful incidentally even if attacked at the time by trad Tories.
Right, but that was much more about expanding the funnel into the pipeline rather than fiddling the pipeline itself, wasn't it?
It was effectively a quota.
You and I appear to have different understandings of the meaning of the word "quota".
Cameron said the candidate list should have a certain minimum number of people from various underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities. Requiring a set to have a minimum from a certain group sounds like a quota to me.
I'm really confused now. Badenoch wasn't on the A List and wasn't elected to parliament until two GEs later. So I'm not sure how you're claiming she benefited from a quota. (I also can't find a source for the A List having any quotas, but that's a separate issue.)
My apologies for not explaining all the steps of the thesis.
Cameron used effectively quotas to change the face of the party, as was his explicit intent. Cameron succeeded. He changed the sort of people who became Tory candidates. The point of affirmative action like that is that it changes expectations, so that future intakes are different without needing quotas.
Cameron changed the party. Many of the current leadership candidates directly benefited from that, being on the A list. Badenoch, shortly afterwards, benefited from a party having been changed by Cameron and his approach.
Right, so she never benefited from a quota. Glad that's been cleared up.
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
It’s the middle classes being hollowed out across the West, as large industry and manufacturing industries have largely moved to Asia, replaced by low-income warehouse and driving work.
Noticeable that two developed countries who have managed to do reasonably OK, Canada and Australia, are heavily reliant on primary industries. They've provided the raw materials for the Chinese boom.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
None of the leadership contenders seems to be talking about levelling up. Focus seems to be on shrinking the state, which helps London and the SE. Have the Tories given up on the Red Wall, or do they hope that going large on Chicks with Dicks will obscure the abandonment of levelling up as a policy objective?
That isn't going to work when I suspect the Labour manifesto will feature HS2E, NPR and quite possibly given the state of Parliament a plan to move Parliament to Manchester
* Can't really be Birmingham for reasons and as others have pointed out if you move it to a small place it will total dominate the town / city but would leave whole piles of things in London.
Why couldn't it be Birmingham ?
The romantic in me would like Colchester, York or Winchester but none of those will happen.
Too near London especially with HS2 - you would end up with Parliament in Birmingham and most things left where they were.
And the whole point of the change would be to change the focus of the country away from being London centric.
Am I missing something? Since when was it Labour policy to move parliament out of London? It’s a pretty extraordinary move
I didn't say it was policy - but given the state of Parliament it makes sense to firstly have a discussion about it and secondly whether there are votes in it.
And up North knocking London down a peg or 2 is probably worth a fair few votes.
The Palace of Westminster will need to be repaired whether or not it remains the home of Parliament.
A permanent move to another city doesn't take away the need to repair the existing buildings
Why would it need to be repaired if it's no longer home of Parliament.
But the cost of repairing an empty building is X or Y times cheaper than doing repairs when the building is being used.
Because it is a major historic landmark. It is iconic and an important part of our national heritage.
The idea of it being allowed to slowly disintegrate or even be demolished would be cultural vandalism
As Andrea Leadsome said in a recent article about the refurb (and she is in charge of it) “the Houses of Parliament is one of the most famous buildings in the world, like the Taj Mahal, it is also a World Heritage site, it belongs to humanity, but it is our job to look after it, however awkward”
Hard to argue with that
If you compile a list of the ten most iconic, instantly recognisable buildings in the world Westminster is on there
Rough list:
Pyramids Parthenon Tower of Pisa Taj Mahal Empire State Bldg Eiffel Tower Palace of Westminster Sydney Opera House Burj
Number ten can be disputed between Stonehenge, Statue of Liberty, The Pantheon, Hagia Sophia, Gobekli Tepe (should be top of the top ten really), Notre Dame, St Basil’s Cathedral, et al, depending on your definition of “building”
No Colloseum?!
Good one, yes. Clean forgot. That’s the tenth
The White House? I know it isn't exactly imposing, but still...
The White House isn't even in the top two most significant landmarks in its own country. Both the Statue of Liberty and Golden Gate Bridge are surely higher.
If we are going bridge then the Forth (Railway) Bridge or Sydney Harbour Bridge win that game, surely? The Golden Gate is hardly a unique structure.
I can understand not including the White House on architectural merit but it is at least instantly recognisable.
If nobody has to live in the building, then The Great Wall of China should should maybe get a mention too?
While there's been much focus on Kemi's views on wokeness and the trans issues, there's been less focus on her promise to abandon net zero, roll back the state, cut education expenditure and so on.
I can see her winning the Tory membership over. I'm less persuaded that abandoning net zero and rolling back the state so drastically will win over the typical floating voter.
I want the Tories removed a long long way from office. Whichever candidate they select as PM. But it is encouraging to think that people like Badenoch can actually be a serious contender for *the Tories*.
The threat to Labour is simple. She is far more confident, articulate and sane that so many of the various prominent BAME equivalents are in Labour. A black woman who is a successful migrant saying lets cut the crap and focus on people's priorities goes way beyond what Labour can offer.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
Um none of those things sound like things we care about up North - I've been to Stoke and well um.....
But it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bakerloo line closed down - it desperately needs new trains and a refurbishment.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
None of the leadership contenders seems to be talking about levelling up. Focus seems to be on shrinking the state, which helps London and the SE. Have the Tories given up on the Red Wall, or do they hope that going large on Chicks with Dicks will obscure the abandonment of levelling up as a policy objective?
That isn't going to work when I suspect the Labour manifesto will feature HS2E, NPR and quite possibly given the state of Parliament a plan to move Parliament to Manchester
* Can't really be Birmingham for reasons and as others have pointed out if you move it to a small place it will total dominate the town / city but would leave whole piles of things in London.
The choice of re-location should be determined by number and standing of Premier league soccer clubs.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
I do feel that PB has an unhealthy skew towards retired, dessicated Tories living in unprepossessing bungalows.
***** a_disappointed_vole , 27/06/2022 Better than religion This app filled a void in my life that I never even knew was there, and now I don’t know if I can go back. It’s a terrible burden to bear. The love of Matt Hancock is a dangerous drug. It makes you feel like the king of the world can lick your boots, like you could wrestle a gorilla and throw him to Portugal once you’re done with him.
But once you’ve felt it, living without it is like watching William Burroughs threatening God with a shotgun while you lick broken glass off the rails of the Berlin U-Bahn. Get this app. But only if you’re prepared to submit not just to the terms and conditions, but to a new life.
Welcome to the Matt Hancock app. No, this is not your first day.
Nicola Sturgeon’s request for the UK’s highest court to give her clarity on the legality of her planned Scottish independence referendum should be rejected, the UK Government has said.
In its initial submission to the Supreme Court, which has been asked to decide the issue, its lawyers argue that the case should be thrown out as premature.
They believe that the decision on the legality of the proposed legislation cannot be made until after it is introduced, scrutinised and passed at Holyrood.
What has the UK government got to fear? Let the legal experts clear that one up seems okay, it will likely take them best part of 15 years.
I raised this at the time she said she was doing this. In the case about the UN Convention on the rights of the Child the SC unanimously explained the procedure set out in the Scotland Act. There are a number of sequential safeguards. The first of these is that the bill should be signed off by the law officers. The Lord Advocate has refused to do that. The second is that it is put before the Presiding Officer who is supposed to certify it as competent. This has not been done. Thirdly, the bill is scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament. That may, of course, change its nature. Finally, once there is a determined bill, the matter may be remitted to the SC for a ruling.
Nicola has tried to short circuit this because her own Lord Advocate has reservations as to its competency. That would not be in accordance with the Act. Courts generally refuse to answer hypothetical questions. We do not know what the final version of this bill will look like. I suspect the SC will refuse to give a ruling at this stage.
I think I understand know, but please correct me if I havn’t caught up, she is asking the top courts for a sort of blank cheque that gazumps attacks from others, but top courts don’t give blank cheques - you have to abide by a more fuller process to get something in writing from them?
Indeed she is. By referring the matter herself at this point she is stopping others from referring it later and her losing at that stage. It's clever but not in accordance with the Act.
That means you have explained it well to me then David if I understood ok. I was out of school the week they done law. In that case then I completely changed my view on it from first post - it probably took UK government all this time to respond because they were too busy laughing at the doomed cheek of it. 🤭
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
Um none of those things sound like things we care about up North - I've been to Stoke and well um.....
But it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bakerloo line closed down - it desperately needs new trains and a refurbishment.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Mordaunt needs to cut some deals if she’s going to leapfrog Truss. Basically she’s got to prevent her hoovering up the Zahawi, Suella, Priti and Badenoch backers.
***** a_disappointed_vole , 27/06/2022 Better than religion This app filled a void in my life that I never even knew was there, and now I don’t know if I can go back. It’s a terrible burden to bear. The love of Matt Hancock is a dangerous drug. It makes you feel like the king of the world can lick your boots, like you could wrestle a gorilla and throw him to Portugal once you’re done with him.
But once you’ve felt it, living without it is like watching William Burroughs threatening God with a shotgun while you lick broken glass off the rails of the Berlin U-Bahn. Get this app. But only if you’re prepared to submit not just to the terms and conditions, but to a new life.
Welcome to the Matt Hancock app. No, this is not your first day.
Opinium has a poll apparently, not a survey, showing Sunak beating both Truss and Mordaunt with the membership. But only just. By 4 and 7 points respectively with 20% don't knows. Underrating his chances I feel.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Mordaunt needs to cut some deals if she’s going to leapfrog Truss. Basically she’s got to prevent her hoovering up the Zahawi, Suella, Priti and Badenoch backers.
Yes, she needs one of them - or perhaps even Tom - to pull out and support her.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
One problem with replacing Westminster Palace, even temporarily, is that it is utterly enormous in terms of area 112,476 m2
Bucks Palace is 77,000, British Museum 99,000.
It's no Palace of the Parliament, Hofburg or Louvre but it is bigger than anywhere else in the UK.
Having said that do we need 112,476 m2 of floor space for parliament or could we get by with less.
Considering it is so vast, it is daft that not all MPs can get a seat when the Commons is full!
Churchill insisted on keeping that feature for extra edginess.
I've been, but I don't recall - it's just benches, isn't it? So pesumably the capacity varies with the mean girth of MPs? So if we elect a bunch of skinny whippets we can (partly at least) solve the problem?
Mind you, with some of the recent revelations. I can understand MPs wanting to keep their distance from some other MPs...
Some of the Victorian MPs were pretty porky. But IIRC it was a problem even in 1945 after rationing etc. Churchill made the positive decision not to remedy it.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
Um none of those things sound like things we care about up North - I've been to Stoke and well um.....
But it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bakerloo line closed down - it desperately needs new trains and a refurbishment.
They really need to close vast swathes of the Underground, one line at a time, for extensive refurbishment. Which really means re-boring the tunnels, making platforms straight and with edge doors. It’s a monumental undertaking, but will likely be cheaper in the long term than continuing to plug the leaks.
None of the leadership contenders seems to be talking about levelling up. Focus seems to be on shrinking the state, which helps London and the SE. Have the Tories given up on the Red Wall, or do they hope that going large on Chicks with Dicks will obscure the abandonment of levelling up as a policy objective?
That isn't going to work when I suspect the Labour manifesto will feature HS2E, NPR and quite possibly given the state of Parliament a plan to move Parliament to Manchester
* Can't really be Birmingham for reasons and as others have pointed out if you move it to a small place it will total dominate the town / city but would leave whole piles of things in London.
Why couldn't it be Birmingham ?
The romantic in me would like Colchester, York or Winchester but none of those will happen.
Or Northampton.
Colchester, York and Winchester are all fine. They don't need the extra pressure. And while I'll always bang the gong for Manchester, it's doing ok, and house prices are already too high. Manchester's doing fine; as is Birmnigham (though both have old industrial areas close to the city centre ripe for redevelopment).
But I think we need somewhere which is central, accessible, and which would benefit from the investment.
Stoke.
My other alternative is Coventry. I suggested this to a senior civil servant a few years back, who almost cried at the suggestion. But five minutes later she was bemoaning that a senior civil servant can afford nothing better in London than a 2 bed flat in Streatham, and she took my point when I pointed out the connection. She did, however, bargain for Birmingham rather than Cov.
Why can't Parliament tour around the country while they do the renovations? 6 months in each city.
The European Parliament travelling to Strasbourg for one week a month costs Brussels £100m a year or thereabouts, which is essentially a payment to fund French vanity in exchange for not throwing tantrums.
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We lost our nerve and stopped believing that a better future was possible. Brexit was borne of such a defeatist mindset, that we couldn't argue our case in Europe, but had to retreat. With such a pessimistic attitude you don't get business investment for the future, you see businesses sweating their existing assets for short-term returns - because who knows how bad things will be in a few years time? This is also why existing homeowners are so determined to defend the value of their houses. With no confidence in the future they are desperate to defend what they have.
Hoping for a Kemi vs Rishi final two. Think Kemi would win it too, her message is very much back to basics against Rishi who now seems to want to fence sit as badly as Starmer.
She has more ministerial experience than either Cameron or Blair had when they became PM. She is slightly younger than Cameron was and a bit younger than Blair.
Is it because she’s a woman she’s “inexperienced”, or because she isn’t Public School / Oxford educated?
That's extremely misleading. Cameron didn't have ministerial experience, of course, but he had (with Osborne) oodles of experience at the centre of events as a SPAD, and he had five years of LOTO experience before becoming PM. He'd also surrounded himself with an excellent team which spent a lot of effort learning about how to do government. He was extremely well prepared for office, as was Blair, who also spent his time as a shadow minister and then LOTO very wisely.
That's completely different from being catapulted into the PM position from a minor role whilst the party is in government.
A lot would depend on her team and her attitude to it. A return to cabinet government is long overdue in my opinion. Decline then almost dead by end of New Labour. The a few slight resuscitations and relapses with no vital signs at a all under Johnson.
Very hard to build up an effective team when three quarters of those in it think they should be leader instead of you, and the other quarter think someone else should be.
True bit isn't that true of all governments at all times?
Yes, but it is much reduced if the leader has a serious track record, rather than being a Kemi-come-lately.
So you want a leader with the experience of managing a major department in the stellar Johnson administration. “Time for a change” is out then, more “Steady as she goes” and “Building on Success” (sic)?
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
There's a surprising amount of pb consensus over orders of preference from people who normally disagree.
She has more ministerial experience than either Cameron or Blair had when they became PM. She is slightly younger than Cameron was and a bit younger than Blair.
Is it because she’s a woman she’s “inexperienced”, or because she isn’t Public School / Oxford educated?
That's extremely misleading. Cameron didn't have ministerial experience, of course, but he had (with Osborne) oodles of experience at the centre of events as a SPAD, and he had five years of LOTO experience before becoming PM. He'd also surrounded himself with an excellent team which spent a lot of effort learning about how to do government. He was extremely well prepared for office, as was Blair, who also spent his time as a shadow minister and then LOTO very wisely.
That's completely different from being catapulted into the PM position from a minor role whilst the party is in government.
A lot would depend on her team and her attitude to it. A return to cabinet government is long overdue in my opinion. Decline then almost dead by end of New Labour. The a few slight resuscitations and relapses with no vital signs at a all under Johnson.
Very hard to build up an effective team when three quarters of those in it think they should be leader instead of you, and the other quarter think someone else should be.
True bit isn't that true of all governments at all times?
Yes, but it is much reduced if the leader has a serious track record, rather than being a Kemi-come-lately.
So you want a leader with the experience of managing a major department in the stellar Johnson administration. “Time for a change” is out then, more “Steady as she goes” and “Building on Success” (sic)?
Yeah, well, if the party had listened to me they wouldn't be starting from here. There are no good options.
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England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
Yes, there was a fake IPL match in India, purely to attract bets which were never paid out afterwards. Perhaps today’s most bizzare news story.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Truss would be a continuation of the same polarisation against the evil Brexit Tory Scum.
Sunak would be a return of the old polarisation against the evil Rich Tory Scum.
With Mordaunt, there would be an element of the former, but she's less obviously a Tory stereotype.
Badenoch would completely wrong-foot the opposition and might force the conversation to be about ideas.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
There's a surprising amount of pb consensus over orders of preference from people who normally disagree.
Is there anyone here who actually supports Rishi, except as a means to avoid Truss?
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
I do feel that PB has an unhealthy skew towards retired, dessicated Tories living in unprepossessing bungalows.
Sounds like a proposal that would get Tories lots of votes from Generation Rent.
And imagine all those self-satisfied property speculators who would be a bit poorer.
Suburban Leicester and similar are on the up; we are now 30 years into the National Forest.
The Palace of Westminster is ugly as feck. Knock it down and build some trendy apartments by the river. With the proceeds we can build a new purpose-built facility up north.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
Rishi vs Liz would be a predicable but depressing final 2.
It is by far the most likely outcome right now.
I hope the membership get one senior cabinet figure and one new broom, so that they actually have a choice of someone not particularly close to Boris’ government.
She has more ministerial experience than either Cameron or Blair had when they became PM. She is slightly younger than Cameron was and a bit younger than Blair.
Is it because she’s a woman she’s “inexperienced”, or because she isn’t Public School / Oxford educated?
That's extremely misleading. Cameron didn't have ministerial experience, of course, but he had (with Osborne) oodles of experience at the centre of events as a SPAD, and he had five years of LOTO experience before becoming PM. He'd also surrounded himself with an excellent team which spent a lot of effort learning about how to do government. He was extremely well prepared for office, as was Blair, who also spent his time as a shadow minister and then LOTO very wisely.
That's completely different from being catapulted into the PM position from a minor role whilst the party is in government.
A lot would depend on her team and her attitude to it. A return to cabinet government is long overdue in my opinion. Decline then almost dead by end of New Labour. The a few slight resuscitations and relapses with no vital signs at a all under Johnson.
Very hard to build up an effective team when three quarters of those in it think they should be leader instead of you, and the other quarter think someone else should be.
True bit isn't that true of all governments at all times?
Yes, but it is much reduced if the leader has a serious track record, rather than being a Kemi-come-lately.
So you want a leader with the experience of managing a major department in the stellar Johnson administration. “Time for a change” is out then, more “Steady as she goes” and “Building on Success” (sic)?
Starmer has been successful as an anti-Corbyn leader, despite a central role in Corbyn's shadow cabinet. Likewise, I think Sunak or others may be successful as anti-Johnson leaders despite their prior roles. (Truss, however, probably wants to court the Borisites.)
Any candidate with over 20 MPs support will be grilled on their approach to the culture wars including controversial statues and British history by the Common Sense Group of Tory MPs
She has more ministerial experience than either Cameron or Blair had when they became PM. She is slightly younger than Cameron was and a bit younger than Blair.
Is it because she’s a woman she’s “inexperienced”, or because she isn’t Public School / Oxford educated?
That's extremely misleading. Cameron didn't have ministerial experience, of course, but he had (with Osborne) oodles of experience at the centre of events as a SPAD, and he had five years of LOTO experience before becoming PM. He'd also surrounded himself with an excellent team which spent a lot of effort learning about how to do government. He was extremely well prepared for office, as was Blair, who also spent his time as a shadow minister and then LOTO very wisely.
That's completely different from being catapulted into the PM position from a minor role whilst the party is in government.
A lot would depend on her team and her attitude to it. A return to cabinet government is long overdue in my opinion. Decline then almost dead by end of New Labour. The a few slight resuscitations and relapses with no vital signs at a all under Johnson.
Very hard to build up an effective team when three quarters of those in it think they should be leader instead of you, and the other quarter think someone else should be.
True bit isn't that true of all governments at all times?
Yes, but it is much reduced if the leader has a serious track record, rather than being a Kemi-come-lately.
So you want a leader with the experience of managing a major department in the stellar Johnson administration. “Time for a change” is out then, more “Steady as she goes” and “Building on Success” (sic)?
Yeah, well, if the party had listened to me they wouldn't be starting from here. There are no good options.
I think Kemi is a good option, would be a big risk. Sometimes you do just have to take a punt though.
To my mind Rishi probably scrapes 315-330 seats just by not being completely dishonest and a mega dick bag. Kemi could get anywhere from 250 seats (failure to launch, badly out of her depth) to 370 seats (public ready for radical change in the Tory party and she's able to leave the stink of Boris behind on day 1).
The Palace of Westminster is ugly as feck. Knock it down and build some trendy apartments by the river. With the proceeds we can build a new purpose-built facility up north.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
Um none of those things sound like things we care about up North - I've been to Stoke and well um.....
But it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bakerloo line closed down - it desperately needs new trains and a refurbishment.
It needs extending to Lewisham.
It needs extending to Manchester, Leeds, Wigan and Scotland, and all the London stations north of Paddington closed down. And being renamed 'HS2'.
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
It’s the middle classes being hollowed out across the West, as large industry and manufacturing industries have largely moved to Asia, replaced by low-income warehouse and driving work.
Entirely self inflicted too.
The factories didn't fly to the East, they were built there. Western capitalists gifted the legacy of generations of workers to the CCP.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
I do feel that PB has an unhealthy skew towards retired, dessicated Tories living in unprepossessing bungalows.
Sounds like a proposal that would get Tories lots of votes from Generation Rent.
Suburban Leicester and similar are on the up; we are now 30 years into the National Forest.
I’m a big fan of the National Forest, tho I wish it had a better name.
We need something similar east of Nottingham, too, and - as I’ve suggested on here in the past, expand Epping Forest and connect it to the heart of East London.
While there's been much focus on Kemi's views on wokeness and the trans issues, there's been less focus on her promise to abandon net zero, roll back the state, cut education expenditure and so on.
I can see her winning the Tory membership over. I'm less persuaded that abandoning net zero and rolling back the state so drastically will win over the typical floating voter.
I am completely unpersuaded that someone with so little senior ministerial experience will win. She stood in order to get a Cabinet post, not to win. It will be easy for a Sunak or a Truss to say, "The UK is facing many big challenges, you need someone with experience."
If the Right want a better candidate than Truss (and Truss seems terrible to me), then I suggest they work out who it is quickly, but they pick someone a bit more senior!
Not convincing.
So Rishi, how did you fix it whilst gaining your experience?
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
There's a surprising amount of pb consensus over orders of preference from people who normally disagree.
Is there anyone here who actually supports Rishi, except as a means to avoid Truss?
Yes, I think I qualify. I just want some sensible government between now and the election, and RS clears that fairly low bar.
TT would be my preference but he's far too sensible to appeal to the Party, and fails on other counts too. Glad to see him having a decent run though.
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
It’s the middle classes being hollowed out across the West, as large industry and manufacturing industries have largely moved to Asia, replaced by low-income warehouse and driving work.
What I find fascinating is the reaction of a range of people to the idea of having industries based in the UK.
A considerable chunk of the progressive types have absorbed the idea that you can't compete on price with "PhDs for $1 a week in China". Despite the fact that there is a small thing called productivity to consider. And you can get someone with a PhD to work for you in China for a dollar a week, either.
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
Yes, there was a fake IPL match in India, purely to attract bets which were never paid out afterwards. Perhaps today’s most bizzare news story.
Hold my beer ... I was juyst looking at this one. Apparently rehab centres for treating addiction to crypto are a thing. Complete with tasteful photos of walkies in the local Borders scenery.
'In May, jobless and broke, Roy checked into Castle Craig, one of the only centres in the world that treats cryptocurrency addiction. (He lost his job when he relapsed; his rehab fees are covered by medical insurance.) His cryptocurrency portfolio is worth about €300. Now, amid the incongruous grandeur of a Scottish stately home, he is attempting to rebuild his life – and quieten the tormenting thought that he should have pulled out his money when he had the chance.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Roy says, softly. “I hate myself for the fact that I didn’t take it out.”'
While there's been much focus on Kemi's views on wokeness and the trans issues, there's been less focus on her promise to abandon net zero, roll back the state, cut education expenditure and so on.
I can see her winning the Tory membership over. I'm less persuaded that abandoning net zero and rolling back the state so drastically will win over the typical floating voter.
I am completely unpersuaded that someone with so little senior ministerial experience will win. She stood in order to get a Cabinet post, not to win. It will be easy for a Sunak or a Truss to say, "The UK is facing many big challenges, you need someone with experience."
If the Right want a better candidate than Truss (and Truss seems terrible to me), then I suggest they work out who it is quickly, but they pick someone a bit more senior!
There is another important consideration that points towards the need to go with experience. Boris Johnson will be hovering in the wings, waiting for his successor to screw up and offer him a path back to power. Going with someone with limited experience in a big job would carry a huge risk of allowing Johnson back in.
Nah, he’s lazier than Trump, more discredited than Trump, and doesn’t start with the following. Brits are too busy doing the garden, tending the BBQ and waiting for the kettle to boil to bother going off to storm Parliament to restore that fat lying slob to his undeserved throne.
Liz Truss was the most supportive cabinet minister in helping me get Brexit opportunities, she is the right choice for the party and the country @trussliz #LizForLeader
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
Rishi vs Liz would be a predicable but depressing final 2.
It is by far the most likely outcome right now.
I hope the membership get one senior cabinet figure and one new broom, so that they actually have a choice of someone not particularly close to Boris’ government.
Can you expand on what you mean by a new broom? We've got candidates who are "old", long-standing, but who are "broom", aggressively anti-BJ, like Hunt. We've got candidates who are "new", like Badenoch, but whose right-wing populism is ideologically something of a continuation of the departing regime, so she's not very "broom".
Truss is old and not-broom. It seems to me that Mordaunt is relatively new and relatively broom, although she's trying to court both sides. Tugendhat is new broom, if he looks and sounds more old-fashioned... maybe he's new feather duster...
Starting today, 1 February, there is an exciting new development in the world of digital communications – the Matt Hancock app. I am the first MP to have my own app and it is a big step forward in the way MPs are able to communicate with their constituents.
On the app, you will be able to get updates from me on all the news and issues going on in West Suffolk. But the most exciting part of the app is through the Have Your Say section. There, you can contact me, as well as getting in touch with other app users in the community. I want to hear about the issues that are most important to you.
Download the Matt Hancock MP app
This free app is launched today and is available for both iOS/Android devices by searching “Matt Hancock MP” in Apple’s App store or in the Google Play store. I hope you will download it today.
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
It’s the middle classes being hollowed out across the West, as large industry and manufacturing industries have largely moved to Asia, replaced by low-income warehouse and driving work.
Noticeable that two developed countries who have managed to do reasonably OK, Canada and Australia, are heavily reliant on primary industries. They've provided the raw materials for the Chinese boom.
Italy has done notably badly since 2000.
The USA is strange in that while GDP her head has risen quite strongly, median incomes have hardly budged in thirty year.
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
In a counterfactual based on PBer Northerners' bizarre fantasies, a four-bed victorian terrace in SW18 costs £300,000, the Bakerloo line has been permanently closed, suburban Leicester is the most desirable place to live in Britain, restaurants charging more than £40/head have been forcibly shut down, and Stoke is the capital of the UK.
I do feel that PB has an unhealthy skew towards retired, dessicated Tories living in unprepossessing bungalows.
Sounds like a proposal that would get Tories lots of votes from Generation Rent.
Suburban Leicester and similar are on the up; we are now 30 years into the National Forest.
I’m a big fan of the National Forest, tho I wish it had a better name.
We need something similar east of Nottingham, too, and - as I’ve suggested on here in the past, expand Epping Forest and connect it to the heart of East London.
"we need something similar east of Nottingham" - I thought you were in New York? That's a long way east of Nottingham.
I rather like the countryside East of Nottingham as it is, but some creative thinking could make it more recreation-freindly. I very much like your Epping Forest suggestion. I have had similar thoughts about whether Delamere Forest in Cheshire might be expanded. There is a role in Britain for areas akin to mini-National Parks like these.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Truss would be a continuation of the same polarisation against the evil Brexit Tory Scum.
Sunak would be a return of the old polarisation against the evil Rich Tory Scum.
With Mordaunt, there would be an element of the former, but she's less obviously a Tory stereotype.
Badenoch would completely wrong-foot the opposition and might force the conversation to be about ideas.
The problem with Rishi is not that he’s rich - it’s that he’s rich beyond measure and seems totally divorced from everyday existence.
It’s governance from Davos.
Secondly, his tax / immigration history suggest that his commitment to the country is superficial.
Third, he is a fence-sitter (as @MaxPB notes above). I agree that unfunded tax cuts are mad, but Rishi pretty much doesn’t want to do anything. He killed both the tax cuts promised in the Tory manifesto, but he also killed the levelling up policy. There’s nothing there!
Finally, he has had an extremely easy ride from the media to date. On the odd occasion he has been challenged, he has turned defensive and nasty.
Opinium has a poll apparently, not a survey, showing Sunak beating both Truss and Mordaunt with the membership. But only just. By 4 and 7 points respectively with 20% don't knows. Underrating his chances I feel.
I'd love to know how Opinium works out how to conduct a poll of Tory members.
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
Yes, there was a fake IPL match in India, purely to attract bets which were never paid out afterwards. Perhaps today’s most bizzare news story.
Hold my beer ... I was juyst looking at this one. Apparently rehab centres for treating addiction to crypto are a thing. Complete with tasteful photos of walkies in the local Borders scenery.
'In May, jobless and broke, Roy checked into Castle Craig, one of the only centres in the world that treats cryptocurrency addiction. (He lost his job when he relapsed; his rehab fees are covered by medical insurance.) His cryptocurrency portfolio is worth about €300. Now, amid the incongruous grandeur of a Scottish stately home, he is attempting to rebuild his life – and quieten the tormenting thought that he should have pulled out his money when he had the chance.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Roy says, softly. “I hate myself for the fact that I didn’t take it out.”'
Addiction to crypto - or, rather, addiction to the dopamine rollercoaster of crypto trading, is most definitely a thing
I know two people who have it, and one relationship nearly broken by it
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
Yes, there was a fake IPL match in India, purely to attract bets which were never paid out afterwards. Perhaps today’s most bizzare news story.
Hold my beer ... I was juyst looking at this one. Apparently rehab centres for treating addiction to crypto are a thing. Complete with tasteful photos of walkies in the local Borders scenery.
'In May, jobless and broke, Roy checked into Castle Craig, one of the only centres in the world that treats cryptocurrency addiction. (He lost his job when he relapsed; his rehab fees are covered by medical insurance.) His cryptocurrency portfolio is worth about €300. Now, amid the incongruous grandeur of a Scottish stately home, he is attempting to rebuild his life – and quieten the tormenting thought that he should have pulled out his money when he had the chance.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Roy says, softly. “I hate myself for the fact that I didn’t take it out.”'
In what sense are crypto losers addicted, rather than just investors who did not get out in time?
Any candidate with over 20 MPs support will be grilled on their approach to the culture wars including controversial statues and British history by the Common Sense Group of Tory MPs
I have no idea who the members of the Common Sense Group are but I deduce from their name alone that every last one of them is a fool.
My risk taking gene says Badenoch. The country needs a complete post-Brexit reset; fuck it, do it
Agree with you entirely. Is TT still around? I can't work out where he comes in my list. All I know is that it's ahead of Truss.
And I should stress, I quite like Liz Truss. I don't share the derision of others on here about her, and I've a small bet on her to win. But it's all about the presentation, the ability to speak, to connect - it's just not what I'd like it to be.
While there's been much focus on Kemi's views on wokeness and the trans issues, there's been less focus on her promise to abandon net zero, roll back the state, cut education expenditure and so on.
I can see her winning the Tory membership over. I'm less persuaded that abandoning net zero and rolling back the state so drastically will win over the typical floating voter.
I am completely unpersuaded that someone with so little senior ministerial experience will win. She stood in order to get a Cabinet post, not to win. It will be easy for a Sunak or a Truss to say, "The UK is facing many big challenges, you need someone with experience."
If the Right want a better candidate than Truss (and Truss seems terrible to me), then I suggest they work out who it is quickly, but they pick someone a bit more senior!
Not convincing.
So Rishi, how did you fix it whilst gaining your experience?
He takes credit for everything that went well and blames everything that went badly on Johnson and the rest of the Cabinet.
How convincing you find that... I personally don't think much of Sunak... but Starmer after Corbyn, Brown after Blair... Sturgeon after Salmond?... it's common for new leaders to have been close to the old leadership but to present themselves as a change, to present themselves as experienced yet held back by the old boss.
While there's been much focus on Kemi's views on wokeness and the trans issues, there's been less focus on her promise to abandon net zero, roll back the state, cut education expenditure and so on.
I can see her winning the Tory membership over. I'm less persuaded that abandoning net zero and rolling back the state so drastically will win over the typical floating voter.
I am completely unpersuaded that someone with so little senior ministerial experience will win. She stood in order to get a Cabinet post, not to win. It will be easy for a Sunak or a Truss to say, "The UK is facing many big challenges, you need someone with experience."
If the Right want a better candidate than Truss (and Truss seems terrible to me), then I suggest they work out who it is quickly, but they pick someone a bit more senior!
There is another important consideration that points towards the need to go with experience. Boris Johnson will be hovering in the wings, waiting for his successor to screw up and offer him a path back to power. Going with someone with limited experience in a big job would carry a huge risk of allowing Johnson back in.
Nah, he’s lazier than Trump, more discredited than Trump, and doesn’t start with the following. Brits are too busy doing the garden, tending the BBQ and waiting for the kettle to boil to bother going off to storm Parliament to restore that fat lying slob to his undeserved throne.
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
Yes, there was a fake IPL match in India, purely to attract bets which were never paid out afterwards. Perhaps today’s most bizzare news story.
Hold my beer ... I was juyst looking at this one. Apparently rehab centres for treating addiction to crypto are a thing. Complete with tasteful photos of walkies in the local Borders scenery.
'In May, jobless and broke, Roy checked into Castle Craig, one of the only centres in the world that treats cryptocurrency addiction. (He lost his job when he relapsed; his rehab fees are covered by medical insurance.) His cryptocurrency portfolio is worth about €300. Now, amid the incongruous grandeur of a Scottish stately home, he is attempting to rebuild his life – and quieten the tormenting thought that he should have pulled out his money when he had the chance.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Roy says, softly. “I hate myself for the fact that I didn’t take it out.”'
In what sense are crypto losers addicted, rather than just investors who did not get out in time?
Anyone know what this VONC tomorrow is supposed to achieve?
Labour are looking pretty good at the moment looking on high at this Tory fiasco. Why would they want to become embroiled without any obvious end goal?
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
It’s the middle classes being hollowed out across the West, as large industry and manufacturing industries have largely moved to Asia, replaced by low-income warehouse and driving work.
Noticeable that two developed countries who have managed to do reasonably OK, Canada and Australia, are heavily reliant on primary industries. They've provided the raw materials for the Chinese boom.
Italy has done notably badly since 2000.
The USA is strange in that while GDP her head has risen quite strongly, median incomes have hardly budged in thirty year.
The US isn't strange. The US is a lesson in the dangers of unchecked capitalism.
The formerly normal aspiration to settle and start a family is out of reach for swathes of young people. A fundamental compact between conservative principles, and the party that is supposed to represent them, has been broken.
Britain tends to think of itself as an equal partner to countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany in terms of incomes and living standards. This is a collective fantasy, which hasn’t been true for well over a decade. The reality shouldn’t be shocking, yet it remains so: Britain’s incomes and living standards have fallen far behind what were its peer nations only 15 years ago. “Across European countries, only households in Greece and Cyprus saw a worse performance between 2007 and 2018 than the UK,” found the Resolution Foundation.
Because the reality is that Britain’s national religion is no longer Anglican Christianity. It isn’t even the NHS. It is Pensionerism. Britain is a care home with a navy.
Yet all attempts to reform this growth-killing inequity end in failure, such is the strength of the homeowner-pensioner lobby.
Without Brexit to focus on, the Government has lost its sense of purpose. The next leader must be a strategist, cerebral, and yet still a salesman. Someone who recognises that there’s more to winning than winning itself, and declinist managerialism — that a far greater prize is changing peoples’ lives and your country, for the better.
There’s a similar article in the FT: the new decline of Britain
The graphs are quite shocking in how UK median income is falling behind, even as we do OK-ish on GDP per capita (suggesting rising inequality)
Moreover, the turning point in all the graphs is the Great Financial Crisis, not Brexit. Up to 2008 the UK was steaming ahead and even overtaking all west European peers, in 2008 we stumbled and fell, and have never recovered
Something happened in 2008. The easy answer is we borrowed too much and when credit was squeezed, ouch. But that is true of many countries. What was particular to Britain that changed in 2008?
We didn't have a proper crash in house prices but instead Brown/Darling and then Cameron/Osborne propped up the market with ever more schemes to increase lending.
It's more that our financial services industry was proportionately far bigger than anyone else's and produced a much greater proportion of government funds by way of tax. We lost huge numbers of really well paid jobs and we have not replaced them which has driven median income down in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. Those who have remained in work have done ok but the loss of the cream at the top has driven down the averages.
It is also, possibly, a wider secular trend in the West that is slowly spreading
The rot started in the USA where median incomes have been treading water for ages - hence Trump. Then Britain fell into the trap. Hence Brexit. France looks like it is following, as income stagnates…
And so on
The theory that the fall of communism removed the threat of ‘the workers’ turning toward an alternative economic model and hence removed the imperative for western governments to ensure that the benefits of capitalist growth were spread reasonably fairly remains persuasive, even though there isn’t much empirical evidence to support it.
England haven't even used up half their overs yet. Unreal.
This is an actual cricket match, or it’s a bunch of hired actors pretending to play, in order to attract dodgy Russian betting money?
Not sure. I heard yesterday on the commentary of the women's game that Russian gamblers had been conned into betting on a non existent IPL match where every time the ball left the limited screen the umpire indicated 4 or 6. It's maybe a bit like that.
Yes, there was a fake IPL match in India, purely to attract bets which were never paid out afterwards. Perhaps today’s most bizzare news story.
Hold my beer ... I was juyst looking at this one. Apparently rehab centres for treating addiction to crypto are a thing. Complete with tasteful photos of walkies in the local Borders scenery.
'In May, jobless and broke, Roy checked into Castle Craig, one of the only centres in the world that treats cryptocurrency addiction. (He lost his job when he relapsed; his rehab fees are covered by medical insurance.) His cryptocurrency portfolio is worth about €300. Now, amid the incongruous grandeur of a Scottish stately home, he is attempting to rebuild his life – and quieten the tormenting thought that he should have pulled out his money when he had the chance.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Roy says, softly. “I hate myself for the fact that I didn’t take it out.”'
In what sense are crypto losers addicted, rather than just investors who did not get out in time?
The excitement? Buying and selling? I dunno. Not like me - put money in a unit trust and leave it etc. But Leon confirms it is a Thing. Personally, if I wanted cheap thrills, I'd rather go and have a walk along the Tweed and a few pints in the pubs in Peebles.
I feel a Rishi v Truss contest is looking depressingly more likely.
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
I think Mordaunt can overtake Truss and perhaps also Badenoch — (overtake Truss).
Me too, but I just fear it’s less likely than it was looking yesterday.
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
Agree. The other two (confess I like neither) will always to open to the question about why they continued to prop up the worst PM of all time.
There's a surprising amount of pb consensus over orders of preference from people who normally disagree.
Is there anyone here who actually supports Rishi, except as a means to avoid Truss?
Yes, I think I qualify. I just want some sensible government between now and the election, and RS clears that fairly low bar.
TT would be my preference but he's far too sensible to appeal to the Party, and fails on other counts too. Glad to see him having a decent run though.
Fair enough. I can see the 'sensible' argument given what we've had but that also seems a bit 'managed decline' to me.
He also sounds too much like a conglomerate of Ed Miliband and George Osborne.
The smart thing for Kemi Badenoch to do now would be to move very slightly to the left. She's got the right-wing vote sewn up already. Patel and Braverman's votes will mostly go her way regardless.
Anyone know what this VONC tomorrow is supposed to achieve?
Labour are looking pretty good at the moment looking on high at this Tory fiasco. Why would they want to become embroiled without any obvious end goal?
Political grandstanding, keeping the pressure on and showing their voter base that they are holding the government to account.
Waste of time really but political parties do stuff like this.
Comments
Though they don't need 'allowing' to do that.
Per BBC, re Hancock’s endorsement of Rishi:
The Tory MP chose to make the announcement on his own Matt Hancock app,
There is a Matt Hancock App. Let that sink in,
They've provided the raw materials for the Chinese boom.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/matt-hancock-mp/id1318303651
I tipped Mordaunt. She needs to pick up more of the ERG and perhaps continuity Boris vote.
Labour will want Truss, followed by Rishi, followed by Mordaunt. Badenoch impossible to judge; she could - like Boris - attract public support from unlikely places.
But it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bakerloo line closed down - it desperately needs new trains and a refurbishment.
*****
a_disappointed_vole
,
27/06/2022
Better than religion
This app filled a void in my life that I never even knew was there, and now I don’t know if I can go back. It’s a terrible burden to bear. The love of Matt Hancock is a dangerous drug. It makes you feel like the king of the world can lick your boots, like you could wrestle a gorilla and throw him to Portugal once you’re done with him.
But once you’ve felt it, living without it is like watching William Burroughs threatening God with a shotgun while you lick broken glass off the rails of the Berlin U-Bahn. Get this app. But only if you’re prepared to submit not just to the terms and conditions, but to a new life.
Welcome to the Matt Hancock app. No, this is not your first day.
In that case then I completely changed my view on it from first post - it probably took UK government all this time to respond because they were too busy laughing at the doomed cheek of it. 🤭
Still a work in progress 67%
Done and behind us 21%
69% of 2019 Conservative voters say work in progress.
Starmer has played this pitch perfect
I genuinely think Mordaunt and perhaps even Badenoch would be better for the country than Rishi or Truss.
But only just.
By 4 and 7 points respectively with 20% don't knows.
Underrating his chances I feel.
It was an honour to hand in @TomTugendhat’s nomination papers to @SirGrahamBrady and the officers of the 1922.
Tom is now the first candidate to be duly nominated. #ACleanStart
I hope that doesn’t include CCTV…
It wouldn't really work here imo.
Her failure on channel crossings probably did for her leadership ambitions.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/11/conmen-set-fake-indian-premier-league-tournament-make-thousands/
Sunak would be a return of the old polarisation against the evil Rich Tory Scum.
With Mordaunt, there would be an element of the former, but she's less obviously a Tory stereotype.
Badenoch would completely wrong-foot the opposition and might force the conversation to be about ideas.
And imagine all those self-satisfied property speculators who would be a bit poorer.
Suburban Leicester and similar are on the up; we are now 30 years into the National Forest.
Interesting that she hasn't publicly endorsed. She's a wily one for sure.
It is by far the most likely outcome right now.
I hope the membership get one senior cabinet figure and one new broom, so that they actually have a choice of someone not particularly close to Boris’ government.
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1546823188012744706
First all MP Tory leadership hustings is **tonight**.
Any candidate with over 20 MPs support will be grilled on their approach to the culture wars including controversial statues and British history by the Common Sense Group of Tory MPs
To my mind Rishi probably scrapes 315-330 seats just by not being completely dishonest and a mega dick bag. Kemi could get anywhere from 250 seats (failure to launch, badly out of her depth) to 370 seats (public ready for radical change in the Tory party and she's able to leave the stink of Boris behind on day 1).
Mordaunt
Badenoch
Sunak
Truss
It does seem to be those four
My risk taking gene says Badenoch. The country needs a complete post-Brexit reset; fuck it, do it
The factories didn't fly to the East, they were built there. Western capitalists gifted the legacy of generations of workers to the CCP.
We need something similar east of Nottingham, too, and - as I’ve suggested on here in the past, expand Epping Forest and connect it to the heart of East London.
We should all play more Bazball
So Rishi, how did you fix it whilst gaining your experience?
TT would be my preference but he's far too sensible to appeal to the Party, and fails on other counts too. Glad to see him having a decent run though.
A considerable chunk of the progressive types have absorbed the idea that you can't compete on price with "PhDs for $1 a week in China". Despite the fact that there is a small thing called productivity to consider. And you can get someone with a PhD to work for you in China for a dollar a week, either.
They could build an invisible office block like Ford at Castle Ashby.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/12/they-couldnt-even-scream-any-more-they-were-just-sobbing-the-amateur-investors-ruined-by-the-crypto-crash
'In May, jobless and broke, Roy checked into Castle Craig, one of the only centres in the world that treats cryptocurrency addiction. (He lost his job when he relapsed; his rehab fees are covered by medical insurance.) His cryptocurrency portfolio is worth about €300. Now, amid the incongruous grandeur of a Scottish stately home, he is attempting to rebuild his life – and quieten the tormenting thought that he should have pulled out his money when he had the chance.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Roy says, softly. “I hate myself for the fact that I didn’t take it out.”'
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ffqemZ-YOi7AvAw8HbxmMd0vIbsOXLZ7KpAmNQPD2r8/htmlview#gid=0
Looks like a nine-horse race, with only Chrishti unlikely to be nominated.
Sunak
Truss
Mourdaunt
Tugendhat
Badenoch
Zahawi
Hunt
Javid
Braverman
https://twitter.com/Jacob_Rees_Mogg/status/1546861727886753794
So that’s,
- Imperial Measures
- Signs in the Dartford tunnel
- Er, that’s it….
Truss is old and not-broom. It seems to me that Mordaunt is relatively new and relatively broom, although she's trying to court both sides. Tugendhat is new broom, if he looks and sounds more old-fashioned... maybe he's new feather duster...
Thursday, 1 February, 2018
Matt Hancock app
Starting today, 1 February, there is an exciting new development in the world of digital communications – the Matt Hancock app. I am the first MP to have my own app and it is a big step forward in the way MPs are able to communicate with their constituents.
On the app, you will be able to get updates from me on all the news and issues going on in West Suffolk. But the most exciting part of the app is through the Have Your Say section. There, you can contact me, as well as getting in touch with other app users in the community. I want to hear about the issues that are most important to you.
Download the Matt Hancock MP app
This free app is launched today and is available for both iOS/Android devices by searching “Matt Hancock MP” in Apple’s App store or in the Google Play store. I hope you will download it today.
https://www.matt-hancock.com/news/matt-hancock-mp-app-here
The USA is strange in that while GDP her head has risen quite strongly, median incomes have hardly budged in thirty year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trodmore_Racecourse
I rather like the countryside East of Nottingham as it is, but some creative thinking could make it more recreation-freindly.
I very much like your Epping Forest suggestion.
I have had similar thoughts about whether Delamere Forest in Cheshire might be expanded.
There is a role in Britain for areas akin to mini-National Parks like these.
It’s governance from Davos.
Secondly, his tax / immigration history suggest that his commitment to the country is superficial.
Third, he is a fence-sitter (as @MaxPB notes above). I agree that unfunded tax cuts are mad, but Rishi pretty much doesn’t want to do anything. He killed both the tax cuts promised in the Tory manifesto, but he also killed the levelling up policy. There’s nothing there!
Finally, he has had an extremely easy ride from the media to date. On the odd occasion he has been challenged, he has turned defensive and nasty.
MPs would feel right at home with the leaky roof and the shabby 1960s accommodation blocks nearby.
I know two people who have it, and one relationship nearly broken by it
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/footage-of-jo-cox-removed-from-conservative-candidate-campaign-video-after-family-raise-concerns-3765450
Is TT still around? I can't work out where he comes in my list. All I know is that it's ahead of Truss.
And I should stress, I quite like Liz Truss. I don't share the derision of others on here about her, and I've a small bet on her to win. But it's all about the presentation, the ability to speak, to connect - it's just not what I'd like it to be.
How convincing you find that... I personally don't think much of Sunak... but Starmer after Corbyn, Brown after Blair... Sturgeon after Salmond?... it's common for new leaders to have been close to the old leadership but to present themselves as a change, to present themselves as experienced yet held back by the old boss.
Unless this blog is investment advice
Labour are looking pretty good at the moment looking on high at this Tory fiasco.
Why would they want to become embroiled without any obvious end goal?
He also sounds too much like a conglomerate of Ed Miliband and George Osborne.
Waste of time really but political parties do stuff like this.