"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
This did create structural problems though. We grew rich selling assets one time only. Selling oil and then gas one time only. And by your 1991 we were out of stuff to sell off and burning though gas and oil reserves for someone else's profit.
We then had a service economy reliant on financial services selling snake oil and on shopping. Largely reliant on importing most of the things we need, or having foreign owners disinterested in the UK production of said things.
What we could have done with that North Sea bountry was stick the money in a sovereign wealth fund, invest in long term manufacturing and be a global exporter. THAT would have been a miracle. Any fool can sell assets off at bargain prices.
This is what former prime minister Harold Macmillan was getting at when he complained about the government selling the family silver.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The same comparison can be made in any Western European country during that time, even Portugal and Italy which have had poor outcomes subsequently.
Um, no it can't.
London is the global centre of finance and professional services, with a huge hinterland to that across the country, and the oil in the North Sea was, um, in the North Sea.
And don't forget that Thatcher's successful reforms were copied across most of Europe, because they were successful.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
We are not currently being attacked by Russia and we are not a third world country. For that I am of course grateful. It's not exactly sunlit uplands though.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
"Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men."
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The same comparison can be made in any Western European country during that time, even Portugal and Italy which have had poor outcomes subsequently.
Um, no it can't.
London is the global centre of finance and professional services, with a huge hinterland to that across the country, and the oil in the North Sea was, um, in the North Sea.
And don't forget that Thatcher's successful reforms were copied across most of Europe, because they were successful.
Are you saying that the Portuguese material standard of living in 1991 was basically comparable to that in 1978. Surely not.
I am open to the emerging Truss is a political colossus view among PB Tories. As an empiricist, I view every hypothesis as worthy of testing. But one question - if she is such a brilliant politician, why have Tory MPs, who know her best, been reluctant to embrace her (until she became the favourite)? Recall that Thatcher 1.0 was chosen by her fellow MPs.
MPs elected Mrs Thatcher by mistake. Her team, led by Airey Neave, assured MPs that Thatcher could not win, and urged them to vote for her to send a message to Ted Heath. This was the first in a series of balls-ups by the self-styled most sophisticated electorate in the world.
Also, it may be worth recalling that Mrs T was looking like a one term PM until the Falklands Conflict saved her bacon and she won her second term riding on the high from winning the Falklands back.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Even though we share different political views, I would agree with much of that, especially on the effects of monetarism on what was actually a productive private sector manufacturing base. Thatcher deserved praise for many things but, ironically for a Government that was committed to the private sector and talked up the image of the small business owner, the effect of her legacy was mixed.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
That's more realistic, and fair, but I'm still not convinced we are in "a massive fucking crisis"
Why? Because we have a very recent example of a genuinely "massive fucking crisis" to compare. I mean Covid. It closed down the world for two years. It killed 20 million people, it decimated economies, it changed the way we lived. THAT really was a "massive fucking crisis". A once-in-50-years event, and a really really bad one
What we face now is a potentially painful economic downturn caused, in part, by a crazy war in distant lands. This happens. It's not great. But nor is it the apocalypse, and nor is it Covid 2.0
One of the reasons I am warming to Liz Truss is the way she said "we are in danger of talking ourselves into recession". She's right.. Clearly, I like a bit of doom-mongering as much as the next PB-er, but we've probably had enough for the moment
You don't think its a massive fucking crisis because you have money to pay bills. Believe me you would se it differently if your electricity bill was going to be higher than your income. This the the reality being faced by the poorest demographic this winter - an energy price cap higher than their wages / UC income.
And for millions and millions and millions of people who get by but with very little buffer? Energy bills completely swamp their finances after inflation undermines their foundations.
This coming winter - the depths of the inflation bomb going off - is a generational economic event which will change permanently the ability of many people to live comfortably or at all. It will be talked about in the same breath as the GFC of 2008 and Black Wednesday and the Winter of Discontent.
Covid hit you personally hard. Me. Others. But financial support was there and a wartime spirit. There is no support this time. And rather than pull together the party and the leader you support are blaming the people who are drowning.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
I am open to the emerging Truss is a political colossus view among PB Tories. As an empiricist, I view every hypothesis as worthy of testing. But one question - if she is such a brilliant politician, why have Tory MPs, who know her best, been reluctant to embrace her (until she became the favourite)? Recall that Thatcher 1.0 was chosen by her fellow MPs.
MPs elected Mrs Thatcher by mistake. Her team, led by Airey Neave, assured MPs that Thatcher could not win, and urged them to vote for her to send a message to Ted Heath. This was the first in a series of balls-ups by the self-styled most sophisticated electorate in the world.
Also, it may be worth recalling that Mrs T was looking like a one term PM until the Falklands Conflict saved her bacon and she won her second term riding on the high from winning the Falklands back.
Time and again there is swing back to the incumbent. It seems unlikely to me that the British people would have put Labour in government with that manifesto.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The same comparison can be made in any Western European country during that time, even Portugal and Italy which have had poor outcomes subsequently.
Um, no it can't.
London is the global centre of finance and professional services, with a huge hinterland to that across the country, and the oil in the North Sea was, um, in the North Sea.
And don't forget that Thatcher's successful reforms were copied across most of Europe, because they were successful.
Are you saying that the Portuguese material standard of living in 1991 was basically comparable to that in 1978. Surely not.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Easy to make such a comparison in hindsight. Hard to sit in 1978 and say "we could be much better off once we are all able to buy a load of things not yet invented that we don't know about."
The fundamental difference was that when people got into difficulty in the 70s they weren't left to drown. By 1991 not only were they drowning they had amoral twats like Peter Lilley physically holding them underwater whilst hectoring about morality.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Some cads and bounders, have more than one wife and or girlfriend.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Even though we share different political views, I would agree with much of that, especially on the effects of monetarism on what was actually a productive private sector manufacturing base. Thatcher deserved praise for many things but, ironically for a Government that was committed to the private sector and talked up the image of the small business owner, the effect of her legacy was mixed.
I think she was so focused on defeating "the enemy within" that she was somewhat blind to the consequences.
There's no doubt in my mind she was fundamentally patriotic and didn't want anyone in the UK to suffer, and wanted all to do well. But she wasn't always very good at showing it.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
"Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men."
For one night stands maybe but eventually most women will want to marry and have children, in which case most of them will have to lower their sights or end up a spinster
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Even though we share different political views, I would agree with much of that, especially on the effects of monetarism on what was actually a productive private sector manufacturing base. Thatcher deserved praise for many things but, ironically for a Government that was committed to the private sector and talked up the image of the small business owner, the effect of her legacy was mixed.
Very mixed. All kinds of good things happened. All kinds of bad things as well. Much has been said about the impacts of things like city deregulation. Great - but did we need to sell everything off cheap and be left with nothing at the end of it?
We could have brought in market reforms, let the city develop this new financial services economy AND not flogged everything cheaply. Imagine what the UK could have been with our new financial services sector AND an ocean of North Seat Sovereign Wealth Fund money to invest.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Fifty years of global technological advancement and efficiency can't be ascribed solely to Thatcher's England, though I'll grant her a role in inventing soft-serve ice cream.
I am open to the emerging Truss is a political colossus view among PB Tories. As an empiricist, I view every hypothesis as worthy of testing. But one question - if she is such a brilliant politician, why have Tory MPs, who know her best, been reluctant to embrace her (until she became the favourite)? Recall that Thatcher 1.0 was chosen by her fellow MPs.
MPs elected Mrs Thatcher by mistake. Her team, led by Airey Neave, assured MPs that Thatcher could not win, and urged them to vote for her to send a message to Ted Heath. This was the first in a series of balls-ups by the self-styled most sophisticated electorate in the world.
Also, it may be worth recalling that Mrs T was looking like a one term PM until the Falklands Conflict saved her bacon and she won her second term riding on the high from winning the Falklands back.
Myth. Economy was recovering by 1982.
And that was absolutely Thatch. No-one else would have done that with the Falklands.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Fifty years of global technological advancement and efficiency can't be ascribed solely to Thatcher's England, though I'll grant her a role in inventing soft-serve ice cream.
You seem to have trouble ascribing anything to her.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Easy to make such a comparison in hindsight. Hard to sit in 1978 and say "we could be much better off once we are all able to buy a load of things not yet invented that we don't know about."
The fundamental difference was that when people got into difficulty in the 70s they weren't left to drown. By 1991 not only were they drowning they had amoral twats like Peter Lilley physically holding them underwater whilst hectoring about morality.
Interesting to note that suicides among women fell during Thatcher's time as PM:
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Even though we share different political views, I would agree with much of that, especially on the effects of monetarism on what was actually a productive private sector manufacturing base. Thatcher deserved praise for many things but, ironically for a Government that was committed to the private sector and talked up the image of the small business owner, the effect of her legacy was mixed.
I think she was so focused on defeating "the enemy within" that she was somewhat blind to the consequences.
There's no doubt in my mind she was fundamentally patriotic and didn't want anyone in the UK to suffer, and wanted all to do well. But she wasn't always very good at showing it.
I think she was patriotic but that definitely included the idea that some people could be sacrificed for the welfare of the nation as a whole. It was a generation that went through a world war and they were less sentimental about universal access or helping everybody than we are.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
"Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men."
For one night stands maybe but eventually most women will want to marry and have children, in which case most of them will have to lower their sights or end up a spinster
Which, unfortunately, describes a lot of the women I know. They settled for someone they weren't truly happy with, then comes the divorce.
The aforementioned quote does, however, offer an explanation to Frank's query, namely that, if most women would prefer a "high value" man, it makes sense that quite a few of them would prefer to share said man, rather than settle for an average guy. Hence the disparity in male single/female single figures.
I am open to the emerging Truss is a political colossus view among PB Tories. As an empiricist, I view every hypothesis as worthy of testing. But one question - if she is such a brilliant politician, why have Tory MPs, who know her best, been reluctant to embrace her (until she became the favourite)? Recall that Thatcher 1.0 was chosen by her fellow MPs.
MPs elected Mrs Thatcher by mistake. Her team, led by Airey Neave, assured MPs that Thatcher could not win, and urged them to vote for her to send a message to Ted Heath. This was the first in a series of balls-ups by the self-styled most sophisticated electorate in the world.
Also, it may be worth recalling that Mrs T was looking like a one term PM until the Falklands Conflict saved her bacon and she won her second term riding on the high from winning the Falklands back.
Myth. Economy was recovering by 1982.
And that was absolutely Thatch. No-one else would have done that with the Falklands.
No-one.
It was Mrs Thatcher's defence cuts, and in particular withdrawal of HMS Endurance, that encouraged Argentina to invade. As you say, no-one else would have done that with the Falklands. After the Falklands were retaken, defence cuts resumed. You might remember John Nott famously walking out of an interview when challenged on this.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Even though we share different political views, I would agree with much of that, especially on the effects of monetarism on what was actually a productive private sector manufacturing base. Thatcher deserved praise for many things but, ironically for a Government that was committed to the private sector and talked up the image of the small business owner, the effect of her legacy was mixed.
Very mixed. All kinds of good things happened. All kinds of bad things as well. Much has been said about the impacts of things like city deregulation. Great - but did we need to sell everything off cheap and be left with nothing at the end of it?
We could have brought in market reforms, let the city develop this new financial services economy AND not flogged everything cheaply. Imagine what the UK could have been with our new financial services sector AND an ocean of North Seat Sovereign Wealth Fund money to invest.
The demutualisation of the building societies was a disaster. We invited the American investment banks over to the point where they ended up ditching Glass Steigall in Wall Street.
One thing I've never understood. It was thought up to the 1960s that banks needed capital levels around 30%(?) of asset values. And then by 2008 it was about 2% if I'm not mistaken. What explains this radical shift in attitudes and the total indifference to it? That didn't start under Thatcher but the enormous size of our banking system left us very exposed.
It would be remiss of me not to note the 11p fall in petrol prices at the Tesco's nearest to Stodge Towers. Now at 175.9 per litre - 15p off the peak but still a long way ahead of this time last year.
Without being blasé, inflation affects everyone, unemployment primarily affects those who can't get work. It is August and before @Leon goes all 1914 on us, there's an element of people seeing the storm and enjoying the sunshine while they can. No one quite knows how the autumn and winter will play out but if $90 a barrel is here to stay that will have an impact.
Margaret Thatcher - well, yes. It's complex and nuanced - she changed a lot, other changes she initiated had unforeseen consequences. Privatisation was the big idea and of course was followed almost worldwide - I'd argue she had her fair share of good fortune (her opponents were weak and her biggest ally in Washington wasn't). Whether she or anyone close to her recognised the impact of events in eastern Europe in 1989 I'm not sure.
I will credit her for recognising (if not doing much about) the emerging environmental problem but she seemed oblivious to the demographic timebomb which must have been evident in the 1980s. The manner of her departure must have hurt at a personal level for which one has to empathise though I'm sure she wouldn't have considered it in those terms.
She transformed the terms of the political debate and the fact those on the Right still worship her suggests one of her biggest legacies has been the inability of the Right to come up with any alternative or relevant policies. Cameron tried to move conservatism on - Johnson and Truss seem incapable of so doing which is why the former failed and the latter will fail.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Fifty years of global technological advancement and efficiency can't be ascribed solely to Thatcher's England, though I'll grant her a role in inventing soft-serve ice cream.
You seem to have trouble ascribing anything to her.
I have trouble ascribing _everything_ to her, but open to praising her if we discuss the specifics. That being said, everything good seems to have been microeconomic. 12% unemployment for half a decade was not a price worth paying for slightly faster low inflation than the rest of Western Europe.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Even though we share different political views, I would agree with much of that, especially on the effects of monetarism on what was actually a productive private sector manufacturing base. Thatcher deserved praise for many things but, ironically for a Government that was committed to the private sector and talked up the image of the small business owner, the effect of her legacy was mixed.
I think she was so focused on defeating "the enemy within" that she was somewhat blind to the consequences.
There's no doubt in my mind she was fundamentally patriotic and didn't want anyone in the UK to suffer, and wanted all to do well. But she wasn't always very good at showing it.
I don't think that's true. She divided people into "our people" and others, perhaps to a greater extent than any other postwar PM. Growing up in Scotland and the NE of England it was abundantly clear that we fell outside of her concern. I am sure it felt different in the Home Counties.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
I don't suppose the right-wing press is a bundle of laughs either, unless you get your thrills from all the 'Boris/Liz to revive British Empire after Brexit' bombast.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
Thank you for focusing on the substance of the debate. Classy as always!
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Easy to make such a comparison in hindsight. Hard to sit in 1978 and say "we could be much better off once we are all able to buy a load of things not yet invented that we don't know about."
The fundamental difference was that when people got into difficulty in the 70s they weren't left to drown. By 1991 not only were they drowning they had amoral twats like Peter Lilley physically holding them underwater whilst hectoring about morality.
The 1990s were golden years compared to 3-day weeks, power cuts, rampant strikes, limited choice and credit controls of the 70s.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
Most of the gap is just the younger average age of women in marriages both same- and opposite-sex by a few years, which adds up to a big percentage of the population, though you may well be right that there is a higher marriage rate for lesbians.
Mrs Stodge is seething tonight - on our return, we have a letter from Newham explaining they were "unable to process the bank account details supplied" so we will get our £150 Council Tax rebate paid directly into our Council Tax account whereas Mrs Stodge wanted the £150 resting in her account.
As we have seen before, the apparent largesse of Government is an illusion and the illusion is it requires a flexible bureaucracy in BOTH the private and public sectors to amend financial and payment systems to enable such refunds to be made. It makes me wonder if Sunak even thought about any aspect of this - the huge level of fraud perpetrated during his initial Covid "help" suggests he can come up with an idea but doesn't think it through or understand the detail (where the Devil ultimately lurks).
I suspect for what little it's worth he will be strengthened by his forthcoming failure - he seems to have failed very infrequently in his life and it's character building (as we all know) to endure failure and learn from it.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
That's 100% softhead speccieland cliche. I'm typical left and one of my favourite songs is Life is a Rollercoaster (you just got to ride it) by Ronan Keating. Played it again just a few minutes ago.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
I don't accept it's a trade off but if it was I would in fact trade some size of pie for more equal shares thereof.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
"Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men."
For one night stands maybe but eventually most women will want to marry and have children, in which case most of them will have to lower their sights or end up a spinster
Which, unfortunately, describes a lot of the women I know. They settled for someone they weren't truly happy with, then comes the divorce.
The aforementioned quote does, however, offer an explanation to Frank's query, namely that, if most women would prefer a "high value" man, it makes sense that quite a few of them would prefer to share said man, rather than settle for an average guy. Hence the disparity in male single/female single figures.
Well tough, you can only marry one man and one man can only marry one woman. If they want to be that choosy they will end up a spinster
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
Structural changes take a long time to be measurable. The place to look for the economic miracle of the 80s is in the 'golden legacy' left to Gordon Brown.
Or look at the British economy right now, completely in the shit. High rates of poverty, poor productivity growth, glaring regional inequalities, a lack of competitiveness, unaffordable housing, all have their roots in the 1980s, or are more deep rooted problems that the Thatcher "miracle" failed to solve. The only thing you can't blame her for is Brexit, she created the single market and would never have been daft enough to leave it.
I mean, this is simply absurd
You've just had an excellent holiday in Cornwall. I am staring out at London partying in the sunshine. Everyone carrying their picnics to Primrose Hill and Regent's Park
Does this look like an economy "completely in the shit"?
No, it does not. For an economy "completely in the shit" check out Ukraine, or Sri Lanka. They are really "in the shit"
Yes we have dire warnings from the Bank of England, but they are just that, Dire warnings. They might easily be wrong. And even if they are right we are looking at a long boring recession, not a war and a Depression. it is said unemployment might rise to 6%. OMFG
Are we completely in the shit? No. Are we completely free from shit? No. As always we are in the grey smear that is reality - but we do have significant structural problems of which nothing is being done to resolve them.
During Covid the problems came to the surface. An army of kids not going to school and that means not being fed properly. And we are about to go through a winter where a lot of people are going to be cold and hungry, and in some cases dead.
Easy for you to dismiss that because you and I are lucky enough not to be shitting our pants at how to keep food on the table and the heating on this winter. But its a massive fucking crisis and the time to start acting was months ago.
We're a very unequal society and lots of people have no buffer at all against even a slight downturn let alone the one that's coming.
Thank you Maggie Thatcher. You really were transformational.
More unequal but would you want to be more equal with the level of wealth we all had in the 1970s or more unequal but with everyone being much better off and wealthier now?
Fifty years of global technological advancement and efficiency can't be ascribed solely to Thatcher's England, though I'll grant her a role in inventing soft-serve ice cream.
Are you suggesting she was a bit vanilla, save for the ripple effect?
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
There is at least one senior female politician who is alleged to do just that. And she isn't alone.
What's different is the backlash against them if they get caught.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
It's also bollocks though.
Lots of women love sex. But, they want it with a trusted partner they can be intimate with.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
That's 100% softhead speccieland cliche. I'm typical left and one of my favourite songs is Life is a Rollercoaster (you just got to ride it) by Ronan Keating. Played it again just a few minutes ago.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I'm eager to hear about Leon's census of Argentina conducted for this purpose. Or, maybe, it'll be a pair of exuberant slick bankers in the loos of some London club.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
That's 100% softhead speccieland cliche. I'm typical left and one of my favourite songs is Life is a Rollercoaster (you just got to ride it) by Ronan Keating. Played it again just a few minutes ago.
I’ve never known you say anything which isn’t slightly peevish and dreary. Even when you try to be amusing - and I’ve seen you try - it is done with that mouth-like-a-cat’s-arse grimace of faint disapproval
Nor is this unimportant. For a start it’s why Boris kept winning. He’s cheerful. He suggests life might get better, and even if it doesn’t, here’s a decent joke
Can Starmer ‘do’ cheerful? Can he do patriotic uplift? Lol no. None of you can because you just don’t believe it. Life is always getting worse. You’ve become some weird caricature of the right from about 40 years ago. You are the new calvinists and everyone is racist
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
There is at least one senior female politician who is alleged to do just that. And she isn't alone.
What's different is the backlash against them if they get caught.
It's unsurprising that women don't behave in quite the same way as men.
The biological consequences of sex are much more serious for them, so of course they are more cautious.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
The earth could easily support 50 or 100 bn people, and quite possibly a lot more, albeit there would need to be some fairly substantial lifestyle changes to achieve this.
With that said, given reproduction is now in the easy control of humans (almost anywhere), birth rates have absolutely collapsed.
So the likelihood of the world population exploding (or even growing particularly quickly), seems pretty remote.
ISTR something posted a few years back (possibly by you) showing the world has already reached peak child. There will never be more children in the world than there are now. There will be more people, as that peak moves up the age ranges, but it will stabilise at around 11bn, before gently declining. Now 11bn is not without its challenges; and nor is a population decline. But I am moderately optimistic about our ability to meet those challenges.
Median world household income is about $10,000. your optimism has to include optimism that the poor are going to be happy staying poor, because in terms of resource consumtion bringing them all up to the living standards of very very poor westerners is equivalent to doubling (at a guess) the population.
I'm also genuinely optimistic that the future will see the average individual have a better standard of living while consuming less.
Less proper meat. Through wind, solar and batteries there's no need to drop anyones standard of living long term
Everyone should have meat. And livestock are a valid part of good rotational farming and stewardship of the land.
I will do virtually everything and anything else but meat is the one thing I won't compromise on (as my profile suggests).
I think its climate "impact" is massively exaggerated, usually by those with other ideological PETA agendas, and no-one should be taken in by it. The only bit I can agree with is that clearing rainforest for beef grazing is stupid.
Fundamentally, we have a problem because we burn billions of tons of fossil fuels each year; not because a few cows are farting.
I tried to seriously look in to climate about 17 years ago. What I took away from it is that we have a very poor understanding of how the weather works because it is so chaotic and it also became very clear that we have an extremely poor understanding of human environmental impact in general. I don't think it is getting any better, because it is now highly politicised and a type of pseudo religious fervour has overtaken the debate, which I keep seeing whenever anyone tries to approach the subject in the real world.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
It's also bollocks though.
Lots of women love sex. But, they want it with a trusted partner they can be intimate with.
But they don’t love sex as much as men
Google ‘celibacy in lesbian partnerships’ and educate thyself
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I'm eager to hear about Leon's census of Argentina conducted for this purpose. Or, maybe, it'll be a pair of exuberant slick bankers in the loos of some London club.
Spent weeks traveling around Argentina. Including Ushuaia, home of the Argentine navy, where they are OBSESSED by the Malvinas
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
The earth could easily support 50 or 100 bn people, and quite possibly a lot more, albeit there would need to be some fairly substantial lifestyle changes to achieve this.
With that said, given reproduction is now in the easy control of humans (almost anywhere), birth rates have absolutely collapsed.
So the likelihood of the world population exploding (or even growing particularly quickly), seems pretty remote.
ISTR something posted a few years back (possibly by you) showing the world has already reached peak child. There will never be more children in the world than there are now. There will be more people, as that peak moves up the age ranges, but it will stabilise at around 11bn, before gently declining. Now 11bn is not without its challenges; and nor is a population decline. But I am moderately optimistic about our ability to meet those challenges.
Median world household income is about $10,000. your optimism has to include optimism that the poor are going to be happy staying poor, because in terms of resource consumtion bringing them all up to the living standards of very very poor westerners is equivalent to doubling (at a guess) the population.
I'm also genuinely optimistic that the future will see the average individual have a better standard of living while consuming less.
Less proper meat. Through wind, solar and batteries there's no need to drop anyones standard of living long term
Everyone should have meat. And livestock are a valid part of good rotational farming and stewardship of the land.
I will do virtually everything and anything else but meat is the one thing I won't compromise on (as my profile suggests).
I think its climate "impact" is massively exaggerated, usually by those with other ideological PETA agendas, and no-one should be taken in by it. The only bit I can agree with is that clearing rainforest for beef grazing is stupid.
Fundamentally, we have a problem because we burn billions of tons of fossil fuels each year; not because a few cows are farting.
I tried to seriously look in to climate about 17 years ago. What I took away from it is that we have a very poor understanding of how the weather works because it is so chaotic and it also became very clear that we have an extremely poor understanding of human environmental impact in general. I don't think it is getting any better, because it is now highly politicised and a type of pseudo religious fervour has overtaken the debate, which I keep seeing whenever anyone tries to approach the subject in the real world.
And weren't interested enough to update yourself by any climatic developments since then?
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I'm eager to hear about Leon's census of Argentina conducted for this purpose. Or, maybe, it'll be a pair of exuberant slick bankers in the loos of some London club.
Spent weeks traveling around Argentina. Including Ushuaia, home of the Argentine navy, where they are OBSESSED by the Malvinas
So, next
Right, the famously left-wing South American armed forces. Good effort.
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
By massively increasing the number of crossings?
Are you sure that was the plan?
Devaluing the crossings is a good thing.
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
It's also bollocks though.
Lots of women love sex. But, they want it with a trusted partner they can be intimate with.
But they don’t love sex as much as men
Google ‘celibacy in lesbian partnerships’ and educate thyself
You are talking to a poster who told us a bit ago that he had fucked more beautiful women than the rest of us had taken shits, so he obv knows his subject.
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
It’s not working yet but this clearly shows it CAN work. Deterrence. It’s not hard to work out but it is apparently beyond the wit of the left
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
That's just silly. Women do go out on the pull look for one-nighters. The difference is that they don't need to bother with the danger and discomfort of Hampstead Heath - just go into a night club and approach a few blokes. They'll get an offer soon enough.
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I'm eager to hear about Leon's census of Argentina conducted for this purpose. Or, maybe, it'll be a pair of exuberant slick bankers in the loos of some London club.
Spent weeks traveling around Argentina. Including Ushuaia, home of the Argentine navy, where they are OBSESSED by the Malvinas
So, next
Right, the famously left-wing South American armed forces. Good effort.
I'm not sure the percentages are explained by the 'tinder effect.' It refers to people who are married or co-habiting.
Thinking about it again there may be more women in the divorced/widowed category which I think is separate as their husband's are likelier to die before them.
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
By massively increasing the number of crossings?
Are you sure that was the plan?
Devaluing the crossings is a good thing.
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
"Devaluing"?
Mostly when prices go down people buy more of stuff. Are you saying that a £500 illegal immigrant is only 1/8 as much of a problem for the country as a £4,000 one?
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I'm eager to hear about Leon's census of Argentina conducted for this purpose. Or, maybe, it'll be a pair of exuberant slick bankers in the loos of some London club.
Spent weeks traveling around Argentina. Including Ushuaia, home of the Argentine navy, where they are OBSESSED by the Malvinas
So, next
Right, the famously left-wing South American armed forces. Good effort.
Didn’t expect that reply, did you?
You must be in the top 5% of PBers for whom it's plausible.
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
By massively increasing the number of crossings?
Are you sure that was the plan?
Devaluing the crossings is a good thing.
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
"Devaluing"?
Mostly when prices go down people buy more of stuff. Are you saying that a £500 illegal immigrant is only 1/8 as much of a problem for the country as a £4,000 one?
well, there's a reduction in the traffickers' tax bill to be made there so presumably Truss sees it as progress.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
It's also bollocks though.
Lots of women love sex. But, they want it with a trusted partner they can be intimate with.
But they don’t love sex as much as men
Google ‘celibacy in lesbian partnerships’ and educate thyself
I thought lesbians had wildly exuberant sex lives. I've seen them in videos....
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
By massively increasing the number of crossings?
Are you sure that was the plan?
Devaluing the crossings is a good thing.
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
"Devaluing"?
Mostly when prices go down people buy more of stuff. Are you saying that a £500 illegal immigrant is only 1/8 as much of a problem for the country as a £4,000 one?
Well, you have to consider the supply side as well. Is £500 per person worth the risk of organising a crossing?
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
You’d do better to stop trying to think above your paygrade.
I'm eager to hear about Leon's census of Argentina conducted for this purpose. Or, maybe, it'll be a pair of exuberant slick bankers in the loos of some London club.
Spent weeks traveling around Argentina. Including Ushuaia, home of the Argentine navy, where they are OBSESSED by the Malvinas
So, next
Right, the famously left-wing South American armed forces. Good effort.
Didn’t expect that reply, did you?
You must be in the top 5% of PBers for whom it's plausible.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
It's also bollocks though.
Lots of women love sex. But, they want it with a trusted partner they can be intimate with.
But they don’t love sex as much as men
Google ‘celibacy in lesbian partnerships’ and educate thyself
I thought lesbians had wildly exuberant sex lives. I've seen them in videos....
That's more than I ever needed to know about your private activities.
I notice Leon is busy making the case for the popularity of over-sexed middle aged men. I wonder why? Other than during the covid wartime spirit period Johnson's personal ratings never threatened positive territory as PM. He won an election against a staggeringly unpopular Labour leader. As for London ditto Livingstone. Perhaps he was popular there but then being Mayor was about his level.
Lesbians are overall more committed to long terms relationships than gays. That's a couple of percent at least.
The stat that has always intrigued me is that lesbians have less sex than heterosexuals who in turn have less sex than gay men
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
Stephen Fry managed to get away with saying:
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
That's just silly. Women do go out on the pull look for one-nighters. The difference is that they don't need to bother with the danger and discomfort of Hampstead Heath - just go into a night club and approach a few blokes. They'll get an offer soon enough.
Well yes, they will, because the proportion of men available for such things is much higher.
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
By massively increasing the number of crossings?
Are you sure that was the plan?
Devaluing the crossings is a good thing.
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
No it isn't. We want to decrease crossings. We are decreasing price per crossing, which increases crossings.
Rwanda transfers have started. If you think they are going to grow from where they are now like mighty oaks from little acorns: they aren't.
"One Syrian asylum seeker told the Guardian that the smugglers had dropped their prices dramatically. “Before it was £3,000 or £4,000 to cross. Now the top price is £1,200 and some asylum seekers are negotiating a price of as little as £500 to cross. Everyone can afford to cross these days. Some asylum seekers are saying to smugglers, ‘Why should I pay you £4,000 to go to the UK when I might end up in Rwanda? I will pay you £500’. Then a deal is struck.”"
Good, then the system is working.
By massively increasing the number of crossings?
Are you sure that was the plan?
Devaluing the crossings is a good thing.
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
"Devaluing"?
Mostly when prices go down people buy more of stuff. Are you saying that a £500 illegal immigrant is only 1/8 as much of a problem for the country as a £4,000 one?
Well, you have to consider the supply side as well. Is £500 per person worth the risk of organising a crossing?
Yes, it's a fucking doddle. If you could buy a 30 seater minibus for £2,000 and charge 30 pax £500 each to drive them 30 miles, how long would you spend thinking about it?
As a momentary diversion, a reminder there's a General Election in Latvia on October 1st.
Latvian politics is complicated - stating with the basics, the legislature is called the Saeima and has 100 seats. The current Government is led by Arturs Karins but his New Unity party has just 8 seats and was the smallest of the five in the Government coalition.
After the last election in 2018, For A Humane Latvia (KP), a centre-right party, had 18 seats and ran second to the Harmony Social Democratic grouping on 23. A grouping of centre-right parties sought to put together a coalition which excluded Harmony and finally succeeded in early 2019. KP was a big part of that but the party split badly in 2020 and now has just one MP.
The Conservatives (K) won 16 seats in the 2018 election and their leader, Janis Bordans, tried unsuccessfully to form his own Government before coming in behind the Karins Government.
Development/For! (AP!) is a liberal bloc of three parties which won 13 seats in the 2018 election and is also in the Government.
Finally, there's National Alliance (NA), from which the Conservatives once split but which itself won 12 seats in the 2018 election.
So, we have five parties in the Government which in 2018 won 67 seats and enjoyed a commanding majority in the Saeima.
Since then, it's got complicated with the implosion of KP so you still have the Conservatives, National Alliance, Development/For! and New Unity. They have 47 official seats and are supported by 10 others.
On the Opposition benches, we have Harmony with 18 seats, the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) with 7 seats and a further 17 seats held by various Independents or minor parties (1 seat vacant).
Current polls show the Prime Minister's own party, New Unity, polling well above 2018 numbers with 15.7%. National Alliance is second with 13.3%, Harmony has collapsed to 10.8% (down nine) and AP! also down three to 9.0%. The threshold for representation is 5% so the Conservatives may well miss out
However, the Progressives (P) who polled 2.6% last time are now on 8.1% while both the Latvian Russian Union (LKS) and the centrist For Stability! (S!) also look set to get into the Saeima.
It looks as though the current Government will hold on unless we can get Harmony, the Progressives, For Stability! and ZZS to work together as an alternative.
Why not, gen x and boomers can drive 7.5 tonnes - at the moment it's just a ban for millenials
Yes, 7.5t was the standard weight for a car driving licence up until 1997, when an EU directive standardised it at the smaller 3.5t weight - but with grandfather rights for existing licence-holders.
It does actually give a lot of issues at the moment, for example using a large car to tow a caravan is often overweight for those with the newer licence. Reverting to the status quo ante is actually a decent Brexit benefit.
Note that using a 7.5t truck for commercial use, has always required a separate licence and medical.
Yup - with an old license (pre 97) you have C1/D1 for *personal use only*.
I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.
Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.
The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.
Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.
And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
It’s Saturday night so I see we’ve moved on from politics and global warming to sex and women’s propensity thereof but back to the weather.
I’m on one of those “expensive Mediterranean holidays” though not too expensive as we took our own car and arrived by ferry this morning at L’Ile Rousse in Corsica.
It’s beautiful but the seawater is troublingly warm. Unpleasantly so. No hint of refreshment left. It must be 30C. Crystal clear, but lukewarm. Reminiscent of the time I paddled in the heavily policed sea off Dubai during a work conference. Apparently NW Med temps are the hottest on record and I believe it.
I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.
Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.
The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.
Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.
And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
Typically the people whose homes will be flooded by it.
It’s Saturday night so I see we’ve moved on from politics and global warming to sex and women’s propensity thereof but back to the weather.
I’m on one of those “expensive Mediterranean holidays” though not too expensive as we took our own car and arrived by ferry this morning at L’Ile Rousse in Corsica.
It’s beautiful but the seawater is troublingly warm. Unpleasantly so. No hint of refreshment left. It must be 30C. Crystal clear, but lukewarm. Reminiscent of the time I paddled in the heavily policed sea off Dubai during a work conference. Apparently NW Med temps are the hottest on record and I believe it.
I know that feeling. When the sea is so warm it doesn’t cool you off at all. Once in Egypt and once, arguably, in Corfu - during a recent blistering heatwave. 2018 maybe
< I’ve never known you say anything which isn’t slightly peevish and dreary. Even when you try to be amusing - and I’ve seen you try - it is done with that mouth-like-a-cat’s-arse grimace of faint disapproval
Nor is this unimportant. For a start it’s why Boris kept winning. He’s cheerful. He suggests life might get better, and even if it doesn’t, here’s a decent joke
Can Starmer ‘do’ cheerful? Can he do patriotic uplift? Lol no. None of you can because you just don’t believe it. Life is always getting worse. You’ve become some weird caricature of the right from about 40 years ago. You are the new calvinists and everyone is racist
I don't recall Margaret Thatcher being fast and loose with the humour in public - her jibe about the LDs just before they won the Eastbourne by-election was an example of her comedic timing.
The problem with endless optimism and bonhomie is when things aren't going well - Johnson was the last politician you'd have had for a major pandemic. No room for levity, humour or good news - just night after night of misery and rules - you could see how much that affected him (and that was before the Covid itself).
Sometimes, humour just isn't enough - people want an honest and open assessment of the problems and the possible responses. A few knob jokes, a couple of anti-leftie jibes and people are entitled to ask if that's all there is.
I mean, 15 years after "Gaylord Ponceyboots" and you're still turning out the same old drab nonsense night after night on here - a little bit of sexual innuendo, a bit of leftie provoking and a few pages from the cookbook.
That's the problem with the Right - they're just boring.
I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.
Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.
The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.
Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.
And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
The people whose valley village the waters swallow?
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
That's 100% softhead speccieland cliche. I'm typical left and one of my favourite songs is Life is a Rollercoaster (you just got to ride it) by Ronan Keating. Played it again just a few minutes ago.
I’ve never known you say anything which isn’t slightly peevish and dreary. Even when you try to be amusing - and I’ve seen you try - it is done with that mouth-like-a-cat’s-arse grimace of faint disapproval
Nor is this unimportant. For a start it’s why Boris kept winning. He’s cheerful. He suggests life might get better, and even if it doesn’t, here’s a decent joke
Can Starmer ‘do’ cheerful? Can he do patriotic uplift? Lol no. None of you can because you just don’t believe it. Life is always getting worse. You’ve become some weird caricature of the right from about 40 years ago. You are the new calvinists and everyone is racist
You want to humoured and lied to like a toddler then, is it?
I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.
Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.
The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.
Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.
And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
The water companies who got rid of their old reservoirs? Fixing leaking pipes was supposed to make up for the loss of reservoirs.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
The earth could easily support 50 or 100 bn people, and quite possibly a lot more, albeit there would need to be some fairly substantial lifestyle changes to achieve this.
With that said, given reproduction is now in the easy control of humans (almost anywhere), birth rates have absolutely collapsed.
So the likelihood of the world population exploding (or even growing particularly quickly), seems pretty remote.
ISTR something posted a few years back (possibly by you) showing the world has already reached peak child. There will never be more children in the world than there are now. There will be more people, as that peak moves up the age ranges, but it will stabilise at around 11bn, before gently declining. Now 11bn is not without its challenges; and nor is a population decline. But I am moderately optimistic about our ability to meet those challenges.
Median world household income is about $10,000. your optimism has to include optimism that the poor are going to be happy staying poor, because in terms of resource consumtion bringing them all up to the living standards of very very poor westerners is equivalent to doubling (at a guess) the population.
I'm also genuinely optimistic that the future will see the average individual have a better standard of living while consuming less.
Less proper meat. Through wind, solar and batteries there's no need to drop anyones standard of living long term
Everyone should have meat. And livestock are a valid part of good rotational farming and stewardship of the land.
I will do virtually everything and anything else but meat is the one thing I won't compromise on (as my profile suggests).
I think its climate "impact" is massively exaggerated, usually by those with other ideological PETA agendas, and no-one should be taken in by it. The only bit I can agree with is that clearing rainforest for beef grazing is stupid.
Fundamentally, we have a problem because we burn billions of tons of fossil fuels each year; not because a few cows are farting.
I tried to seriously look in to climate about 17 years ago. What I took away from it is that we have a very poor understanding of how the weather works because it is so chaotic and it also became very clear that we have an extremely poor understanding of human environmental impact in general. I don't think it is getting any better, because it is now highly politicised and a type of pseudo religious fervour has overtaken the debate, which I keep seeing whenever anyone tries to approach the subject in the real world.
AGW is not in any sense a religion. It's based on evidence not faith. Equating it to a religion is a technique of deniers. If you took another plunge into it now you'd see this, I'm sure.
I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.
Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.
The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.
Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.
And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
The people who are compulsorily purchased out to make room for it, and the other people who would like to CP the same land for different purposes like housebuilding.
Desalination is great, and costs a fortune in energy. Riyadh possibly has advantages over the ROW there.
< I’ve never known you say anything which isn’t slightly peevish and dreary. Even when you try to be amusing - and I’ve seen you try - it is done with that mouth-like-a-cat’s-arse grimace of faint disapproval
Nor is this unimportant. For a start it’s why Boris kept winning. He’s cheerful. He suggests life might get better, and even if it doesn’t, here’s a decent joke
Can Starmer ‘do’ cheerful? Can he do patriotic uplift? Lol no. None of you can because you just don’t believe it. Life is always getting worse. You’ve become some weird caricature of the right from about 40 years ago. You are the new calvinists and everyone is racist
I don't recall Margaret Thatcher being fast and loose with the humour in public - her jibe about the LDs just before they won the Eastbourne by-election was an example of her comedic timing.
The problem with endless optimism and bonhomie is when things aren't going well - Johnson was the last politician you'd have had for a major pandemic. No room for levity, humour or good news - just night after night of misery and rules - you could see how much that affected him (and that was before the Covid itself).
Sometimes, humour just isn't enough - people want an honest and open assessment of the problems and the possible responses. A few knob jokes, a couple of anti-leftie jibes and people are entitled to ask if that's all there is.
I mean, 15 years after "Gaylord Ponceyboots" and you're still turning out the same old drab nonsense night after night on here - a little bit of sexual innuendo, a bit of leftie provoking and a few pages from the cookbook.
That's the problem with the Right - they're just boring.
I am so drab you remembered a gag of mine from about 12 years ago
"Why Labour should fear Liz Truss Her popularity among the grassroots is no accident BY JOHN MCTERNAN John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair"
One of the main reasons Labour should fear Liz Truss - or Rishi Sunak - or my Aunt Gladys - is that SKS is not very good at retail politics.
The piece contains this warning:
"But [Sunak's] floundering campaign should be a lesson for Labour if they want to confront Liz Truss."
I confess that I thought Truss would be an utter disaster and they may even ditch her after just one year. I am beginning to wonder whether, like it seems most people, I have seriously underestimated her.
She really is the moron you thought she was. That is not to say the voting public won't be satisfied buyers.
I was highly skeptical of Truss in the beginning. Especially after her floundering appearance in that first debate
But I’ve not seen any evidence she is stupid, let alone “a moron”
Where is it? What makes her “a moron”? Apart from the fact you disagree with her?
It's moronic to think borrowing for tax cuts is a deflationary measure - but it doesn't follow from her saying this that she's a moron since it's possible she knows she's talking rot and is just doing it to secure votes in the leadership election.
Has she explicitly said those words? If so that is certainly quite controversial, and against economic orthodoxy - tho again I hesitate to say "moronic"
Remember the 798,999 economists who wrote to the Guardian calling Thatcher a moron, just as her reforms started to take effect, and the UK went into a boom
Having a shed load of oil and a load of public assets to flog didn't hurt, either, nor did access to the emerging European single market. Thatcher's macro policies were generally poor, hence her period in office being bookmarked by deep recessions and the economy undergoing an unprecedented rise in income inequality, although product market liberalisation was good. She certainly wasn't a moron, not that I think anyone called her that.
The economic miracle of the 80s is a bit of a myth as far as I can see. It doesn't exactly leap out of the figures.
It's not a myth: Thatcher successfully turned a failing manufacturing economy into a booming services one, aided and abetted by a boon from North Sea oil.
Of course, there were winners and losers from that but there's no doubt the country got much wealthier: just compare the standard of living of anyone in 1978 with 1991.
The failure of the left to admit -even now - that Thatcher was the pivotal figure in transforming the post-war UK economy for the better is an enduring indication of their persistent stupidity. They are too childish to confess the truth. The day they do, will be a day to celebrate. I have not got champagne on ice
No one outside the UK disputes what Thatcher did, and how she improved the UK. She is a revered figure for many. Even the Argentinians afford her a grudging, sullen respect - I know this, because I have asked them
She is a pivotal figure, nobody would dispute that, and she transformed the UK economy. As I have previously noted, I think she deserves credit for making markets more competitive and for helping to create the EU single market. On the other hand, monetarism was a disastrous macro policy - it led to too high interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate, and we lost a whole swathe of viable, high productivity engineering firms as a result. The regional aspect of this policy failure is particularly pronounced and has left the economy unbalanced and unequal across different parts of the country. Selling council homes without allowing councils to build new ones has contributed to our current housing crisis. And we saw an increase in inequality almost unmatched among rich countries. At the end of her time in power we underwent a second deep recession because her government over stimulated the economy, creating a burst of inflation and a housing boom and bust. She sold off public assets too cheaply, and she failed to use North Sea oil revenue productively, so that while Norway has a vast sovereign wealth fund, we have nothing to show for it. It is a mixed legacy. "Better than Argentina" is a low bar.
Moan moan moan moan moan. This is all you do, and this is why everyone hates the Left, now. And this is why you could, still, easily lose to Liz Truss despite the Tories being a soiled clown troupe and inflation going up to 60,000%
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
That's 100% softhead speccieland cliche. I'm typical left and one of my favourite songs is Life is a Rollercoaster (you just got to ride it) by Ronan Keating. Played it again just a few minutes ago.
I’ve never known you say anything which isn’t slightly peevish and dreary. Even when you try to be amusing - and I’ve seen you try - it is done with that mouth-like-a-cat’s-arse grimace of faint disapproval
Nor is this unimportant. For a start it’s why Boris kept winning. He’s cheerful. He suggests life might get better, and even if it doesn’t, here’s a decent joke
Can Starmer ‘do’ cheerful? Can he do patriotic uplift? Lol no. None of you can because you just don’t believe it. Life is always getting worse. You’ve become some weird caricature of the right from about 40 years ago. You are the new calvinists and everyone is racist
You want to humoured and lied to like a toddler then, is it?
So I guess you will be.
Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.
Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.
The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.
The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.
Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.
And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
Usually people whose house will experience significant levels of rising damp....
Comments
London is the global centre of finance and professional services, with a huge hinterland to that across the country, and the oil in the North Sea was, um, in the North Sea.
And don't forget that Thatcher's successful reforms were copied across most of Europe, because they were successful.
https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-your-2ddf370a6e9a
"Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men."
Betfair next prime minister
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
9.6 Rishi Sunak 10%
Next Conservative leader
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
10 Rishi Sunak 10%
And for millions and millions and millions of people who get by but with very little buffer? Energy bills completely swamp their finances after inflation undermines their foundations.
This coming winter - the depths of the inflation bomb going off - is a generational economic event which will change permanently the ability of many people to live comfortably or at all. It will be talked about in the same breath as the GFC of 2008 and Black Wednesday and the Winter of Discontent.
Covid hit you personally hard. Me. Others. But financial support was there and a wartime spirit. There is no support this time. And rather than pull together the party and the leader you support are blaming the people who are drowning.
A lefty friend of mine put it succinctly the other day. "Every single story in the Guardian is depressing". If it's not about climate change and the end of everything it is "chemistry is racist" or "the police kill badgers" or "God is an illusion but we're still dying of monkeypox". Nothing ever gets better, nothing is ever good, nothing is ever funny, art must only be scrutinised for Woke correctness, not celebrated. Nothing EVER is nice. Only bad things EVER happen. Think about death more often, you stupid racist meat robot
It is unutterably dreary. It is the mindset of an alcoholic depressive bent on self harm. It is shit turned into an ideology. It is joylessness incarnate. It is the Left. It is all you do. Everything is terrible and harmful; and the stars are made of Nazi plastic that burn your pets, hahahaha
You're a bunch of stupid c*nts and I'm so so glad we keep defeating you
The fundamental difference was that when people got into difficulty in the 70s they weren't left to drown. By 1991 not only were they drowning they had amoral twats like Peter Lilley physically holding them underwater whilst hectoring about morality.
There's no doubt in my mind she was fundamentally patriotic and didn't want anyone in the UK to suffer, and wanted all to do well. But she wasn't always very good at showing it.
We could have brought in market reforms, let the city develop this new financial services economy AND not flogged everything cheaply. Imagine what the UK could have been with our new financial services sector AND an ocean of North Seat Sovereign Wealth Fund money to invest.
And that was absolutely Thatch. No-one else would have done that with the Falklands.
No-one.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2020registrations
The aforementioned quote does, however, offer an explanation to Frank's query, namely that, if most women would prefer a "high value" man, it makes sense that quite a few of them would prefer to share said man, rather than settle for an average guy. Hence the disparity in male single/female single figures.
One thing I've never understood. It was thought up to the 1960s that banks needed capital levels around 30%(?) of asset values. And then by 2008 it was about 2% if I'm not mistaken. What explains this radical shift in attitudes and the total indifference to it? That didn't start under Thatcher but the enormous size of our banking system left us very exposed.
It would be remiss of me not to note the 11p fall in petrol prices at the Tesco's nearest to Stodge Towers. Now at 175.9 per litre - 15p off the peak but still a long way ahead of this time last year.
Without being blasé, inflation affects everyone, unemployment primarily affects those who can't get work. It is August and before @Leon goes all 1914 on us, there's an element of people seeing the storm and enjoying the sunshine while they can. No one quite knows how the autumn and winter will play out but if $90 a barrel is here to stay that will have an impact.
Margaret Thatcher - well, yes. It's complex and nuanced - she changed a lot, other changes she initiated had unforeseen consequences. Privatisation was the big idea and of course was followed almost worldwide - I'd argue she had her fair share of good fortune (her opponents were weak and her biggest ally in Washington wasn't). Whether she or anyone close to her recognised the impact of events in eastern Europe in 1989 I'm not sure.
I will credit her for recognising (if not doing much about) the emerging environmental problem but she seemed oblivious to the demographic timebomb which must have been evident in the 1980s. The manner of her departure must have hurt at a personal level for which one has to empathise though I'm sure she wouldn't have considered it in those terms.
She transformed the terms of the political debate and the fact those on the Right still worship her suggests one of her biggest legacies has been the inability of the Right to come up with any alternative or relevant policies. Cameron tried to move conservatism on - Johnson and Truss seem incapable of so doing which is why the former failed and the latter will fail.
Men love sex, any sex; women are choosy, and generally need to be persuaded by a guy
As we have seen before, the apparent largesse of Government is an illusion and the illusion is it requires a flexible bureaucracy in BOTH the private and public sectors to amend financial and payment systems to enable such refunds to be made. It makes me wonder if Sunak even thought about any aspect of this - the huge level of fraud perpetrated during his initial Covid "help" suggests he can come up with an idea but doesn't think it through or understand the detail (where the Devil ultimately lurks).
I suspect for what little it's worth he will be strengthened by his forthcoming failure - he seems to have failed very infrequently in his life and it's character building (as we all know) to endure failure and learn from it.
"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my f***ing rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want," he said. "Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
And he still isn't cancelled.
(Well, multiplying such tiny fractions of utility is best left to some kind of supercomputer.)
Nadine Dorries peerage will trigger by-election battle for Tories
Boris Johnson is preparing to offer Nadine Dorries a peerage, giving his successor as Tory leader an early by-election headache.
The culture secretary has told colleagues that she intends to stand down in October, with her departure likely to trigger a by-election in the nominally safe Tory seat of Mid Bedfordshire.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nadine-dorries-peerage-will-trigger-by-election-battle-for-tories-t3gr8gl65 (£££)
What's different is the backlash against them if they get caught.
Lots of women love sex. But, they want it with a trusted partner they can be intimate with.
Nor is this unimportant. For a start it’s why Boris kept winning. He’s cheerful. He suggests life might get better, and even if it doesn’t, here’s a decent joke
Can Starmer ‘do’ cheerful? Can he do patriotic uplift? Lol no. None of you can because you just don’t believe it. Life is always getting worse. You’ve become some weird caricature of the right from about 40 years ago. You are the new calvinists and everyone is racist
The biological consequences of sex are much more serious for them, so of course they are more cautious.
If there's a worse game this season I wouldn't like to see it.
Google ‘celibacy in lesbian partnerships’ and educate thyself
So, next
A deep and observant thinker, for sure.
Are you sure that was the plan?
And that's without the transfers to Rwanda actually happening yet. Once they do it'd devalue them down to zero.
Thinking about it again there may be more women in the divorced/widowed category which I think is separate as their husband's are likelier to die before them.
Mostly when prices go down people buy more of stuff. Are you saying that a £500 illegal immigrant is only 1/8 as much of a problem for the country as a £4,000 one?
Is something afoot?
Rwanda transfers have started. If you think they are going to grow from where they are now like mighty oaks from little acorns: they aren't.
You can just see the falls beyond him
Latvian politics is complicated - stating with the basics, the legislature is called the Saeima and has 100 seats. The current Government is led by Arturs Karins but his New Unity party has just 8 seats and was the smallest of the five in the Government coalition.
After the last election in 2018, For A Humane Latvia (KP), a centre-right party, had 18 seats and ran second to the Harmony Social Democratic grouping on 23. A grouping of centre-right parties sought to put together a coalition which excluded Harmony and finally succeeded in early 2019. KP was a big part of that but the party split badly in 2020 and now has just one MP.
The Conservatives (K) won 16 seats in the 2018 election and their leader, Janis Bordans, tried unsuccessfully to form his own Government before coming in behind the Karins Government.
Development/For! (AP!) is a liberal bloc of three parties which won 13 seats in the 2018 election and is also in the Government.
Finally, there's National Alliance (NA), from which the Conservatives once split but which itself won 12 seats in the 2018 election.
So, we have five parties in the Government which in 2018 won 67 seats and enjoyed a commanding majority in the Saeima.
Since then, it's got complicated with the implosion of KP so you still have the Conservatives, National Alliance, Development/For! and New Unity. They have 47 official seats and are supported by 10 others.
On the Opposition benches, we have Harmony with 18 seats, the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) with 7 seats and a further 17 seats held by various Independents or minor parties (1 seat vacant).
Current polls show the Prime Minister's own party, New Unity, polling well above 2018 numbers with 15.7%. National Alliance is second with 13.3%, Harmony has collapsed to 10.8% (down nine) and AP! also down three to 9.0%. The threshold for representation is 5% so the Conservatives may well miss out
However, the Progressives (P) who polled 2.6% last time are now on 8.1% while both the Latvian Russian Union (LKS) and the centrist For Stability! (S!) also look set to get into the Saeima.
It looks as though the current Government will hold on unless we can get Harmony, the Progressives, For Stability! and ZZS to work together as an alternative.
Interestingly this covers an Alvis Saracen APC…
I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
I’m on one of those “expensive Mediterranean holidays” though not too expensive as we took our own car and arrived by ferry this morning at L’Ile Rousse in Corsica.
It’s beautiful but the seawater is troublingly warm. Unpleasantly so. No hint of refreshment left. It must be 30C. Crystal clear, but lukewarm. Reminiscent of the time I paddled in the heavily policed sea off Dubai during a work conference. Apparently NW Med temps are the hottest on record and I believe it.
I know that feeling. When the sea is so warm it doesn’t cool you off at all. Once in Egypt and once, arguably, in Corfu - during a recent blistering heatwave. 2018 maybe
It’s really not nice and it is quite unnerving
The problem with endless optimism and bonhomie is when things aren't going well - Johnson was the last politician you'd have had for a major pandemic. No room for levity, humour or good news - just night after night of misery and rules - you could see how much that affected him (and that was before the Covid itself).
Sometimes, humour just isn't enough - people want an honest and open assessment of the problems and the possible responses. A few knob jokes, a couple of anti-leftie jibes and people are entitled to ask if that's all there is.
I mean, 15 years after "Gaylord Ponceyboots" and you're still turning out the same old drab nonsense night after night on here - a little bit of sexual innuendo, a bit of leftie provoking and a few pages from the cookbook.
That's the problem with the Right - they're just boring.
So I guess you will be.
Desalination is great, and costs a fortune in energy. Riyadh possibly has advantages over the ROW there.
Incidentally, when did postage suddenly get so expensive? Or was it all gradual boiling frog?
In the flesh it is really quite moving. And yearns for peace