Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
I think there is a difficult tension between the political and the material. I don't necessarily agree with, but can understand and feel we should discuss, the position that NATO expansion may have poked the Russian bear into this action, and there needs to be a political settlement that can allow the Russian state to feel it isn't besieged. But the material reality on the ground is not some ideological war between Russia and NATO, but a war where the Russian state increasingly and loudly proclaims the desire for the end of a Ukrainian people - by taking their land, dispersing their populace and reeducating their children. This, if carried out, would be a genocide. That is the current stated goal of the Russian state.
The second tension is, of course, the pretty reasonable desire to prevent escalation. Should this become a war between NATO and Russia, nobody knows what the fallout (pun intended) would be. We might hope that it wouldn't go nuclear, but it's not impossible.
(Snip)
The 'NATO expansion poking the Russian bear' is bullshit for a number of reasons. Not only is it factually inaccurate, why should Russia have a say on what bodies its democratic neighbours join?
Also note that Putin and others in his regime have stated that it is not just Ukraine; they want the Baltic states under their influence as well.
And why should states neighbouring Russia have to feel besieged by Russia? Why do only Russia's feelings matter?
Corbyn's position is deeply immoral, and will lead to more pain and suffering, note less.
For the first part, I don't disagree, but if the shoe was on the other foot and coalition of China, Russia and Iran (for example) were planning to post troops and missiles in Cuba, the US would almost certainly invade and say it was unacceptable, even if the Cuban people democratically wanted it.
I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation.
I also agree that Corbyn is wrong, even if I think he is coming from a place that is understandable and good faith.
"I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation."
This is exactly the fear Putin wants to instil in people, and it is the fear we need to be fighting against. Not because it isn't an horrific thought, but because if we give in to that fear now, Russia and other malign actors will use that fear in the future. Once they get Ukraine, they'll use that fear over the Baltics. Or Poland. Or something else.
The best thing for peace is *not* to give in to that fear now. We should have stood up to Russia years ago, but we told Putin we were weak and divided.
If Putin is willing to use nukes to get what he wants, he will use nukes. If not over Ukraine, over some other thing he wants to gain and we belatedly decide to stop. The only way to stop that threat is to give him everything he wants. And then everything China wants. And everything everyone else with nukes want.
It will also convince other rogue nations that nuclear weapons are worth developing, as just the mere threat of them leads to you gaining what you want. If Russia loses this war without using its nukes, it sends exactly the opposite message: they are strategically worthless.
If we give in now, eventually they will be used.
Which is why, despite the danger, the least dangerous time to face the threat is now.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Sounds like a fair analysis to me. Or should he be saying, for the sake of party unity, 'It's fine. Liz has played and blinder and she's still great'?
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
The party is already pretty torn up, no? If Truss wins the membership vote, won't she become leader with the lowest number of Tory MPs supporting her? The problem with big tents is, sometimes, there still isn't enough room...
So, Taiwan. I assume the Chinese leadership aren't crazy, so is this Taiwan faking it for show, or are their air defences being buzzed?
I assume the Chinese leadership are saying "it's all very well you showing up as a publicity stunt, but we can be across the straits and destroying things in a few minutes if you push it any further than that."
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Sounds like a fair analysis to me. Or should he be saying, for the sake of party unity, 'It's fine. Liz has played and blinder and she's still great'?
They can at least say that they disagree with the numbers, and don’t think they’re workable, rather than the organised Twittermob of invective that’s got all the journalists excited.
Today is everything wrong with modern politics in microcosm. Everyone in politics (and political journalism) needs to re-learn polite disagreement, and it’s sad to see.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
From Sunak's mob's point of view, it is Team Truss who have been throwing most mud, against Sunak and earlier against Penny Mordaunt.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Sounds like a fair analysis to me. Or should he be saying, for the sake of party unity, 'It's fine. Liz has played and blinder and she's still great'?
Given that Ben's entire campaign and career is based upon "Levelling Up" allowing "Levelling Down" when one part of Levelling Up is the Treasury / Government North campus wouldn't do his future career prospects much good.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
The party is already pretty torn up, no? If Truss wins the membership vote, won't she become leader with the lowest number of Tory MPs supporting her? The problem with big tents is, sometimes, there still isn't enough room...
I've never seen a Tory leadership contest that was so bitter and acrimonious. If Rishi wins I can actually see the party splitting, perhaps with Boris and Liz forming a breakaway party as its dream ticket.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Sorry, I disagree with this.
What has been clear to the saner tories for a while, and is now starting to cut through to the Truss supporters is….
She can’t viably cut tax. Her plan doesn’t work. As soon as she tries to identify spending cuts, the pushback is too great. There is no fat left to cut.
Now, she might get away with it. Indeed she might have read the contest right - as a virtue signalling contest rather than putting forward a plan for government.
But her key weakness that this has exposed is: She can’t actually deliver meaningful tax cuts. Tory members of a tax-cutting bent may well conclude that Rishi’s tax plans, while smaller in scope, are at least deliverable.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
I think there is a difficult tension between the political and the material. I don't necessarily agree with, but can understand and feel we should discuss, the position that NATO expansion may have poked the Russian bear into this action, and there needs to be a political settlement that can allow the Russian state to feel it isn't besieged. But the material reality on the ground is not some ideological war between Russia and NATO, but a war where the Russian state increasingly and loudly proclaims the desire for the end of a Ukrainian people - by taking their land, dispersing their populace and reeducating their children. This, if carried out, would be a genocide. That is the current stated goal of the Russian state.
The second tension is, of course, the pretty reasonable desire to prevent escalation. Should this become a war between NATO and Russia, nobody knows what the fallout (pun intended) would be. We might hope that it wouldn't go nuclear, but it's not impossible.
(Snip)
The 'NATO expansion poking the Russian bear' is bullshit for a number of reasons. Not only is it factually inaccurate, why should Russia have a say on what bodies its democratic neighbours join?
Also note that Putin and others in his regime have stated that it is not just Ukraine; they want the Baltic states under their influence as well.
And why should states neighbouring Russia have to feel besieged by Russia? Why do only Russia's feelings matter?
Corbyn's position is deeply immoral, and will lead to more pain and suffering, note less.
For the first part, I don't disagree, but if the shoe was on the other foot and coalition of China, Russia and Iran (for example) were planning to post troops and missiles in Cuba, the US would almost certainly invade and say it was unacceptable, even if the Cuban people democratically wanted it.
I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation.
I also agree that Corbyn is wrong, even if I think he is coming from a place that is understandable and good faith.
"I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation."
This is exactly the fear Putin wants to instil in people, and it is the fear we need to be fighting against. Not because it isn't an horrific thought, but because if we give in to that fear now, Russia and other malign actors will use that fear in the future. Once they get Ukraine, they'll use that fear over the Baltics. Or Poland. Or something else.
The best thing for peace is *not* to give in to that fear now. We should have stood up to Russia years ago, but we told Putin we were weak and divided.
If Putin is willing to use nukes to get what he wants, he will use nukes. If not over Ukraine, over some other thing he wants to gain and we belatedly decide to stop. The only way to stop that threat is to give him everything he wants. And then everything China wants. And everything everyone else with nukes want.
It will also convince other rogue nations that nuclear weapons are worth developing, as just the mere threat of them leads to you gaining what you want. If Russia loses this war without using its nukes, it sends exactly the opposite message: they are strategically worthless.
If we give in now, eventually they will be used.
Which is why, despite the danger, the least dangerous time to face the threat is now.
That seems reasonable, in a game theory way, but what does "facing the threat now" mean? Is arming Ukraine enough, or do you think NATO should be sending in ground troops themselves?
I also assume this analysis, and the snipping of the chess analogy, means you disagree with that analogy? I had considered it quite useful when I first heard it.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
The party is already pretty torn up, no? If Truss wins the membership vote, won't she become leader with the lowest number of Tory MPs supporting her? The problem with big tents is, sometimes, there still isn't enough room...
I've never seen a Tory leadership contest that was so bitter and acrimonious. If Rishi wins I can actually see the party splitting, perhaps with Boris and Liz forming a breakaway party as its dream ticket.
I think it was a 538 episode that played on the typical metaphor of nuclear war like chess: imagine a chess game where you play and the worse you lose, the worse the outcome. So if you lose but only by one piece, you lose a tenner, whereas if you are completely routed, you and your family are taken out round the woodshed and shot. Now imagine that there is a bomb attached to the board you can use at any time, which would kill you both. If you are losing so badly the likely outcome is the woodshed for you and your family, why wouldn't you use the bomb instead? Russia can lose and not flip the switch, but it can't be a humiliating loss or they may choose to. Ukraine doesn't have that option, so Russia can fight a war to the end if they really want to. So anything that could deter Russia for fighting the war that way would need to come from NATO or the US... which is also worrying...
I think the analogy is incomplete.
Yes, one player has a button that unleashes potential death on both players. But there's also a high chance that attempting to press the button results in someone behind him hitting him over the head with a hammer. And a further high chance that pressing it means far, far far less death and destruction than expected.
In which case, it means that he will be dead, and so will all his family and friends, and his opponents will have suffered a terrible disaster, but will very much still be standing.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
I don't even think that she's ditched it. It's obvious that Truss likes the idea of regional pay boards, she just had second thoughts about the political consequences if she publically committed to it at this point. And it's now entirely reasonable for Labour to claim that this is what we'll get if Truss does eventually prevail at a general election. Levelling down for the North.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
If the supremely impressive Sunak can overturn the previously unassailable Truss we are looking at a Conservative landslide in a few months.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
The party is already pretty torn up, no? If Truss wins the membership vote, won't she become leader with the lowest number of Tory MPs supporting her? The problem with big tents is, sometimes, there still isn't enough room...
I've never seen a Tory leadership contest that was so bitter and acrimonious. If Rishi wins I can actually see the party splitting, perhaps with Boris and Liz forming a breakaway party as its dream ticket.
Ironically, it was Sunak who first complained about the blue on blue attacks. Of course, that might have been because he was the principal victim but there is an outside chance of high-minded concern for the party.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
I don't even think that she's ditched it. It's obvious that Truss likes the idea of regional pay boards, she just had second thoughts about the political consequences if she publically committed to it at this point. And it's now entirely reasonable for Labour to claim that this is what we'll get if Truss does eventually prevail at a general election. Levelling down for the North.
Oh if Truss is PM it will be used by Labour at the next election - definitely worth a few votes and possibly enough votes to swing a few seats...
@SpeakerPelosi Our delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.
Our discussions with Taiwan leadership reaffirm our support for our partner & promote our shared interests, including advancing a free & open Indo-Pacific region.
America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.
Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances.
The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
The party is already pretty torn up, no? If Truss wins the membership vote, won't she become leader with the lowest number of Tory MPs supporting her? The problem with big tents is, sometimes, there still isn't enough room...
I've never seen a Tory leadership contest that was so bitter and acrimonious. If Rishi wins I can actually see the party splitting, perhaps with Boris and Liz forming a breakaway party as its dream ticket.
I mean, I think the Tory party should split - there is an obvious wing that wants to be populists and a wing that want to do Osbornism, and those two don't really work together. I also think Labour should also probably split, with the left and union movement on one side and the managerial technocrats on the other. But FPTP makes that difficult, so big noisy troublesome tents we seem to be stuck with.
Mr. Leon, gardening is often a very good thing for people's wellbeing.
Indeed. Probably most people feel the same way and I’m unusual
I like having as little responsibility as possible. A small flat in a nice location that I can lock and leave. Minimal hassle
As you documented during the winter lockdown in 2021 you struggle when you are tired to one location - you have epic wanderlust. Others would much rather be at home. It may be why I found the same experience an absolute breeze.
Yes indeed. I don’t think I will be very good at old age and increasing immobility
I’ll somehow have to escape with my mind. Hmpft
Having the funds to pay for a strong young nurse to help you from one sun-drenched verandah to another might be an option that would suit you.
A friend of mine became quite severely disabled following a stroke, and retired to Malawi, on the lakeshore. Sunshine every day and two full time carers at his beck and call. Limited medical care if a further event, but that suited him too.
My Thai resident son has suggested that I move to Thailand, always assuming that I don't require medical care. If I only require somebody to look after me there are plenty of people there who will do it for a very modest sum.
I'm quite attracted by the idea, or was until my current problems but Mrs C is very much against it
So, Taiwan. I assume the Chinese leadership aren't crazy, so is this Taiwan faking it for show, or are their air defences being buzzed?
I'm sure their air defences are being buzzed... but I'm also sure that it is a very gentle buzzing.
China, for what it's worth, cannot let this go by without some form of retaliation. It won't be a major increase in tension - not least because the US has let it be known that Biden was opposed to the trip - but there will be something.
But what?
How willing is Xi to tie himself to Russia? Perhaps there could be an announcement of a big expansion of the Russia-China gas pipeline, as a little fingers up to the West? On the other hand, that would take a long time to reach fruition, and if Russia loses the war, it might all be for nothing.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
It is very wrong to conflate (no doubt for reasons of national pride) British and American 'imperialism'. Our pre-eminence in world affairs ended with WW1 and was decisively demolished with WW2. We are not responsible for the current shitshow, however many British politicians like to be seen 'standing shoulder to shoulder' (the actual posture is somewhat more recumbent) with the US.
And Ukraine is overrun with American rapists
I have no idea what that comment is even supposed to mean.
You said the current problem was caused by US imperialism
I mocked that by pretending that the murderous rapists currently in Ukraine are US rather than your friends from Russia
The reason I focused on the rape side was because of your continued fuckwittery in believing that all the rape stories were made up by the sacked Ukrainian woman. That level of dangerous idiocy needs to be robustly challenged
The sacked Ukranian woman was sacked for saying too much, in ways that could jeopardise a fair trial of the accused.
Imagine that, being in a country subjected to invasion and systemic rape, and still being worried about fair trials.
It’s possible that there is a problem in some areas with crowding out.
Real wages (public and private) outside the the SE and Scotland probably need to fall to East European levels if they are to reflect actual productivity add.
Good luck selling it on the doorstep.
And so the transition from "what a stupid idea" to "a sensible idea, but not politically acceptable" begins.
I am not saying it’s a sensible idea at all. Read mine and eek’s and ratter’s posts.
Read them and understand them.
That's why I said the transition begins. I've read and understood them, I just disagree with them.
But I've said what I have to say and nothing new to add, so not much point in adding more.
This is a good idea, but not politic to be introduced. What a shame. Its the sort of thing that would be better off being introduced by a new government at the start of a Parliament so it has time to bed in and work, it will never win an election. A shame Osborne flunked this issue.
PS I agree completely with Ratters that local would be better than regional and I said the same myself, which is why I called this a small step in the right direction.
You can't do it in the public sector for political reasons.
You can't do it in the private sector because both the minimum wage and the public sector wages preclude it.
Equally the issue isn't the wages - it's the lack of investment in productivity improvements because we as a whole are happy to take profits while Corporation Tax is low rather than invest money to increase productivity long term.
The more I think about it the more it seems most companies have scarily short term views and don't see themselves having long enough futures to warrant investing money in their futures.
How much of that is because the UK has put so many of its eggs in the financial sector basket for so long?
We're also extremely bad at producing scientific talent ... [snip!]
Actually, we are quite at producing but we are extremely bad at putting such talent to good use or keeping it here.
Two talents the UK has by the tonne are a belief that mediocrity is to be admired and a meanness to spend whatever it takes to do something right. Being told to "make do" on a half budget by someone with no understanding of what they are talking about is no way to produce excellence
Not a sarky comment: but do you have evidence of that? I'm mostly looking at it from the front line perspective where engineering roles sit open for months at a time and recruiters barrage anyone with "engineer" in their title with offers on LinkedIn, so from my perspective it looks like we aren't producing enough people with the right skills. I am aware that anecdote isn't data though.
Evidence? Not really, just over 30 years experience of science and engineering were it was a common theme of everyone I ever spoke to plus what I came up against myself both as an employee and an IT consultant. There is even more anecdata going back into the past - John Harrison and marine chronometer, Charles Parsons and the Turbinia, Frank Whittle and the jet engine, the Black Arrow programme, etc, etc. HS2 / HS3 is just another example of trying to trim the project to fit the budget, but it is not unique by any means.
The real problem is the instinct to try and prevent people with domain knowledge run things.
I was told, early in my career, at an oil company that ran itself like the civil service and recruited a lot of ex civil servants, that no-one who was "IT parented" could be considered for a managerial role..... in the IT Dept. Such roles needed to go to people with the right background.
Charles Parsons got an enormous amount of encouragement from the engineering lot in the RN - the story that he was being frozen out wasn't exactly true. The famous Turbina run may have been suggested as a political trick by the *RN head of engineering* at the time. They certainly bought into turbine vessels very quickly, once the technology was demonstrated.
Otherwise known as “Jen”, from The IT Crowd.
That series was so accurate in so many ways.....
Very much so. The writer (Graham Linehan) clearly spent a lot of time hanging around corporate IT departments.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Man, I can factor 30! too.
It's 30, 29, 28, 27,..., 3, 2, 1
(Plus every combination inside there, obv, like 30 * 29. But even so, a little bit of Python could throw out all the answers in about 2 minutes.)
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Man, I can factor 30! too.
It's 30, 29, 28, 27,..., 3, 2, 1
(Plus every combination inside there, obv, like 30 * 29. But even so, a little bit of Python could throw out all the answers in about 2 minutes.)
With global warming you need factor 50 these days.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
I think there is a difficult tension between the political and the material. I don't necessarily agree with, but can understand and feel we should discuss, the position that NATO expansion may have poked the Russian bear into this action, and there needs to be a political settlement that can allow the Russian state to feel it isn't besieged. But the material reality on the ground is not some ideological war between Russia and NATO, but a war where the Russian state increasingly and loudly proclaims the desire for the end of a Ukrainian people - by taking their land, dispersing their populace and reeducating their children. This, if carried out, would be a genocide. That is the current stated goal of the Russian state.
The second tension is, of course, the pretty reasonable desire to prevent escalation. Should this become a war between NATO and Russia, nobody knows what the fallout (pun intended) would be. We might hope that it wouldn't go nuclear, but it's not impossible.
(Snip)
The 'NATO expansion poking the Russian bear' is bullshit for a number of reasons. Not only is it factually inaccurate, why should Russia have a say on what bodies its democratic neighbours join?
Also note that Putin and others in his regime have stated that it is not just Ukraine; they want the Baltic states under their influence as well.
And why should states neighbouring Russia have to feel besieged by Russia? Why do only Russia's feelings matter?
Corbyn's position is deeply immoral, and will lead to more pain and suffering, note less.
For the first part, I don't disagree, but if the shoe was on the other foot and coalition of China, Russia and Iran (for example) were planning to post troops and missiles in Cuba, the US would almost certainly invade and say it was unacceptable, even if the Cuban people democratically wanted it.
I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation.
I also agree that Corbyn is wrong, even if I think he is coming from a place that is understandable and good faith.
"I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation."
This is exactly the fear Putin wants to instil in people, and it is the fear we need to be fighting against. Not because it isn't an horrific thought, but because if we give in to that fear now, Russia and other malign actors will use that fear in the future. Once they get Ukraine, they'll use that fear over the Baltics. Or Poland. Or something else.
The best thing for peace is *not* to give in to that fear now. We should have stood up to Russia years ago, but we told Putin we were weak and divided.
If Putin is willing to use nukes to get what he wants, he will use nukes. If not over Ukraine, over some other thing he wants to gain and we belatedly decide to stop. The only way to stop that threat is to give him everything he wants. And then everything China wants. And everything everyone else with nukes want.
It will also convince other rogue nations that nuclear weapons are worth developing, as just the mere threat of them leads to you gaining what you want. If Russia loses this war without using its nukes, it sends exactly the opposite message: they are strategically worthless.
If we give in now, eventually they will be used.
Which is why, despite the danger, the least dangerous time to face the threat is now.
That seems reasonable, in a game theory way, but what does "facing the threat now" mean? Is arming Ukraine enough, or do you think NATO should be sending in ground troops themselves?
I also assume this analysis, and the snipping of the chess analogy, means you disagree with that analogy? I had considered it quite useful when I first heard it.
IMV, arming Ukraine to fight, but *not* sending in NATO ground troops unless Russia severely escalates. I *might* be okay with NATO warships in the Black Sea to help with grain exports, with Turkey's agreement.
I'm unsure your chess analogy is a good one, but it does bring up another moral point: Ukraine had nuclear weapons, and gave them up with guarantees of their security from various states. Those guarantees were shown as being worthless back in 2014. If you are interested in nuclear disarmament, this was a shameful thing.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
I don't even think that she's ditched it. It's obvious that Truss likes the idea of regional pay boards, she just had second thoughts about the political consequences if she publically committed to it at this point. And it's now entirely reasonable for Labour to claim that this is what we'll get if Truss does eventually prevail at a general election. Levelling down for the North.
Oh if Truss is PM it will be used by Labour at the next election - definitely worth a few votes and possibly enough votes to swing a few seats...
The problem for Labour is that what they're suggesting isn't popular either - Starmer won't unequivocally back pay rises that meet or are above inflation, effectively meaning real terms pay cuts. In some ways they're trying to take the idea of "no magic money tree" and want to turn it on the Tories claiming that they want to be profligate spenders, rationalising and institutionalising the austerity of the last decade.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
It is very wrong to conflate (no doubt for reasons of national pride) British and American 'imperialism'. Our pre-eminence in world affairs ended with WW1 and was decisively demolished with WW2. We are not responsible for the current shitshow, however many British politicians like to be seen 'standing shoulder to shoulder' (the actual posture is somewhat more recumbent) with the US.
And Ukraine is overrun with American rapists
I have no idea what that comment is even supposed to mean.
You said the current problem was caused by US imperialism
I mocked that by pretending that the murderous rapists currently in Ukraine are US rather than your friends from Russia
The reason I focused on the rape side was because of your continued fuckwittery in believing that all the rape stories were made up by the sacked Ukrainian woman. That level of dangerous idiocy needs to be robustly challenged
I see. Well, firstly, you mistook my meaning, by 'the current shitshow', I meant the state of the world in general, not the Ukraine situation specifically.
'Oleksandra Kvitko (the Human Rights Ombudsman's daughter, who was employed on the hotline) also underwent several interrogations, Ukrainska Pravda reported. According to the outlet, she told prosecutors that over the course of a month and a half, her hotline had received over a thousand calls, 450 of which concerned child rape. Officials, however, were only able to find records of 92 calls.
Kvitko wasn’t able to provide any details, including who called her or what doctors she directed the victims to. There was nothing that would indicate these victims actually existed. She said that she told her mother the stories “over tea.”'
These are the stories that were repeated uncritically by the Western media - far more uncritically it turns out than the Ukrainian media.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
I think there is a difficult tension between the political and the material. I don't necessarily agree with, but can understand and feel we should discuss, the position that NATO expansion may have poked the Russian bear into this action, and there needs to be a political settlement that can allow the Russian state to feel it isn't besieged. But the material reality on the ground is not some ideological war between Russia and NATO, but a war where the Russian state increasingly and loudly proclaims the desire for the end of a Ukrainian people - by taking their land, dispersing their populace and reeducating their children. This, if carried out, would be a genocide. That is the current stated goal of the Russian state.
The second tension is, of course, the pretty reasonable desire to prevent escalation. Should this become a war between NATO and Russia, nobody knows what the fallout (pun intended) would be. We might hope that it wouldn't go nuclear, but it's not impossible.
(Snip)
The 'NATO expansion poking the Russian bear' is bullshit for a number of reasons. Not only is it factually inaccurate, why should Russia have a say on what bodies its democratic neighbours join?
Also note that Putin and others in his regime have stated that it is not just Ukraine; they want the Baltic states under their influence as well.
And why should states neighbouring Russia have to feel besieged by Russia? Why do only Russia's feelings matter?
Corbyn's position is deeply immoral, and will lead to more pain and suffering, note less.
For the first part, I don't disagree, but if the shoe was on the other foot and coalition of China, Russia and Iran (for example) were planning to post troops and missiles in Cuba, the US would almost certainly invade and say it was unacceptable, even if the Cuban people democratically wanted it.
I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation.
I also agree that Corbyn is wrong, even if I think he is coming from a place that is understandable and good faith.
"I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation."
This is exactly the fear Putin wants to instil in people, and it is the fear we need to be fighting against. Not because it isn't an horrific thought, but because if we give in to that fear now, Russia and other malign actors will use that fear in the future. Once they get Ukraine, they'll use that fear over the Baltics. Or Poland. Or something else.
The best thing for peace is *not* to give in to that fear now. We should have stood up to Russia years ago, but we told Putin we were weak and divided.
If Putin is willing to use nukes to get what he wants, he will use nukes. If not over Ukraine, over some other thing he wants to gain and we belatedly decide to stop. The only way to stop that threat is to give him everything he wants. And then everything China wants. And everything everyone else with nukes want.
It will also convince other rogue nations that nuclear weapons are worth developing, as just the mere threat of them leads to you gaining what you want. If Russia loses this war without using its nukes, it sends exactly the opposite message: they are strategically worthless.
If we give in now, eventually they will be used.
Which is why, despite the danger, the least dangerous time to face the threat is now.
That seems reasonable, in a game theory way, but what does "facing the threat now" mean? Is arming Ukraine enough, or do you think NATO should be sending in ground troops themselves?
I also assume this analysis, and the snipping of the chess analogy, means you disagree with that analogy? I had considered it quite useful when I first heard it.
IMV, arming Ukraine to fight, but *not* sending in NATO ground troops unless Russia severely escalates. I *might* be okay with NATO warships in the Black Sea to help with grain exports, with Turkey's agreement.
I'm unsure your chess analogy is a good one, but it does bring up another moral point: Ukraine had nuclear weapons, and gave them up with guarantees of their security from various states. Those guarantees were shown as being worthless back in 2014. If you are interested in nuclear disarmament, this was a shameful thing.
Once Kherson is liberated by the defenders, the UN needs to step up and allow the Blue Helmets into Ukraine West of the Deniper.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
I think you might find that it is factoring 30-digit numbers, not the number 30.
I think it was a 538 episode that played on the typical metaphor of nuclear war like chess: imagine a chess game where you play and the worse you lose, the worse the outcome. So if you lose but only by one piece, you lose a tenner, whereas if you are completely routed, you and your family are taken out round the woodshed and shot. Now imagine that there is a bomb attached to the board you can use at any time, which would kill you both. If you are losing so badly the likely outcome is the woodshed for you and your family, why wouldn't you use the bomb instead? Russia can lose and not flip the switch, but it can't be a humiliating loss or they may choose to. Ukraine doesn't have that option, so Russia can fight a war to the end if they really want to. So anything that could deter Russia for fighting the war that way would need to come from NATO or the US... which is also worrying...
I think the analogy is incomplete.
Yes, one player has a button that unleashes potential death on both players. But there's also a high chance that attempting to press the button results in someone behind him hitting him over the head with a hammer. And a further high chance that pressing it means far, far far less death and destruction than expected.
In which case, it means that he will be dead, and so will all his family and friends, and his opponents will have suffered a terrible disaster, but will very much still be standing.
"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks..."
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Sorry, I disagree with this.
What has been clear to the saner tories for a while, and is now starting to cut through to the Truss supporters is….
She can’t viably cut tax. Her plan doesn’t work. As soon as she tries to identify spending cuts, the pushback is too great. There is no fat left to cut.
Now, she might get away with it. Indeed she might have read the contest right - as a virtue signalling contest rather than putting forward a plan for government.
But her key weakness that this has exposed is: She can’t actually deliver meaningful tax cuts. Tory members of a tax-cutting bent may well conclude that Rishi’s tax plans, while smaller in scope, are at least deliverable.
The problem is that she is promising spending rises, as well. To be fair to her, she is entertaining a larger debt.
Neither Rishi nor Truss pass muster to me.
Rishi (at least initially) was promising austerity now (at a time of economic slowdown) for pensioner tax cuts later.
Liz is promising more spending, more debt, and tax cuts too for pensioners and corporates too, apparently to be balanced by the usual efficiency savings guff.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
I think you might find that it is factoring 30-digit numbers, not the number 30.
Nope. Quantum computers are very much in their infancy, and 21 remains the largest number factored by Shor's algorithm.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
I don't even think that she's ditched it. It's obvious that Truss likes the idea of regional pay boards, she just had second thoughts about the political consequences if she publically committed to it at this point. And it's now entirely reasonable for Labour to claim that this is what we'll get if Truss does eventually prevail at a general election. Levelling down for the North.
Oh if Truss is PM it will be used by Labour at the next election - definitely worth a few votes and possibly enough votes to swing a few seats...
The problem for Labour is that what they're suggesting isn't popular either - Starmer won't unequivocally back pay rises that meet or are above inflation, effectively meaning real terms pay cuts. In some ways they're trying to take the idea of "no magic money tree" and want to turn it on the Tories claiming that they want to be profligate spenders, rationalising and institutionalising the austerity of the last decade.
Just checked the market and quite the turnaround! Sunak in from 11 to 4.5. It'll be hilarious if Truss ends up losing. The likes of Wallace, Tugendhat, Zahawi and Morduant will look right plonkers.
Do we know how long the usual member sits on their vote before casting it? I thought, sans evidence, it would be something they would do quite quickly - so if most votes have already been cast, would this snafu even matter?
My ballot hasn't arrived yet (don't know about HYUFD, Casino, Marquee, Mortimer, TSE et al) but I won't wait very long before voting for Sunak!
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
Liz Truss' problem isn't doing detail. Those can be fixed. She doesn't do facts.
On a more pleasant note than the posts earlier I have been signed off by the physio today and expect the same from my hospital visit on Thursday. One leg is now normal, the other has about 6 months more exercise to be back to normal. I have a lot of catching up to do. The garden is a mess, all 2/3 acre of it. So much work.
I have racing driving lessons booked. I have a flight in a Pitts Special booked. I nearly bought a classic car, but got beaten by someone paying sight unseen and sending a trailer so ship it. Should have been more proactive. Gutted. Lots of stuff to do.
Good to hear.
What was the classic you missed?
Panther Kallista. Don't tell @Dura_Ace , although at least I had moved on from the Lima. It was a beautiful car. It was in your neck of the woods(ish). I was travelling down to Taunton to buy it. As it was bought sight unseen as a present apparently, I'm hoping the new owner can't get in it and I have a second bite of the cherry.
Why O Why though? Even a Morgan is nicer than that or a Caterham Seven or a Lotus Elite or god help me an MGB Roadster or TR4A or 5.
WHY???????????
But he didn't get it. Maybe God agrees with you....
US Congress has approved $52bn in potential funding for chip production - but on the understanding that companies taking the money don’t invest in China or Russia for the next decade.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
He wants Ukraine to surrender to avoid bloodshed. Why won't he encourage Palestine to do the same?
TBF, Palestine *has* surrendered to avoid bloodshed.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
Not actually quite true: you have to calculate every possible combination of 29 numbers, which is far from trivial.
But still not a complicated ask for anyone with even a modicum of programming ability.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
Liz Truss' problem isn't doing detail. Those can be fixed. She doesn't do facts.
That's what I do when I have a good idea that's been misrepresented. I just give up on it entirely. I don't seek to explain it better or to counter the lies. Nope. Just bin the whole thing.
Just checked the market and quite the turnaround! Sunak in from 11 to 4.5. It'll be hilarious if Truss ends up losing. The likes of Wallace, Tugendhat, Zahawi and Morduant will look right plonkers.
Do we know how long the usual member sits on their vote before casting it? I thought, sans evidence, it would be something they would do quite quickly - so if most votes have already been cast, would this snafu even matter?
My ballot hasn't arrived yet (don't know about HYUFD, Casino, Marquee, Mortimer, TSE et al) but I won't wait very long before voting for Sunak!
Nothing has arrived here yet.
Nor here in Dorset.
Which reminds me, @Cyclefree - let me know if you still need local info re: Winfrith. I have a bookshop in Wareham so know the area pretty well.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
I don't even think that she's ditched it. It's obvious that Truss likes the idea of regional pay boards, she just had second thoughts about the political consequences if she publically committed to it at this point. And it's now entirely reasonable for Labour to claim that this is what we'll get if Truss does eventually prevail at a general election. Levelling down for the North.
Oh if Truss is PM it will be used by Labour at the next election - definitely worth a few votes and possibly enough votes to swing a few seats...
The problem for Labour is that what they're suggesting isn't popular either - Starmer won't unequivocally back pay rises that meet or are above inflation, effectively meaning real terms pay cuts. In some ways they're trying to take the idea of "no magic money tree" and want to turn it on the Tories claiming that they want to be profligate spenders, rationalising and institutionalising the austerity of the last decade.
Keir (and Reeves) have the messaging wrong on this. The public won’t thank them for being cautious, nuanced, and sober.
We should have learned that by now.
They have to find a better line of attack.
I think most of their policies are OK. But Starmer etc need more imagination and empathy in how they sell them. A "We are where we are in our ability to spend, but we will always prioritise the welfare of ordinary people" line is more empathetic than "No increase in public spending"
That's what I do when I have a good idea that's been misrepresented. I just give up on it entirely. I don't seek to explain it better or to counter the lies. Nope. Just bin the whole thing.
See upthread: "If you're explaining, you're losing".
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
Liz Truss' problem isn't doing detail. Those can be fixed. She doesn't do facts.
Nor does the electorate.
How very dare you insult our well informed electorate!
China announce military drills Aug 4 to 7 after Nancy departs. If they are invading, thats when.
Famous last words but I doubt it.
The question is why this is happening now in terms of the Chinese authorities.
The answer seems to lie in what's happening with the Covid restrictions in China.
I spoke to a company last week who is pulling out of China because their view is that things are never going back to normal. Xi has committed himself so much to a Zero Covid policy that the Chinese have locked themselves into a disastrous situation where they can't exit the policy without raising serious questions about Xi's / the CCP's judgement and actions.
That penny is starting to drop as the Chinese economic data rolls in and it's clear they will miss their 2022 growth targets.
So what to do? Well, sabre rattle is the answer. Biden was actually right in opposing Pelosi going (same with Trump) - there is nothing wrong with going, it's the timing that's the issue. Later in the year, the weather would have been against the Chinese. Now? Perfect time to launch your drills.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Hi Sandpit - I find it a bit of a shame that as a poster I think I’ve generally agreed with everything you write on here but I find the anti-Sunak stance a bit out of where you used to seem to be coming from.
I understand completely why Ukraine is so very important to you through your wife and her family and friends but I feel that you have been unusually blinded by the rumours that Wallace was going to blow Sunak out of the water for not wanting to spend money on Ukraine.
Firstly we still haven’t heard anything so far - and today would have been a useful day to do it. It might still come but as yet it’s only a rumour out about at the early stages and still nothing additional or factual.
Ben Wallace himself in his Sun interview said that Sunak was supportive over Ukraine spending even though Wallace had just declared support for Truss - again would have been a killer time to at least hint that Sunak was soft on spending etc.
So when you hit out at the “Sunak mob” it’s arguable that it was the Boris/Truss mob floating a false rumour (quite a nasty one of untrue) and so it’s a bit ripe to complain about his allies criticising their opponent on something that’s clearly worth criticising.
Sunak has probably had more hit jobs on him by the Boris/Truss mob starting with the non-Dom issues all the way to Pravda shoes.
So the long and short of it is, do you really believe in the approach of Truss/disagree with approach of Sunak for best running of the country or do you think you have been sucked in by potential propaganda by a mob?
This isn’t in anyway a personal attack - I’m just interested in why you’ve taken this line.
Just checked the market and quite the turnaround! Sunak in from 11 to 4.5. It'll be hilarious if Truss ends up losing. The likes of Wallace, Tugendhat, Zahawi and Morduant will look right plonkers.
Do we know how long the usual member sits on their vote before casting it? I thought, sans evidence, it would be something they would do quite quickly - so if most votes have already been cast, would this snafu even matter?
My ballot hasn't arrived yet (don't know about HYUFD, Casino, Marquee, Mortimer, TSE et al) but I won't wait very long before voting for Sunak!
Nothing has arrived here yet.
Nor here in Dorset.
Which reminds me, @Cyclefree - let me know if you still need local info re: Winfrith. I have a bookshop in Wareham so know the area pretty well.
would you mind if I ask you a totally random question? In 1978, a blacksmith's in Wareham had a large pile of horseshoes outside it. In 2003, the pile had become a large metal wall outside the property, made out of horseshoes. When I went back less than ten years later, I could not find it. Do you know if the blacksmiths, or the wall, still exists?
Yep, I know this is about as off-topic as it is possible to get, but I loved finding that wall.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
The party is already pretty torn up, no? If Truss wins the membership vote, won't she become leader with the lowest number of Tory MPs supporting her? The problem with big tents is, sometimes, there still isn't enough room...
I've never seen a Tory leadership contest that was so bitter and acrimonious. If Rishi wins I can actually see the party splitting, perhaps with Boris and Liz forming a breakaway party as its dream ticket.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
Liz Truss' problem isn't doing detail. Those can be fixed. She doesn't do facts.
Nor does the electorate.
How very dare you insult our well informed electorate!
About a quarter of the electorate tribally vote Labour without ever thinking about their vote. About another quarter do the same for the Tories.
And sometimes I feel that most of the rest of the electorate are worse...
Just checked the market and quite the turnaround! Sunak in from 11 to 4.5. It'll be hilarious if Truss ends up losing. The likes of Wallace, Tugendhat, Zahawi and Morduant will look right plonkers.
Do we know how long the usual member sits on their vote before casting it? I thought, sans evidence, it would be something they would do quite quickly - so if most votes have already been cast, would this snafu even matter?
My ballot hasn't arrived yet (don't know about HYUFD, Casino, Marquee, Mortimer, TSE et al) but I won't wait very long before voting for Sunak!
Nothing has arrived here yet.
Nor here in Dorset.
Which reminds me, @Cyclefree - let me know if you still need local info re: Winfrith. I have a bookshop in Wareham so know the area pretty well.
would you mind if I ask you a totally random question? In 1978, a blacksmith's in Wareham had a large pile of horseshoes outside it. In 2003, the pile had become a large metal wall outside the property, made out of horseshoes. When I went back less than ten years later, I could not find it. Do you know if the blacksmiths, or the wall, still exists?
Yep, I know this is about as off-topic as it is possible to get, but I loved finding that wall.
Wow - I didn't know that.
The only remaining hardware store is a place called Ponds - near Sainsbury's. Can't say I've ever seen a wall of horseshoes but I'll ask at the pub next time I'm there!
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Hi Sandpit - I find it a bit of a shame that as a poster I think I’ve generally agreed with everything you write on here but I find the anti-Sunak stance a bit out of where you used to seem to be coming from.
I understand completely why Ukraine is so very important to you through your wife and her family and friends but I feel that you have been unusually blinded by the rumours that Wallace was going to blow Sunak out of the water for not wanting to spend money on Ukraine.
Firstly we still haven’t heard anything so far - and today would have been a useful day to do it. It might still come but as yet it’s only a rumour out about at the early stages and still nothing additional or factual.
Ben Wallace himself in his Sun interview said that Sunak was supportive over Ukraine spending even though Wallace had just declared support for Truss - again would have been a killer time to at least hint that Sunak was soft on spending etc.
So when you hit out at the “Sunak mob” it’s arguable that it was the Boris/Truss mob floating a false rumour (quite a nasty one of untrue) and so it’s a bit ripe to complain about his allies criticising their opponent on something that’s clearly worth criticising.
Sunak has probably had more hit jobs on him by the Boris/Truss mob starting with the non-Dom issues all the way to Pravda shoes.
So the long and short of it is, do you really believe in the approach of Truss/disagree with approach of Sunak for best running of the country or do you think you have been sucked in by potential propaganda by a mob?
This isn’t in anyway a personal attack - I’m just interested in why you’ve taken this line.
Thanks
Very simple. I believe that political discussions within the context of the leadership campaign should be done much more politely.
The way the Sunak team has operated today is most unedifying, and risks permanent damage to the party if it continues. They know the membership are not generally on Twitter, it’s squarely aimed at stirring up a media storm rather than advancing the debate.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
Factoring 30! is much, much easier than factoring 30. Think about it.
Not actually quite true: you have to calculate every possible combination of 29 numbers, which is far from trivial.
But still not a complicated ask for anyone with even a modicum of programming ability.
Apparently 56,153 has been factored, but it is a special case.
Maths is wonderful. You spend years working on a secure encryption algorithm that is quantum computer-safe, only for a traditional single-core computer to break the encryption in an hour...
An interesting quote from a cryptographer: "In general there is a lot of deep mathematics which has been published in the mathematical literature but which is not well understood by cryptographers. I lump myself into the category of those many researchers who work in cryptography but do not understand as much mathematics as we really should."
The last I heard, factoring integers by quantum computers had got as far as factoring 21, but failed at factoring 30, so we may not have to worry just yet
They can't factor 30?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30
Easy peasy. They should hire me to be a quantum computer.
Surely they meant it got stuck factoring 30! or is it really that bad at maths?
The 'winners'? Ronaldo and Harry Maguire out by a country mile, multiples ahead of Marcus Rashford who only just pipped Bruno Fernandes.
And also - 7 of the top 10 spots occupied by Man U players. I'm guessing that has to do with the global nature of their fan base and...
...their shit performance relative to expectations. With the possible exception of Rashford (and even here, not even his supporters would claim his football has been great), it looks like the social media abuse is driven more by the poor form of players and / or general dislike rather than racism.
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
He wants Ukraine to surrender to avoid bloodshed. Why won't he encourage Palestine to do the same?
During the Yugoslav Wars, the pacifist Left screamed at the very idea of arming those fighting the Serbs. Despite the fact that the Serbs had all the weapons. We had Arkan "Wagner Group"'ing his way through the Bosnian Muslim population....
The end of the war was when the American armed the opponents of the Serbs. Mind you, they did so rather cleverly - they kept control of the supply lines, so that when inevitably some units misbehaved, the Americans pulled their supplies and air support. And they died in Serb counterattacks.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Hi Sandpit - I find it a bit of a shame that as a poster I think I’ve generally agreed with everything you write on here but I find the anti-Sunak stance a bit out of where you used to seem to be coming from.
I understand completely why Ukraine is so very important to you through your wife and her family and friends but I feel that you have been unusually blinded by the rumours that Wallace was going to blow Sunak out of the water for not wanting to spend money on Ukraine.
Firstly we still haven’t heard anything so far - and today would have been a useful day to do it. It might still come but as yet it’s only a rumour out about at the early stages and still nothing additional or factual.
Ben Wallace himself in his Sun interview said that Sunak was supportive over Ukraine spending even though Wallace had just declared support for Truss - again would have been a killer time to at least hint that Sunak was soft on spending etc.
So when you hit out at the “Sunak mob” it’s arguable that it was the Boris/Truss mob floating a false rumour (quite a nasty one of untrue) and so it’s a bit ripe to complain about his allies criticising their opponent on something that’s clearly worth criticising.
Sunak has probably had more hit jobs on him by the Boris/Truss mob starting with the non-Dom issues all the way to Pravda shoes.
So the long and short of it is, do you really believe in the approach of Truss/disagree with approach of Sunak for best running of the country or do you think you have been sucked in by potential propaganda by a mob?
This isn’t in anyway a personal attack - I’m just interested in why you’ve taken this line.
Thanks
Very simple. I believe that political discussions within the context of the leadership campaign should be done much more politely.
The way the Sunak team has operated today is most unedifying, and risks permanent damage to the party if it continues. They know the membership are not generally on Twitter, it’s squarely aimed at stirring up a media storm rather than advancing the debate.
Thanks but I honestly cannot see anything worse they have done than has been done by Truss supporters - on Twitter and via the Mail etc to store up media storms - take the Dorries attack on Sunak’s wealth and clothes, JRM’s attacks.
What are Tories supposed to do if someone is proposing something a bit stupid? They have to point it out because if they believe that it is dangerous and Truss is elected and carries out the policy it’s a nightmare for the party and the country.
The members need to hear if a candidate says something dangerous and if that’s through twitter or the media then it has to be so.
As I said, the other side have been far from innocent in this and equally likely to split the party due to the personal attacks on top of policy attacks.
Just checked the market and quite the turnaround! Sunak in from 11 to 4.5. It'll be hilarious if Truss ends up losing. The likes of Wallace, Tugendhat, Zahawi and Morduant will look right plonkers.
Do we know how long the usual member sits on their vote before casting it? I thought, sans evidence, it would be something they would do quite quickly - so if most votes have already been cast, would this snafu even matter?
My ballot hasn't arrived yet (don't know about HYUFD, Casino, Marquee, Mortimer, TSE et al) but I won't wait very long before voting for Sunak!
Nothing has arrived here yet.
Nor here in Dorset.
Which reminds me, @Cyclefree - let me know if you still need local info re: Winfrith. I have a bookshop in Wareham so know the area pretty well.
would you mind if I ask you a totally random question? In 1978, a blacksmith's in Wareham had a large pile of horseshoes outside it. In 2003, the pile had become a large metal wall outside the property, made out of horseshoes. When I went back less than ten years later, I could not find it. Do you know if the blacksmiths, or the wall, still exists?
Yep, I know this is about as off-topic as it is possible to get, but I loved finding that wall.
Wow - I didn't know that.
The only remaining hardware store is a place called Ponds - near Sainsbury's. Can't say I've ever seen a wall of horseshoes but I'll ask at the pub next time I'm there!
I've had a look at my 'site. The piccie says it was in Lytchett Minster, but the text says Wareham. So I only know it was somewhere in that area. Sorry!
I described it as: "A little further on in Wareham I was delighted to come across a wall made out of horseshoes outside a blacksmiths. This wall was a couple of feet thick and about six yards long, and comprised entirely of old horseshoes, with the nails holding them in place"
It's intriguing as when John Merrill walked the coast in 77/78, he photographed it as a pile of horseshoes.
People are going to keep coming. Risking their lives. When they get here they will not be going back.
It is high time we did something positive. Set up a processing centre in Northern France. Process the applications. Those who are approved then bring them over safely and those who are not we leave there and if they come via the boats return them.
We are hardly overrun with refugees and asylum seekers. We should really be a bit more humane in how we treat people in these situatuons
And it's really odd that people like Corbyn cannot recognise that. It is exactly the sort of colonialism they pretend to hate.
Just before the invasion, we were discussing China and Russia here. You may recall the pushback that some people had to my point that both China and Russia were (and are) imperial projects. Complete with heavy handed colonialism - smash the natives over the head until they become good little "civilised" people. Or good little dead people. Whichever.
I'm reluctant to keep correcting comments on Corbyn, who is pretty much yesterday's man, but he is vehemently opposed to the invasion for exactly that reason - he sees the invasion as an imperialist project. He's more or less a pacifist, so isn't keen on pouring arms into the conflict, but that doesn't mean he fails to recognise the invasion for the disaster that it is. See e.g. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corbyn-interview-russia-cease-fire/31838717.html
I think we tend to have two-dimensional views of people we disagree with. Left-wing pacifism has a very long tradition and it's got its supporters into trouble on a regular basis, notably in WW1 and in the 30s. It's not something I support - I'm willing to back military force where appropriate. But it's a caricature to see it as support for the other side - Corbyn is no more pro-Russian than Lansbury was pro-German. The right-wing equivalent, I suppose, is isolationism - "let other countries sort themselves out, not our business". That too is not necessarily symptomatic of support for the wrong side.
The thing is Corbyn isn't simply a principled pacifist, because he supports the right of Palestinians to use violence against the Israelis, and he has similarly justified the use of violence by the ANC and IRA.
His position is that British and American imperialism, by virtue of being the strongest imperialisms in the world, are therefore the most evil, and so the most urgent to oppose. Consequently British and American foreign policy is always wrong.
I've often found myself on the same side as Corbyn in opposing British and American military adventures abroad, but he's simply wrong on Ukraine. Ukrainians have as much right to self-defence as Palestinians.
I think there is a difficult tension between the political and the material. I don't necessarily agree with, but can understand and feel we should discuss, the position that NATO expansion may have poked the Russian bear into this action, and there needs to be a political settlement that can allow the Russian state to feel it isn't besieged. But the material reality on the ground is not some ideological war between Russia and NATO, but a war where the Russian state increasingly and loudly proclaims the desire for the end of a Ukrainian people - by taking their land, dispersing their populace and reeducating their children. This, if carried out, would be a genocide. That is the current stated goal of the Russian state.
The second tension is, of course, the pretty reasonable desire to prevent escalation. Should this become a war between NATO and Russia, nobody knows what the fallout (pun intended) would be. We might hope that it wouldn't go nuclear, but it's not impossible.
(Snip)
The 'NATO expansion poking the Russian bear' is bullshit for a number of reasons. Not only is it factually inaccurate, why should Russia have a say on what bodies its democratic neighbours join?
Also note that Putin and others in his regime have stated that it is not just Ukraine; they want the Baltic states under their influence as well.
And why should states neighbouring Russia have to feel besieged by Russia? Why do only Russia's feelings matter?
Corbyn's position is deeply immoral, and will lead to more pain and suffering, note less.
For the first part, I don't disagree, but if the shoe was on the other foot and coalition of China, Russia and Iran (for example) were planning to post troops and missiles in Cuba, the US would almost certainly invade and say it was unacceptable, even if the Cuban people democratically wanted it.
I also want the free democratic determination of the Ukrainian people, as well as those in other Baltic states, I just have no idea how that can materially be secure that given the possibility of nuclear war and escalation.
I also agree that Corbyn is wrong, even if I think he is coming from a place that is understandable and good faith.
Ukraine disarmed up til 2014. No foreign troops on its soil.
The Russian way of saying thank you - invasion.
One thing that was achieved by this. Everyone on the planet with itchy neighbours now wants nuclear weapons.
The good bit - old fuel rods that have sat for decades in cooling ponds.. well, the Pu-240 is all decayed. So a bit of basic chemistry, and the The Gods of The Underworld are yours.....
Every reactor that is a few decades old has cooling ponds full of the stuff.
Truss seems to be fortunate that her embarrassing u turn seems to have been relegated to being a minor news story today not the headline story. At least according to Sky it seems to be 4th story of the day behind the killing of Al Zawahri, the court case over Archie and BPs profits.
FWIW it's the lead on the BBC (and the Guardian, but you might expect that). It's second on the Mail site (with a sarcastic headline - "U-turn in just HOURS".
Yes but they've all now started to drop the rather hyperbolic and slightly disingenuous 'cutting pay for nurses' line in favour of 'drops plan to link public sector pay to location' which, whilst a stupid policy, is not particularly damaging. The usual few hours of breathless pearl clutching followed by u turn followed by 'bizarre fuss was made'
The scare quotes in the headline are an indication that the words between them are a mischaracterisation of the proposal by Truss's opponents.
From that article
(Ben Houchen ) He added: 'Is it a moment - I'm not entirely sure, it might be - we might look back in four or five weeks' time and this could be Liz's ''dementia tax'' moment. It very easily could be, but it's to be seen.'
Does the Sunak mob (because that’s what they’re turning into) really think it’s worth tearing the party apart, just to try and get their man installed?
Hi Sandpit - I find it a bit of a shame that as a poster I think I’ve generally agreed with everything you write on here but I find the anti-Sunak stance a bit out of where you used to seem to be coming from.
I understand completely why Ukraine is so very important to you through your wife and her family and friends but I feel that you have been unusually blinded by the rumours that Wallace was going to blow Sunak out of the water for not wanting to spend money on Ukraine.
Firstly we still haven’t heard anything so far - and today would have been a useful day to do it. It might still come but as yet it’s only a rumour out about at the early stages and still nothing additional or factual.
Ben Wallace himself in his Sun interview said that Sunak was supportive over Ukraine spending even though Wallace had just declared support for Truss - again would have been a killer time to at least hint that Sunak was soft on spending etc.
So when you hit out at the “Sunak mob” it’s arguable that it was the Boris/Truss mob floating a false rumour (quite a nasty one of untrue) and so it’s a bit ripe to complain about his allies criticising their opponent on something that’s clearly worth criticising.
Sunak has probably had more hit jobs on him by the Boris/Truss mob starting with the non-Dom issues all the way to Pravda shoes.
So the long and short of it is, do you really believe in the approach of Truss/disagree with approach of Sunak for best running of the country or do you think you have been sucked in by potential propaganda by a mob?
This isn’t in anyway a personal attack - I’m just interested in why you’ve taken this line.
Thanks
Very simple. I believe that political discussions within the context of the leadership campaign should be done much more politely.
The way the Sunak team has operated today is most unedifying, and risks permanent damage to the party if it continues. They know the membership are not generally on Twitter, it’s squarely aimed at stirring up a media storm rather than advancing the debate.
You need the media storm for it to hit the radio and TV so that retired Tory party members see the story and the issue.
People are going to keep coming. Risking their lives. When they get here they will not be going back.
It is high time we did something positive. Set up a processing centre in Northern France. Process the applications. Those who are approved then bring them over safely and those who are not we leave there and if they come via the boats return them.
We are hardly overrun with refugees and asylum seekers. We should really be a bit more humane in how we treat people in these situatuons
Nah - simpler.
Anyone who crosses the channel in RIB and makes it has skills.
Pass a law that anyone who tries to entry the country without documentation is deemed to have enlisted in the Royal Navy. That will fix the manning shortage.
China announce military drills Aug 4 to 7 after Nancy departs. If they are invading, thats when.
Famous last words but I doubt it.
The question is why this is happening now in terms of the Chinese authorities.
The answer seems to lie in what's happening with the Covid restrictions in China.
I spoke to a company last week who is pulling out of China because their view is that things are never going back to normal. Xi has committed himself so much to a Zero Covid policy that the Chinese have locked themselves into a disastrous situation where they can't exit the policy without raising serious questions about Xi's / the CCP's judgement and actions.
That penny is starting to drop as the Chinese economic data rolls in and it's clear they will miss their 2022 growth targets.
So what to do? Well, sabre rattle is the answer. Biden was actually right in opposing Pelosi going (same with Trump) - there is nothing wrong with going, it's the timing that's the issue. Later in the year, the weather would have been against the Chinese. Now? Perfect time to launch your drills.
My man in China is increasingly of the view that the CCP replaces Xi in November, because without economic growth the party cannot cling to power, and the lockdowns mean no economic growth.
Whether this is achieved without bloodshed is another matter altogether.
No, Liz Truss has handled it quite well, abandoning the policy after just a few hours, and for half of those hours, people were asleep. Crucially, Truss ditched the policy before many voters would even have known there was a policy to ditch.
Liz Truss's big mistake was adopting the policy in the first place. Presumably it started life as a newspaper polemic from years gone by, like Boris's bendy banana scare stories, warmed over and punted to Liz by one of her more gullible supporters.
As a policy it fell apart almost immediately because the claimed savings imply a much wider scope than was originally spun, and because of the obvious contradictions with other government policies like levelling up. ETA as previously discussed, the rot at the heart of modern politics is the substitution of slogans for policies, so that Truss and her acolytes had considered how to operationalise this one, or indeed levelling up.
But all in all, Liz handled it well.
Nope Liz does detail even less than Bozo does and this is an example where it came back to bite her.
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
Liz Truss' problem isn't doing detail. Those can be fixed. She doesn't do facts.
Nor does the electorate.
Indeed it's possible the electorate doesn't do facts. In which case they shouldn't be surprised this country is functioning less and less.
Truss abandoned her policy of cutting public workers' pay, not because it makes no sense, but because it generated a reaction from a selectorate she has to win over. But suppose there hadn't been this reaction, the policy presumably would have gone ahead, as will probably most of the rest of her crackpot schemes. So for example a healthcare system where 12 hour waits for A&E are becoming the norm, will disintegrate that much more.
People are going to keep coming. Risking their lives. When they get here they will not be going back.
It is high time we did something positive. Set up a processing centre in Northern France. Process the applications. Those who are approved then bring them over safely and those who are not we leave there and if they come via the boats return them.
We are hardly overrun with refugees and asylum seekers. We should really be a bit more humane in how we treat people in these situatuons
Yes we need to work with the French but instead the Government is only interested in attacking them. It does not help things. And the French are not perfect either.
China announce military drills Aug 4 to 7 after Nancy departs. If they are invading, thats when.
Famous last words but I doubt it.
The question is why this is happening now in terms of the Chinese authorities.
The answer seems to lie in what's happening with the Covid restrictions in China.
I spoke to a company last week who is pulling out of China because their view is that things are never going back to normal. Xi has committed himself so much to a Zero Covid policy that the Chinese have locked themselves into a disastrous situation where they can't exit the policy without raising serious questions about Xi's / the CCP's judgement and actions.
That penny is starting to drop as the Chinese economic data rolls in and it's clear they will miss their 2022 growth targets.
So what to do? Well, sabre rattle is the answer. Biden was actually right in opposing Pelosi going (same with Trump) - there is nothing wrong with going, it's the timing that's the issue. Later in the year, the weather would have been against the Chinese. Now? Perfect time to launch your drills.
My man in China is increasingly of the view that the CCP replaces Xi in November, because without economic growth the party cannot cling to power, and the lockdowns mean no economic growth.
Whether this is achieved without bloodshed is another matter altogether.
Everyone knows Xi is incompetent but yet his dominance is total. Comparisons made with Brezhnev.
Comments
The original proposal seems to have come from a "blue sky thinking" project back in 2018 - where the headline figure would have appeared on page 1 followed by a detailed explanation on page 2-32 saying why it doesn't work.
Truss being Liz "TLDR" Truss just saw the headline figure...
This is exactly the fear Putin wants to instil in people, and it is the fear we need to be fighting against. Not because it isn't an horrific thought, but because if we give in to that fear now, Russia and other malign actors will use that fear in the future. Once they get Ukraine, they'll use that fear over the Baltics. Or Poland. Or something else.
The best thing for peace is *not* to give in to that fear now. We should have stood up to Russia years ago, but we told Putin we were weak and divided.
If Putin is willing to use nukes to get what he wants, he will use nukes. If not over Ukraine, over some other thing he wants to gain and we belatedly decide to stop. The only way to stop that threat is to give him everything he wants. And then everything China wants. And everything everyone else with nukes want.
It will also convince other rogue nations that nuclear weapons are worth developing, as just the mere threat of them leads to you gaining what you want. If Russia loses this war without using its nukes, it sends exactly the opposite message: they are strategically worthless.
If we give in now, eventually they will be used.
Which is why, despite the danger, the least dangerous time to face the threat is now.
Today is everything wrong with modern politics in microcosm. Everyone in politics (and political journalism) needs to re-learn polite disagreement, and it’s sad to see.
What has been clear to the saner tories for a while, and is now starting to cut through to the Truss supporters is….
She can’t viably cut tax. Her plan doesn’t work. As soon as she tries to identify spending cuts, the pushback is too great. There is no fat left to cut.
Now, she might get away with it. Indeed she might have read the contest right - as a virtue signalling contest rather than putting forward a plan for government.
But her key weakness that this has exposed is: She can’t actually deliver meaningful tax cuts. Tory members of a tax-cutting bent may well conclude that Rishi’s tax plans, while smaller in scope, are at least deliverable.
I also assume this analysis, and the snipping of the chess analogy, means you disagree with that analogy? I had considered it quite useful when I first heard it.
Yes, one player has a button that unleashes potential death on both players. But there's also a high chance that attempting to press the button results in someone behind him hitting him over the head with a hammer. And a further high chance that pressing it means far, far far less death and destruction than expected.
In which case, it means that he will be dead, and so will all his family and friends, and his opponents will have suffered a terrible disaster, but will very much still be standing.
The nation loves the guy. Free money talks!
https://twitter.com/brexit_sham/status/1554417700755181568?s=21&t=aMxPdZGZc9j76wyU1FFQGw
Our delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.
Our discussions with Taiwan leadership reaffirm our support for our partner & promote our shared interests, including advancing a free & open Indo-Pacific region.
America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.
Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances.
The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo.
https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1554482274430844928
I'm quite attracted by the idea, or was until my current problems but Mrs C is very much against it
China, for what it's worth, cannot let this go by without some form of retaliation. It won't be a major increase in tension - not least because the US has let it be known that Biden was opposed to the trip - but there will be something.
But what?
How willing is Xi to tie himself to Russia? Perhaps there could be an announcement of a big expansion of the Russia-China gas pipeline, as a little fingers up to the West? On the other hand, that would take a long time to reach fruition, and if Russia loses the war, it might all be for nothing.
Imagine that, being in a country subjected to invasion and systemic rape, and still being worried about fair trials.
It's 30, 29, 28, 27,..., 3, 2, 1
(Plus every combination inside there, obv, like 30 * 29. But even so, a little bit of Python could throw out all the answers in about 2 minutes.)
I'm unsure your chess analogy is a good one, but it does bring up another moral point: Ukraine had nuclear weapons, and gave them up with guarantees of their security from various states. Those guarantees were shown as being worthless back in 2014. If you are interested in nuclear disarmament, this was a shameful thing.
https://twitter.com/solhugheswriter/status/1554389989521330177?s=21&t=jVOKqAuO5cq_GDRH7Vf2Jw&fbclid=IwAR12T1HHNCGm2_rabFlsfBWPoxoUGhPcym0dxAceRL-FRa8kzNwnj-ZYw-s
As for the specific reference to the rapes, if you feel what I said needs to be challenged robustly, I suggest you attempt to do so, after you have informed yourself a little more. This would seem a good place to start:
https://meduza.io/amp/en/feature/2022/06/28/we-work-on-the-information-front
'Oleksandra Kvitko (the Human Rights Ombudsman's daughter, who was employed on the hotline) also underwent several interrogations, Ukrainska Pravda reported. According to the outlet, she told prosecutors that over the course of a month and a half, her hotline had received over a thousand calls, 450 of which concerned child rape. Officials, however, were only able to find records of 92 calls.
Kvitko wasn’t able to provide any details, including who called her or what doctors she directed the victims to. There was nothing that would indicate these victims actually existed. She said that she told her mother the stories “over tea.”'
These are the stories that were repeated uncritically by the Western media - far more uncritically it turns out than the Ukrainian media.
Global Britain...The fall of the British Passport “In 2010, it was ranked as the most powerful in the world. According to the Henley Passport Index, we could visit more destinations without a prior visa than any other nationality.” Now it’s 13th. https://bit.ly/3OTZlfQ https://twitter.com/paullewismoney/status/1554367479689920512/photo/1
Neither Rishi nor Truss pass muster to me.
Rishi (at least initially) was promising austerity now (at a time of economic slowdown) for pensioner tax cuts later.
Liz is promising more spending, more debt, and tax cuts too for pensioners and corporates too, apparently to be balanced by the usual efficiency savings guff.
Michigan - polls close 8pm local = 1pm UK (2pm for parts of Upper Peninsula bordering Wisconsin)
Missouri - polls close 7pm local = 1pm UK
Kansas - polls close 7pm local = 1pm UK
Arizona - polls close 7pm local = 3am UK
Washington - deadline for returning OR postmarking ballots 8pm local = 3am UK
We should have learned that by now.
They have to find a better line of attack.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-62392898
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-02/us-to-stop-tsmc-intel-from-adding-advanced-chip-fabs-in-china
Facts are of zero use in getting elected leader. They are of limited use in winning a General election.
But still not a complicated ask for anyone with even a modicum of programming ability.
Which reminds me, @Cyclefree - let me know if you still need local info re: Winfrith. I have a bookshop in Wareham so know the area pretty well.
The question is why this is happening now in terms of the Chinese authorities.
The answer seems to lie in what's happening with the Covid restrictions in China.
I spoke to a company last week who is pulling out of China because their view is that things are never going back to normal. Xi has committed himself so much to a Zero Covid policy that the Chinese have locked themselves into a disastrous situation where they can't exit the policy without raising serious questions about Xi's / the CCP's judgement and actions.
That penny is starting to drop as the Chinese economic data rolls in and it's clear they will miss their 2022 growth targets.
So what to do? Well, sabre rattle is the answer. Biden was actually right in opposing Pelosi going (same with Trump) - there is nothing wrong with going, it's the timing that's the issue. Later in the year, the weather would have been against the Chinese. Now? Perfect time to launch your drills.
I understand completely why Ukraine is so very important to you through your wife and her family and friends but I feel that you have been unusually blinded by the rumours that Wallace was going to blow Sunak out of the water for not wanting to spend money on Ukraine.
Firstly we still haven’t heard anything so far - and today would have been a useful day to do it. It might still come but as yet it’s only a rumour out about at the early stages and still nothing additional or factual.
Ben Wallace himself in his Sun interview said that Sunak was supportive over Ukraine spending even though Wallace had just declared support for Truss - again would have been a killer time to at least hint that Sunak was soft on spending etc.
So when you hit out at the “Sunak mob” it’s arguable that it was the Boris/Truss mob floating a false rumour (quite a nasty one of untrue) and so it’s a bit ripe to complain about his allies criticising their opponent on something that’s clearly worth criticising.
Sunak has probably had more hit jobs on him by the Boris/Truss mob starting with the non-Dom issues all the way to Pravda shoes.
So the long and short of it is, do you really believe in the approach of Truss/disagree with approach of Sunak for best running of the country or do you think you have been sucked in by potential propaganda by a mob?
This isn’t in anyway a personal attack - I’m just interested in why you’ve taken this line.
Thanks
Yep, I know this is about as off-topic as it is possible to get, but I loved finding that wall.
Under any scenario.
And sometimes I feel that most of the rest of the electorate are worse...
The only remaining hardware store is a place called Ponds - near Sainsbury's. Can't say I've ever seen a wall of horseshoes but I'll ask at the pub next time I'm there!
The way the Sunak team has operated today is most unedifying, and risks permanent damage to the party if it continues. They know the membership are not generally on Twitter, it’s squarely aimed at stirring up a media storm rather than advancing the debate.
https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2111/what-integers-have-been-factored-with-shors-algorithm
Of course they will always face concerns over spending but grizzling that the Tories are trying to shake the magic money tree makes them sound dull.
They need to find a way that speaks to the irresponsibility or inequity of Tory plans while laying out fairer but still exciting spending.
They also need a theory of growth.
Rishi’s is essentially “sound money”.
Truss’s is essentially “tax cuts”.
I’m not sure Keir or Reeves have a retail friendly message yet.
The extra day off for civil servants was a gift from the Queen - as David Cameron found when he tried to get rid of it
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1554494590194958339
Liz does not know what she is doing...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62390281
The 'winners'? Ronaldo and Harry Maguire out by a country mile, multiples ahead of Marcus Rashford who only just pipped Bruno Fernandes.
And also - 7 of the top 10 spots occupied by Man U players. I'm guessing that has to do with the global nature of their fan base and...
...their shit performance relative to expectations. With the possible exception of Rashford (and even here, not even his supporters would claim his football has been great), it looks like the social media abuse is driven more by the poor form of players and / or general dislike rather than racism.
The end of the war was when the American armed the opponents of the Serbs. Mind you, they did so rather cleverly - they kept control of the supply lines, so that when inevitably some units misbehaved, the Americans pulled their supplies and air support. And they died in Serb counterattacks.
What are Tories supposed to do if someone is proposing something a bit stupid? They have to point it out because if they believe that it is dangerous and Truss is elected and carries out the policy it’s a nightmare for the party and the country.
The members need to hear if a candidate says something dangerous and if that’s through twitter or the media then it has to be so.
As I said, the other side have been far from innocent in this and equally likely to split the party due to the personal attacks on top of policy attacks.
See first pic on http://www.britishwalks.org/walks/2002/313.php
I described it as: "A little further on in Wareham I was delighted to come across a wall made out of horseshoes outside a blacksmiths. This wall was a couple of feet thick and about six yards long, and comprised entirely of old horseshoes, with the nails holding them in place"
It's intriguing as when John Merrill walked the coast in 77/78, he photographed it as a pile of horseshoes.
It is high time we did something positive. Set up a processing centre in Northern France. Process the applications. Those who are approved then bring them over safely and those who are not we leave there and if they come via the boats return them.
We are hardly overrun with refugees and asylum seekers. We should really be a bit more humane in how we treat people in these situatuons
The Russian way of saying thank you - invasion.
One thing that was achieved by this. Everyone on the planet with itchy neighbours now wants nuclear weapons.
The good bit - old fuel rods that have sat for decades in cooling ponds.. well, the Pu-240 is all decayed. So a bit of basic chemistry, and the The Gods of The Underworld are yours.....
Every reactor that is a few decades old has cooling ponds full of the stuff.
Anyone who crosses the channel in RIB and makes it has skills.
Pass a law that anyone who tries to entry the country without documentation is deemed to have enlisted in the Royal Navy. That will fix the manning shortage.
Whether this is achieved without bloodshed is another matter altogether.
Truss abandoned her policy of cutting public workers' pay, not because it makes no sense, but because it generated a reaction from a selectorate she has to win over. But suppose there hadn't been this reaction, the policy presumably would have gone ahead, as will probably most of the rest of her crackpot schemes. So for example a healthcare system where 12 hour waits for A&E are becoming the norm, will disintegrate that much more.
Mail backs Truss, God help us all!
These are good ideas Taz.