S&P: mini budget measures: “we believe risk raising cost of government borrowing and complicating the task of bringing inflation, which measured 9. 9% in August 2022, under control.”
Does make me laugh that the Levelling Up Secretary - the MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland - has said that all these scroungers have another thing coming. Never mind trying to level up the crappier parts of his constituency, he's decided to go to war with his own voters.
This is the level of stupid we now have running the government. When Labour take the seat with a 10k majority his losing speech will bemoan voters not being appreciative of all he has done for them.
S&P lowers the UK’s credit outlook to negative from stable because of rising risks to the country’s fiscal health over the next two years https://trib.al/p2ooWLL
S&P: “for now it is unclear whether the government plans to ultimately introduce fiscal consolidation measures to bring debt back on a downward path and we assume that the package will be funded by debt, as announced.”
This is peak drinking the kool aid ! The government driving a currency to a record low against the dollar then it recovering to a level still below the previous week is now seen as an alleged success .
S&P: “for now it is unclear whether the government plans to ultimately introduce fiscal consolidation measures to bring debt back on a downward path and we assume that the package will be funded by debt, as announced.”
I missed this little bit of Putin’s incoherent maunderings.
https://twitter.com/AndrKolesnikov/status/1575895402800644097 No one asked people during the collapse of the Soviet Union where they wanted to live, Putin said. They were asked: almost 32 million Ukrainians in a legal referendum on Dec. 1, 1991, voted for independence - that's over 90 percent of the population with an 84 percent turnout.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
Depressing? Absolutely.
It's in a sublime place beyond depressing
Imagine being shown that in school, mid or even early teens, mid 1980s (pre Gorbachev). Living under the first bomb you see in the distance at RAF Finningley. Bit of a harsh R.E. lesson...
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
I missed this little bit of Putin’s incoherent maunderings.
https://twitter.com/AndrKolesnikov/status/1575895402800644097 No one asked people during the collapse of the Soviet Union where they wanted to live, Putin said. They were asked: almost 32 million Ukrainians in a legal referendum on Dec. 1, 1991, voted for independence - that's over 90 percent of the population with an 84 percent turnout.
No one asked *him* - Putin.
To a Greater Russian Nationalist, all the people who don’t want to live in Greater Russia… don’t count as proper people.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
Depressing? Absolutely.
It's in a sublime place beyond depressing
Imagine being shown that in school, mid or even early teens, mid 1980s (pre Gorbachev). Living under the first bomb you see in the distance at RAF Finningley. Bit of a harsh R.E. lesson...
It's far too Satanic for anyone under 18. Good God. They did that?
I thought it was going to be a quite earnest leftwing preachy thing about evil nukes - perhaps powerful but sermonising. It is so much better than that
I also agree with @kyf_100 that if you watch THREADS now you soon realise that we are considerably further down the timeline than is comfortable. It is uncanny. It's all the same. The news from Iran, from eastern Europe, the warnings, the riots, the US President ticking off Russia, it is all there, they even have a threat to oil rigs....
This is peak drinking the kool aid ! The government driving a currency to a record low against the dollar then it recovering to a level still below the previous week is now seen as an alleged success .
And that ghastly Truss-Putin is taking the Chinese yuan, Swedish krona and euro with her. All touched lows against the dollar recently - a 20-year low in the case of the euro, a permanent low for the yuan. She's destroying not just our economy but the world's.
There's excitement on twitter that fighting has reached the outskirts of Kreminna, as the AFU push to exploit their recent gains. For all the talk of OPSEC photos seem to make their way on to twitter very quickly when a new town or village is liberated, so we'll find out quite soon whether another collapse of the front is in progress.
Brilliant news from the front. The Russians are on tbe point of collapse there bu the sound of things.
The Oryx stats have also been very interesting over the past week or so - Russia running at an equipment loss ratio of 10:1 or more vs Ukraine. That's up from the 3.5-4 to 1 a few months back. That suggests a collapsing army
One aspect of that is that Ukraine is recovering territory lost earlier in the war, and so we are seeing Russian equipment that was lost during those earlier battles, but not documented. But there does seem to be an element of a collapsing army, and also one where the political leadership is interfering with the detail of military operations, forbidding orderly retreats, and so leading to greater equipment losses than would otherwise be the case.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Dying is the best option which is the main take-away I think.
Seriously though, get Riddley Walker. The forward by Wil Self (Bloomsbury edition) in itself is worth a read, and the map (in the intro) of the area where the book takes place (what was once known as Kent), confuses the mind.
In a stone-age existence Kent is a really big place (as it would be). And the author invented a completely new patois English.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Dying is the best option which is the main take-away I think.
Seriously though, get Riddley Walker. The forward by Wil Self (Bloomsbury edition) in itself is worth a read, and the map (in the intro) of the area where the book takes place (what was once known as Kent), confuses the mind.
In a stone-age existence Kent is a really big place (as it would be). And the author invented a completely new patois English.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
There's excitement on twitter that fighting has reached the outskirts of Kreminna, as the AFU push to exploit their recent gains. For all the talk of OPSEC photos seem to make their way on to twitter very quickly when a new town or village is liberated, so we'll find out quite soon whether another collapse of the front is in progress.
Brilliant news from the front. The Russians are on tbe point of collapse there bu the sound of things.
The Oryx stats have also been very interesting over the past week or so - Russia running at an equipment loss ratio of 10:1 or more vs Ukraine. That's up from the 3.5-4 to 1 a few months back. That suggests a collapsing army
One aspect of that is that Ukraine is recovering territory lost earlier in the war, and so we are seeing Russian equipment that was lost during those earlier battles, but not documented. But there does seem to be an element of a collapsing army, and also one where the political leadership is interfering with the detail of military operations, forbidding orderly retreats, and so leading to greater equipment losses than would otherwise be the case.
I don't think all that many are old stuff. Note the fairly high proportion of "captured".
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
As opposed to starving to death no slowly after William The Bastard’s mercenaries stole everything in the Harrying Of The North?
War is always like that.
Read some of the stories from the Thirty Years War…
Or the War of The Triple Alliance - they seriously considered abolishing Paraguay because nearly everyone was dead. The Catholic Church endorsed multiple women marry each surviving man….
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Dying is the best option which is the main take-away I think.
Seriously though, get Riddley Walker. The forward by Wil Self (Bloomsbury edition) in itself is worth a read, and the map (in the intro) of the area where the book takes place (what was once known as Kent), confuses the mind.
In a stone-age existence Kent is a really big place (as it would be). And the author invented a completely new patois English.
Or cheer yourself up and read the Horseclans - set in North America still dealing with the consequence of nuclear war 600 years afterwards
SCOOP (1/2): @federalreserve officials getting increasingly worried about "financial stability" as opposed to inflation as higher rates begin to crush bonds, several big investors tell me. Fed growing worried about possible "Lehman Moment" w a 4% FF rate as Bonds and derivatives tied to them crash, given the enormous debt issued in just the past 3 years at super low rates. A Fed watcher told me the UK intervention was not "a one off" and the same systemic risk could happen here, which might cause the Fed to pause
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
But that was before Truss-flation. So it’s about 70 gazillion quid in today’s money.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
I watched Threads this eve for the first time since the 90s.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
I watched Threads this eve for the first time since the 90s.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
I completely agree on the timelines (as I say below)
We are following the same bloody script as THREADS, right down to the attacks on oil rigs/pipelines
Jesus Christ this is scary
I just hope someone important in Moscow and Washington (and Beijing and London and Paris and Berlin etc etc) is watching THREADS too. Because we are perilously close
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
I watched Threads this eve for the first time since the 90s.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
It's the great use of the typo-graphic (?) bulletins you get during the movie informing you of the different stages of escalation which really works. You don't need to see "many B52's lost" over Iran, the graphical bulletin gives everything you need. And it adds an urgency and immediacy which, and you are right, allies with certain things we're seeing now.
https://twitter.com/Simon_Nixon/status/1575475626143846401 Britain's financial crisis is the result of a six-year, Brexit-driven flight from reality in which any institution that provides unwelcome advice is dismissed as part of a giant left-wing, woke Remoaner plot…
Of course Murdock is not exactly unconnected with any of that.
Simon Nixon is a grade A remoaner. It’s a shame, because The Times has plenty of thoughtful solid remainers: for example as a Times reader, I enjoy David Smith’s economics columns because, despite our being on opposite sides, he is scrupulously fair and will only blame on brexit what he actually believes is due to brexit.
https://twitter.com/Simon_Nixon/status/1575475626143846401 Britain's financial crisis is the result of a six-year, Brexit-driven flight from reality in which any institution that provides unwelcome advice is dismissed as part of a giant left-wing, woke Remoaner plot…
Of course Murdock is not exactly unconnected with any of that.
Simon Nixon is a grade A remoaner. It’s a shame, because The Times has plenty of thoughtful solid remainers: for example as a Times reader, I enjoy David Smith’s economics columns because, despite our being on opposite sides, he is scrupulously fair and will only blame on brexit what he actually believes is due to brexit.
That may be true about Nixon but he’s not wrong in that opening para.
Fair enough. Hopefully PB comments will agree with me that earning over, say, £60k is also evil and avaricious, such people are relatively rich, and there should never be another budget where those people are better-off afterward.
"I was in a pub when this movie originally came out, and was on TV in the pub. The whole pub was watching it silently, quietly. People had stopped playing pool, stopped talking to each other. It was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen. A man came in and went up to the bar to order a beer. The bartender just ignored him. It was one of the most surreal things I've even seen."
I've thought of a way for Truss and Kwarteng to partially back down over the 45p tax rate cut without giving up on it altogether. Reduce it by one pence each year. So next year it gets reduced from 45p to 44p, and to 43p the following year, and so on until it's 40p.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
I watched Threads this eve for the first time since the 90s.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
The Russians are not going to deploy battlefield nukes unless the Ukranians try and recapture the regions they have now claimed. Even if they did that would just lead to their complete isolation by the West, not full scale nuclear war unless a NATO state was attacked
I've thought of a way for Truss and Kwarteng to partially back down over the 45p tax rate cut without giving up on it altogether. Reduce it by one pence each year. So next year it gets reduced from 45p to 44p, and to 43p the following year, and so on until it's 40p.
Fair enough. Hopefully PB comments will agree with me that earning over, say, £60k is also evil and avaricious, such people are relatively rich, and there should never be another budget where those people are better-off afterward.
Analyses of the effect of policy changes on rich & poor are useful. But it can lead to a promotion of the relative over the absolute: worry not about the absolute status quo or status post, but only whether the proposed change is redustributive. It’s a narrow, incomplete test.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
I watched Threads this eve for the first time since the 90s.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
The Russians are not going to deploy battlefield nukes unless the Ukranians try and recapture the regions they have now claimed. Even if they did that would just lead to their complete isolation by the West, not full scale nuclear war unless a NATO state was attacked
I think the point being made - especially with reference to Threads is that a nuclear exchange can result from escalation irrespective of whether a NATO country (or Russia/USSR) had been directly attacked.
Threads which uses a Soviet invasion of Iran as its ignition point, shows how two superpowers are drawn into direct conflict outside of NATO/Warsaw Pact. The initial fighting between USA/NATO and the USSR in Threads happens in and in the skies of Iran and then it's a "natural" progression for ever increasing hostility - culminating in limited exchange on military targets followed by a full global exchange. It's the escalation which is key. And although a work of fiction, it perfectly shows how a NATO country needn't be directly attacked for things to get way,way out of hand.
Just listening to Claer Barrett’s FT “money clinic” podcast.
Help to buy loans, which haven’t been repaid by year 7 are charged interest at CPI+2%
Currently 11.9%
If house prices fall, h2b people in negative equity could be well and truly fked.
House prices are up by an average of 45% over the last seven years. House prices would have to fall by a long way before anyone who had a help to buy loan for more than seven years was in negative equity, even if they'd been on an interest-only mortgage and hadn't paid back any of the initial mortgage balance.
It's like the TV series Chernobyl but even darker, and smarter. The regression to primitive medieval life, and the guttural language? Superb
Is it terrifying? Not quite. Desolating, yes
As a literary man (so I understand from your posts) have you read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban?
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
As a warning about nuclear holocaust THREADS possibly fails because it is so mesmerically brilliant. Each horrific image and word is in perfect sequence which becomes kinda.... beautiful. It really is a sombre Bach fugue
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
Surely the question of the film is do you really want to live through a nuclear war.
Well, yes, that too
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
I watched Threads this eve for the first time since the 90s.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
The Russians are not going to deploy battlefield nukes unless the Ukranians try and recapture the regions they have now claimed. Even if they did that would just lead to their complete isolation by the West, not full scale nuclear war unless a NATO state was attacked
I think the point being made - especially with reference to Threads is that a nuclear exchange can result from escalation irrespective of whether a NATO country (or Russia/USSR) had been directly attacked.
Threads which uses a Soviet invasion of Iran as its ignition point, shows how two superpowers are drawn into direct conflict outside of NATO/Warsaw Pact. The initial fighting between USA/NATO and the USSR in Threads happens in and in the skies of Iran and then it's a "natural" progression for ever increasing hostility - culminating in limited exchange on military targets followed by a full global exchange. It's the escalation which is key. And although a work of fiction, it perfectly shows how a NATO country needn't be directly attacked for things to get way,way out of hand.
For us now read Iran for Ukraine.
Yes but that again assumes direct military conflict between NATO forces and Russian forces in Ukraine, the whole reason there are still no NATO military forces and jets in Ukraine is to avoid that. Whatever happens in Ukraine I don't see NATO military action. Only if an existing NATO nation is attacked.
Personally I suspect it would now proceed into a no man's land impasse around the borders of the 4 regions Russia has now claimed
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
If no other parties existed? Maybe 55-45 if their vote were very badly distributed. Once you include other parties, it gets complicated.
There's excitement on twitter that fighting has reached the outskirts of Kreminna, as the AFU push to exploit their recent gains. For all the talk of OPSEC photos seem to make their way on to twitter very quickly when a new town or village is liberated, so we'll find out quite soon whether another collapse of the front is in progress.
Apparently her officials had a joke along the lines of “what’s the difference between Liz Truss and a Rottweiler?”, the answer being that even the Rottweiler lets it go, eventually.
Where is the electoral mandate for this low tax and smaller state economy . Truss and Kwarteng are determined to change the UKs economic model with absolutely no democratic consent .
Well, it’s wall-to-wall hurricane on CNN, but it’s a funny old one, this Ian. The winds aren’t that bad by hurricane standards (indeed it’s been struggling to qualify); it’s heading almost straight for me here in Virginia, only about 200 miles away now, yet outside it’s just like a bad November night on the island. Nothing comparable to my experience of being in Boston when Sandy hit New York.
The story is the amount of rain that fell on Florida - where there have been a fair few deaths and a lot of damage, particularly along the coast. In the Carolinas, where it arrived this morning, CNN’s oppos on the spot are struggling to find much drama to report.
There's excitement on twitter that fighting has reached the outskirts of Kreminna, as the AFU push to exploit their recent gains. For all the talk of OPSEC photos seem to make their way on to twitter very quickly when a new town or village is liberated, so we'll find out quite soon whether another collapse of the front is in progress.
'Western media and puppet politicians can scream “Russian aggression” and “sham election” all they want, but the unadorned fact is that these regions are overwhelmingly ethnic Russians whose collective desire is to be reunited with what they view as a powerful and ascendant Russia.'
This is just provably untrue. Even Luhansk and Donetsk weren't ethnically Russian, but ethnically Ukrainian with a high number of Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians. The idea that is true of Kherson oblast is ridiculous. That blog is clearly... and this is a technical term... bollocks.
There's excitement on twitter that fighting has reached the outskirts of Kreminna, as the AFU push to exploit their recent gains. For all the talk of OPSEC photos seem to make their way on to twitter very quickly when a new town or village is liberated, so we'll find out quite soon whether another collapse of the front is in progress.
Another strep source indicates the battle for Liman is very much ongoing with a Russian recapture of Stavky. However they do note a current multiplicity advantage for Ukr Forces still.
A wee Sweden update: English language media has largely ignored the country since the general election earlier this month. Fair enough, cos not a lot has happened yet… in public. Magdalena Andersson (Social Democrat) is still caretaker prime minister and no new government has been formed yet.
The only concrete event has been the election of the Speaker and deputy speakers.
Speaker election was a super easy win for the Moderate incumbent, but the fun n games started with the (secret) ballot for the 2nd deputy speaker. Although Kristersson’s team theoretically has 176 MPs behind him, 3 of them (nobody knows who) did not support the Sweden Democrat candidate for the post. Much fury ensued, including allegations of a “false flag” operation.
Looks like Kristersson’s government is falling apart already, and it hasn’t even taken office yet.
In another worrying sign för Kristersson’s side, the Centre Party has now left the old “Alliance” constellation even in many local governments. The Alliance had continued de facto locally long after its demise nationally in many parts of the country. That era looks to be coming to an end. It won’t matter much in rural Sweden, but it’s going to give the centre-left a stranglehold on urban local governments, which are *much* more powerful than eg local governments in the UK.
World Bank announces additional $530 million loan to Ukraine.
According to the World Bank, the U.K. and Denmark provided $500 million and $30 million in loan guarantees, respectively, to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs created by Russia’s full-scale war.
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
Well, it depends on how much Green/SNP/LD vote shares are.
But let's look at 1992. The Conservative Party got 43% of the vote, the same as in the prior two elections, and yet saw their majority reduced to the low double digits.
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted, it's possible to imagine (even if very unlikely) a scenario where 43% did not secure them a majority.
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
If no other parties existed? Maybe 55-45 if their vote were very badly distributed. Once you include other parties, it gets complicated.
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
Well, it depends on how much Green/SNP/LD vote shares are.
But let's look at 1992. The Conservative Party got 43% of the vote, the same as in the prior two elections, and yet saw their majority reduced to the low double digits.
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted, it's possible to imagine (even if very unlikely) a scenario where 43% did not secure them a majority.
The Liberal Democrats will be absolutely delighted with this break published yesterday:
South West Lab 44% Con 24% LD 22% Ref 6% Grn 2%
(Omnisis; 29-30 September; 1,320)
All the usual caveats apply in droves, but if that is even remotely close to real sentiment, then it is going to be a Con wipeout in South West England.
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted…
In 3 of the polls published yesterday, the Scottish Conservatives were on 11%, 10% and 3%. This is in line with other recent polling, indicating that the Scottish Tories have lost approximately 8 points (half their support) in the last 6 months. And the fascinating thing is that those people seem to have gone *straight* to Scottish Labour, who are, suggestively, also up approximately 8 points. Now, obviously, some “churn” will be getting missed here, but if you also take into account that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are also down a bit, it seems fair to conclude that the Scottish Unionist vote is now solidly consolidating behind the final bastion of the Union: the Labour Party. Unionists better hope that that bastion is built on solid foundations. The building inspectors have previously found shoddy workmanship…
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted…
In 3 of the polls published yesterday, the Scottish Conservatives were on 11%, 10% and 3%. This is in line with other recent polling, indicating that the Scottish Tories have lost approximately 8 points (half their support) in the last 6 months. And the fascinating thing is that those people seem to have gone *straight* to Scottish Labour, who are, suggestively, also up approximately 8 points. Now, obviously, some “churn” will be getting missed here, but if you also take into account that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are also down a bit, it seems fair to conclude that the Scottish Unionist vote is now solidly consolidating behind the final bastion of the Union: the Labour Party. Unionists better hope that that bastion is built on solid foundations. The building inspectors have previously found shoddy workmanship…
That's hard to disagree with - with the caveat at the LibDems in Scotland have been entirely dependent on tactical voting for some time, so it probably doesn't change the equation for them much. (The equation being that they will almost certainly lose the Highland North constituency, will probably hold O&S and are marginal favourites in Edinburgh West, with NE Fife being too close to call.)
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted…
In 3 of the polls published yesterday, the Scottish Conservatives were on 11%, 10% and 3%. This is in line with other recent polling, indicating that the Scottish Tories have lost approximately 8 points (half their support) in the last 6 months. And the fascinating thing is that those people seem to have gone *straight* to Scottish Labour, who are, suggestively, also up approximately 8 points. Now, obviously, some “churn” will be getting missed here, but if you also take into account that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are also down a bit, it seems fair to conclude that the Scottish Unionist vote is now solidly consolidating behind the final bastion of the Union: the Labour Party. Unionists better hope that that bastion is built on solid foundations. The building inspectors have previously found shoddy workmanship…
That's hard to disagree with - with the caveat at the LibDems in Scotland have been entirely dependent on tactical voting for some time, so it probably doesn't change the equation for them much. (The equation being that they will almost certainly lose the Highland North constituency, will probably hold O&S and are marginal favourites in Edinburgh West, with NE Fife being too close to call.)
YouGov are the only pollster correctly weighing geographical subsamples. So, just for fun, I pumped their latest Scottish finding into Baxter. It doesn’t make for fun reading for Scottish Liberal Democrats.
New boundaries::
SNP 45 seats (-3) Scottish Labour 12 seats (+11) Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party 0 seats (-6) Scottish Liberal Democrats 0 seats (-2)
Tellingly, it is Labour, not the SNP, who are predicted to take the final 2 SLD seats: Orkney & Shetland and Edinburgh West. In practice, that is extremely good news for the SLDs! They are more likely to win confusing 3-way marginals than straight fights.
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted…
In 3 of the polls published yesterday, the Scottish Conservatives were on 11%, 10% and 3%. This is in line with other recent polling, indicating that the Scottish Tories have lost approximately 8 points (half their support) in the last 6 months. And the fascinating thing is that those people seem to have gone *straight* to Scottish Labour, who are, suggestively, also up approximately 8 points. Now, obviously, some “churn” will be getting missed here, but if you also take into account that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are also down a bit, it seems fair to conclude that the Scottish Unionist vote is now solidly consolidating behind the final bastion of the Union: the Labour Party. Unionists better hope that that bastion is built on solid foundations. The building inspectors have previously found shoddy workmanship…
That's hard to disagree with - with the caveat at the LibDems in Scotland have been entirely dependent on tactical voting for some time, so it probably doesn't change the equation for them much. (The equation being that they will almost certainly lose the Highland North constituency, will probably hold O&S and are marginal favourites in Edinburgh West, with NE Fife being too close to call.)
YouGov are the only pollster correctly weighing geographical subsamples. So, just for fun, I pumped their latest Scottish finding into Baxter. It doesn’t make for fun reading for Scottish Liberal Democrats.
New boundaries::
SNP 45 seats (-3) Scottish Labour 12 seats (+11) Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party 0 seats (-6) Scottish Liberal Democrats 0 seats (-2)
Tellingly, it is Labour, not the SNP, who are predicted to take the final 2 SLD seats: Orkney & Shetland and Edinburgh West. In practice, that is extremely good news for the SLDs! They are more likely to win confusing 3-way marginals than straight fights.
In the real world, there is no chance that Labour gets the 35% (minimum) needed to win a close three way battle in O&S, because the LDs will pick up Tory defectors on the "why waste your vote" basis.
FWIW, I think O&S remains a key LD/SNP battleground, with a result not a million miles from 2015 being the most likely outcome.
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
Amid the plummeting markets and polls this week, a senior government figure approached No 10 and urged it to change course. They were summarily rebuffed.
“It’s like talking to crack addicts,” they said. “You’re saying you guys need to stop, you need to temper your approach, we’ve got to communicate better. But they’re doubling down. They’re hooked on the economics.”
Liz Truss, the prime minister, is adamant that she is taking the right approach. She views the market’s response, a collapse in the value of sterling and government bonds, as an overreaction based on a failure to understand the full extent of her plans for government.
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40% SLab 31% SLD 20% Grn 4% Con 3%
I didn't see that: well, in which case that is probably the most doomed of the SLD seats, with the caveat that the LDs are masters at persuading people that only they can bear Lab/Con/SNP here.
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
S&P: “for now it is unclear whether the government plans to ultimately introduce fiscal consolidation measures to bring debt back on a downward path and we assume that the package will be funded by debt, as announced.”
You should get on the phone to them and tell them that she just doesn't give a fuck and really is going to slash the state's liabilities.
@williamglenn have you changed your mind* about the plan, then?
I ask because if you have I’m impressed - as I recall you were one of the few defenders a few days ago - an entrenched position that it is hard to row back from.
If you haven’t, and still support her plan, I find your quoted comment very surprising. Slashing the state’s liabilities is, I agree, the logical consequence of her actions so far. But it’s also morally bankrupt. Utterly so.
*if you never supported her plan in the first place, apologies. I think you did, but it’s been a busy few days, I might be mistaken.
Whatever she is, she is not a charismatic populist. She cannot inspire the kind of movement that Trump and other right wing demagogues can.
As a result despite best efforts , the KamiKwasi budget did not result in sowing division and energising a populist movement. The Tories were not motivated by post truth denials, enthusiastically picking up post truth dog-whistles. Instead, we got a hard crunch of reality.
That has to be good thing, if Boris has been in charge he would have found a way to spin it. Instead, we are dealing with hard truths.
Amid the plummeting markets and polls this week, a senior government figure approached No 10 and urged it to change course. They were summarily rebuffed.
“It’s like talking to crack addicts,” they said. “You’re saying you guys need to stop, you need to temper your approach, we’ve got to communicate better. But they’re doubling down. They’re hooked on the economics.”
Liz Truss, the prime minister, is adamant that she is taking the right approach. She views the market’s response, a collapse in the value of sterling and government bonds, as an overreaction based on a failure to understand the full extent of her plans for government.
“Has there ever been a time before when a party has an ~30 point lead, but the betting markets don't think they will get a majority at the next election?”
What is the highest percentage of the vote that Labour could realistically get without having a majority? (Setting aside the ridiculous scenarios where they get 100% of the vote in some seats and 0% in others, of course)
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted…
In 3 of the polls published yesterday, the Scottish Conservatives were on 11%, 10% and 3%. This is in line with other recent polling, indicating that the Scottish Tories have lost approximately 8 points (half their support) in the last 6 months. And the fascinating thing is that those people seem to have gone *straight* to Scottish Labour, who are, suggestively, also up approximately 8 points. Now, obviously, some “churn” will be getting missed here, but if you also take into account that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are also down a bit, it seems fair to conclude that the Scottish Unionist vote is now solidly consolidating behind the final bastion of the Union: the Labour Party. Unionists better hope that that bastion is built on solid foundations. The building inspectors have previously found shoddy workmanship…
That's hard to disagree with - with the caveat at the LibDems in Scotland have been entirely dependent on tactical voting for some time, so it probably doesn't change the equation for them much. (The equation being that they will almost certainly lose the Highland North constituency, will probably hold O&S and are marginal favourites in Edinburgh West, with NE Fife being too close to call.)
YouGov are the only pollster correctly weighing geographical subsamples. So, just for fun, I pumped their latest Scottish finding into Baxter. It doesn’t make for fun reading for Scottish Liberal Democrats.
New boundaries::
SNP 45 seats (-3) Scottish Labour 12 seats (+11) Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party 0 seats (-6) Scottish Liberal Democrats 0 seats (-2)
Tellingly, it is Labour, not the SNP, who are predicted to take the final 2 SLD seats: Orkney & Shetland and Edinburgh West. In practice, that is extremely good news for the SLDs! They are more likely to win confusing 3-way marginals than straight fights.
In the real world, there is no chance that Labour gets the 35% (minimum) needed to win a close three way battle in O&S, because the LDs will pick up Tory defectors on the "why waste your vote" basis.
FWIW, I think O&S remains a key LD/SNP battleground, with a result not a million miles from 2015 being the most likely outcome.
2015 result - Orkney & Shetland:
Liberal Democrat Hold Alistair Carmichael Majority 817
SLD 41% SNP 38% SCon 9% SLab 7% UKIP 5%
Yepp, you’re probably right. With the proviso that Labour will sweep up most of that Con + UKIP residual vote, earning them a very respectable 3rd place.
“We have acquired spending habits that outstrip our ability to pay for it,” says cabinet minister in a government which has just announced an extra £70bn of borrowing to help pay for £45bn of tax cuts. https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1576092096196329472
We will look back in 10 yrs time and laugh at all the crap that was written, the massive overreaction to a 1p cut in income rax the removal of the 45p tax rate and reduction in cgt. Anyone would think WW 3 had broke out... but that is politics for you. If the markets and the papers especially are against you , you are screwed as Truss is, politically speaking.
We will look back in 10 yrs time and laugh at all the crap tgat sas written,the massive overreaction to a 1p cut in income rax the removal of the 45p tax rate and reduction in cgt. Anyone would think WW 3 had broke out... but thstts politics for you. If the markets and the pspersxsre against you. You see screwed as Truss is, politically speaking.
Truss’s political failures are ore impressive than her economic failures. But at least it’s all laid bare, stripped of the sort of bullshit we saw with Boris.
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40% SLab 31% SLD 20% Grn 4% Con 3%
I didn't see that: well, in which case that is probably the most doomed of the SLD seats, with the caveat that the LDs are masters at persuading people that only they can bear Lab/Con/SNP here.
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
You’re assuming that Scottish Labour voters are solidly Unionist. They are not. According to the gold-standard British Social Attitudes Survey, 38% of Scottish Labour voters are pro-independence, and an awful lot more are ambivalent. Faced with a straight Lib Dem/SNP choice, a big chunk of Labour voters in Fife will choose the SNP. Clegg&Cameron lingers long in the memory!
TLDR; the things you think are beyond the pale morally, are to another person the only moral answer.
The usual conclusion from the book is that we should be more understanding of others’ political positions - more often than we think our opponents genuinely believe in the moral purpose of what they are doing.
In the case of the extremists in government, I feel there is also another conclusion to draw. If you are weird enough, you can find almost any outcome the ‘moral’ one (cf gulags under communism). So one should be deeply suspicious of one’s own moral certainties.
Given what others have posted about Truss in the last few hours, I’m not sure she will be open to that conclusion though.
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40% SLab 31% SLD 20% Grn 4% Con 3%
I didn't see that: well, in which case that is probably the most doomed of the SLD seats, with the caveat that the LDs are masters at persuading people that only they can bear Lab/Con/SNP here.
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
You’re assuming that Scottish Labour voters are solidly Unionist. They are not. According to the gold-standard British Social Attitudes Survey, 38% of Scottish Labour voters are pro-independence. Faced with a straight Lib Dem/SNP choice, a big chunk of Labour voters in Fife will choose the SNP. Clegg&Cameron lingers long in the memory!
A vote for the SNP makes a Tory government more likely.
Whatever she is, she is not a charismatic populist. She cannot inspire the kind of movement that Trump and other right wing demagogues can.
As a result despite best efforts , the KamiKwasi budget did not result in sowing division and energising a populist movement. The Tories were not motivated by post truth denials, enthusiastically picking up post truth dog-whistles. Instead, we got a hard crunch of reality.
That has to be good thing, if Boris has been in charge he would have found a way to spin it. Instead, we are dealing with hard truths.
It’s better to deal with hard truths, than lies.
So true, hadn’t thought of this. It could be far worse if she was a populist. Great post.
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40% SLab 31% SLD 20% Grn 4% Con 3%
I didn't see that: well, in which case that is probably the most doomed of the SLD seats, with the caveat that the LDs are masters at persuading people that only they can bear Lab/Con/SNP here.
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
You’re assuming that Scottish Labour voters are solidly Unionist. They are not. According to the gold-standard British Social Attitudes Survey, 38% of Scottish Labour voters are pro-independence, and an awful lot more are ambivalent. Faced with a straight Lib Dem/SNP choice, a big chunk of Labour voters in Fife will choose the SNP. Clegg&Cameron lingers long in the memory!
Nevertheless, on a forced choice basis, Unionists outnumber Nationalists in Scotland (for now), and NE Fife is a more Unionist than average constituency. The LDs would need to consolidate the Unionist vote, and while it is not a 50% shot, it's far from impossible.
Whatever she is, she is not a charismatic populist. She cannot inspire the kind of movement that Trump and other right wing demagogues can.
As a result despite best efforts , the KamiKwasi budget did not result in sowing division and energising a populist movement. The Tories were not motivated by post truth denials, enthusiastically picking up post truth dog-whistles. Instead, we got a hard crunch of reality.
That has to be good thing, if Boris has been in charge he would have found a way to spin it. Instead, we are dealing with hard truths.
It’s better to deal with hard truths, than lies.
Hard truths like no household will pay more than £2,500 for energy this year? Either spin or gross incompetence to not know the central thing about your flagship £200bn policy.
An approach of everyone else is too dim to understand, but we will make no effort to explain it to you for 8 weeks may not be your typical spin machine, but neither is it any more worthy of praise.
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40% SLab 31% SLD 20% Grn 4% Con 3%
I didn't see that: well, in which case that is probably the most doomed of the SLD seats, with the caveat that the LDs are masters at persuading people that only they can bear Lab/Con/SNP here.
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
You’re assuming that Scottish Labour voters are solidly Unionist. They are not. According to the gold-standard British Social Attitudes Survey, 38% of Scottish Labour voters are pro-independence. Faced with a straight Lib Dem/SNP choice, a big chunk of Labour voters in Fife will choose the SNP. Clegg&Cameron lingers long in the memory!
A vote for the SNP makes a Tory government more likely.
Basic arithmetic failure there.
Even if 100% of Scots voted SNP it would not assist the Conservatives one iota. Because, unlike Labour, the SNP will not do coalition or C&S deals with the Conservatives.
Where is the electoral mandate for this low tax and smaller state economy . Truss and Kwarteng are determined to change the UKs economic model with absolutely no democratic consent .
TLDR; the things you think are beyond the pale morally, are to another person the only moral answer.
The usual conclusion from the book is that we should be more understanding of others’ political positions - more often than we think our opponents genuinely believe in the moral purpose of what they are doing.
In the case of the extremists in government, I feel there is also another conclusion to draw. If you are weird enough, you can find almost any outcome the ‘moral’ one (cf gulags under communism). So one should be deeply suspicious of one’s own moral certainties.
Given what others have posted about Truss in the last few hours, I’m not sure she will be open to that conclusion though.
I've not read it (although will now add it to the pile), but I did write this a few months ago on Facebook:
Incidentally Robert, the new boundaries are catastrophic for Lib Dem hopes in North East Fife: the constituency now takes in a large SNP/Lab chunk. Baxter judges it to be a de facto SNP seat now.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40% SLab 31% SLD 20% Grn 4% Con 3%
I didn't see that: well, in which case that is probably the most doomed of the SLD seats, with the caveat that the LDs are masters at persuading people that only they can bear Lab/Con/SNP here.
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
You’re assuming that Scottish Labour voters are solidly Unionist. They are not. According to the gold-standard British Social Attitudes Survey, 38% of Scottish Labour voters are pro-independence. Faced with a straight Lib Dem/SNP choice, a big chunk of Labour voters in Fife will choose the SNP. Clegg&Cameron lingers long in the memory!
A vote for the SNP makes a Tory government more likely.
Basic arithmetic failure there.
Even if 100% of Scots voted SNP it would not assist the Conservatives one iota. Because, unlike Labour, the SNP will not do coalition or C&S deals with the Conservatives.
If Scotland returned Labour MPs a Labour majority is more likely. That’s a good thing for the UK and Scottish democracy, which is currently a one party state.
Obviously, the SNP likes being in opposition to a Tory government at Westminster, because it gives their movement energy.
Mr. Above, cheers. It'll be fascinating to see what Sunak et al do. Starmer and other party leaders should be getting every single MP they have to vote against the measures.
Comments
Should have had songs, tho. A weird eerie song as they try to stay cheerful. Apart from that - ace
OMFG
“we estimate general government deficit will rise to an average 5. 5% of GDP annually 2023-25”
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1575973688679100416
This is the level of stupid we now have running the government. When Labour take the seat with a 10k majority his losing speech will bemoan voters not being appreciative of all he has done for them.
A very difficult book to read as it is all written in a post-apocalyptic dialect - written in an "English" years/decades after a nuclear holocaust.
It could almost be a follow-on from the society left by Threads - but decades later.
Worth a read - if you can stomach translating a very peculiar dialect.
The Bach Chaconne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjEVKxQCWs&list=RDngjEVKxQCWs&start_radio=1
Ie they don’t believe current fiscal promises
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1575975449263370241
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5HmKomT7Y
https://twitter.com/AndrKolesnikov/status/1575895402800644097
No one asked people during the collapse of the Soviet Union where they wanted to live, Putin said. They were asked: almost 32 million Ukrainians in a legal referendum on Dec. 1, 1991, voted for independence - that's over 90 percent of the population with an 84 percent turnout.
Like a harrowing but brilliant bullfight? No, more like a prolonged stag hunt in Edwardian England in the piling rain, or a funereal spaceship in a terrible dream, or the death of a million slaves turned into a single, fragile, blue-glass vase. Dunno. Tremendous!
But fuck I don't wanna die in a nuclear war
To a Greater Russian Nationalist, all the people who don’t want to live in Greater Russia… don’t count as proper people.
I thought it was going to be a quite earnest leftwing preachy thing about evil nukes - perhaps powerful but sermonising. It is so much better than that
Scary
Seriously though, get Riddley Walker. The forward by Wil Self (Bloomsbury edition) in itself is worth a read, and the map (in the intro) of the area where the book takes place (what was once known as Kent), confuses the mind.
In a stone-age existence Kent is a really big place (as it would be). And the author invented a completely new patois English.
Note the fairly high proportion of "captured".
War is always like that.
Read some of the stories from the Thirty Years War…
Or the War of The Triple Alliance - they seriously considered abolishing Paraguay because nearly everyone was dead. The Catholic Church endorsed multiple women marry each surviving man….
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseclans
Seems highly feasible.
https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1575847045667102720
I'm now reading that they made that movie for £400,000
In-fucking-sane. A colossal, historic masterpiece that really conveys what nuclear apocalypse would be like, for the price of 6 minutes of Netflix drama?
it just shows it really isn't the money, if you have the artistry. Great script, too. And so relentless. So utterly pitiless. No redemption (as there should not be). Wow
So it’s about 70 gazillion quid in today’s money.
The message is obvious, the consequences of nuclear war are horrific and, while survivable, are questionable - who would want to live?
My re-watch tells me we are also a lot further along that timeline than we would care to admit. We've all read the scare stories on the news, but this is real. The russians are clearly days away from deploying battlefield nukes and if we respond in kind, we get the threads timeline. If we don't respond in kind though...... No good options.
It’s flaming whale oil or nothing, now.
We are following the same bloody script as THREADS, right down to the attacks on oil rigs/pipelines
Jesus Christ this is scary
I just hope someone important in Moscow and Washington (and Beijing and London and Paris and Berlin etc etc) is watching THREADS too. Because we are perilously close
And the most depressing part of the story may have slipped past you -
SPOILER ALERT
It's not a few decades after the collapse, it's hundreds of years. Centuries of failure to rebuild. It's only revealed indirectly, very late on
"I was in a pub when this movie originally came out, and was on TV in the pub. The whole pub was watching it silently, quietly. People had stopped playing pool, stopped talking to each other. It was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen. A man came in and went up to the bar to order a beer. The bartender just ignored him. It was one of the most surreal things I've even seen."
I can totally believe it
Just listening to Claer Barrett’s FT “money clinic” podcast.
Help to buy loans, which haven’t been repaid by year 7 are charged interest at CPI+2%
Currently 11.9%
If house prices fall, h2b people in negative equity could be well and truly fked.
Threads which uses a Soviet invasion of Iran as its ignition point, shows how two superpowers are drawn into direct conflict outside of NATO/Warsaw Pact. The initial fighting between USA/NATO and the USSR in Threads happens in and in the skies of Iran and then it's a "natural" progression for ever increasing hostility - culminating in limited exchange on military targets followed by a full global exchange. It's the escalation which is key. And although a work of fiction, it perfectly shows how a NATO country needn't be directly attacked for things to get way,way out of hand.
For us now read Iran for Ukraine.
Personally I suspect it would now proceed into a no man's land impasse around the borders of the 4 regions Russia has now claimed
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1575949112788197376?s=46&t=WKEHPELnaImffEP3TeB_vA
They need big tax rises AND significant spending cuts to balance the budget, which they’re going to be forced to do so very soon.
The story is the amount of rain that fell on Florida - where there have been a fair few deaths and a lot of damage, particularly along the coast. In the Carolinas, where it arrived this morning, CNN’s oppos on the spot are struggling to find much drama to report.
'Western media and puppet politicians can scream “Russian aggression” and “sham election” all they want, but the unadorned fact is that these regions are overwhelmingly ethnic Russians whose collective desire is to be reunited with what they view as a powerful and ascendant Russia.'
This is just provably untrue. Even Luhansk and Donetsk weren't ethnically Russian, but ethnically Ukrainian with a high number of Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians. The idea that is true of Kherson oblast is ridiculous. That blog is clearly... and this is a technical term... bollocks.
However they do note a current multiplicity advantage for Ukr Forces still.
https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/9-russell-hoban-riddley-walker
I work it out as an overall atmospheric increase of ~0.08 ppb overall so not epoch changing.
The only concrete event has been the election of the Speaker and deputy speakers.
Speaker election was a super easy win for the Moderate incumbent, but the fun n games started with the (secret) ballot for the 2nd deputy speaker. Although Kristersson’s team theoretically has 176 MPs behind him, 3 of them (nobody knows who) did not support the Sweden Democrat candidate for the post. Much fury ensued, including allegations of a “false flag” operation.
Looks like Kristersson’s government is falling apart already, and it hasn’t even taken office yet.
In another worrying sign för Kristersson’s side, the Centre Party has now left the old “Alliance” constellation even in many local governments. The Alliance had continued de facto locally long after its demise nationally in many parts of the country. That era looks to be coming to an end. It won’t matter much in rural Sweden, but it’s going to give the centre-left a stranglehold on urban local governments, which are *much* more powerful than eg local governments in the UK.
According to the World Bank, the U.K. and Denmark provided $500 million and $30 million in loan guarantees, respectively, to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs created by Russia’s full-scale war.
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1576056585201553411
But let's look at 1992. The Conservative Party got 43% of the vote, the same as in the prior two elections, and yet saw their majority reduced to the low double digits.
With so much of Labour's vote North of the border wasted, it's possible to imagine (even if very unlikely) a scenario where 43% did not secure them a majority.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/overall-majority
South West
Lab 44%
Con 24%
LD 22%
Ref 6%
Grn 2%
(Omnisis; 29-30 September; 1,320)
All the usual caveats apply in droves, but if that is even remotely close to real sentiment, then it is going to be a Con wipeout in South West England.
Whatever else one thinks of her, Truss must be the most successful Lib Dem sleeper agent in history.
New boundaries::
SNP 45 seats (-3)
Scottish Labour 12 seats (+11)
Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party 0 seats (-6)
Scottish Liberal Democrats 0 seats (-2)
Tellingly, it is Labour, not the SNP, who are predicted to take the final 2 SLD seats: Orkney & Shetland and Edinburgh West. In practice, that is extremely good news for the SLDs! They are more likely to win confusing 3-way marginals than straight fights.
FWIW, I think O&S remains a key LD/SNP battleground, with a result not a million miles from 2015 being the most likely outcome.
Baxter’s prediction for North East Fife (new boundaries), based on yesterday’s YouGov, is:
SNP 40%
SLab 31%
SLD 20%
Grn 4%
Con 3%
“It’s like talking to crack addicts,” they said. “You’re saying you guys need to stop, you need to temper your approach, we’ve got to communicate better. But they’re doubling down. They’re hooked on the economics.”
Liz Truss, the prime minister, is adamant that she is taking the right approach. She views the market’s response, a collapse in the value of sterling and government bonds, as an overreaction based on a failure to understand the full extent of her plans for government.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/now-even-the-liz-trusss-allies-are-feeling-rattled-39brrq3gd
Edit to add:
I'm probably a bit negative on the SLD chances. That's a Baxtered estimate, using the latest opinion polls, which have a big move to SLab and with the SLDs down.
In the real world, the SLDs will tell everyone in the Lab area, that it's an LD seat, and if they don't vote LD, they'll let the SNP in.
And it might just work. My 50% for the LDs may be generous, but it's not absurd.
I ask because if you have I’m impressed - as I recall you were one of the few defenders a few days ago - an entrenched position that it is hard to row back from.
If you haven’t, and still support her plan, I find your quoted comment very surprising. Slashing the state’s liabilities is, I agree, the logical consequence of her actions so far. But it’s also morally bankrupt. Utterly so.
*if you never supported her plan in the first place, apologies. I think you did, but it’s been a busy few days, I might be mistaken.
Whatever she is, she is not a charismatic populist. She cannot inspire the kind of movement that Trump and other right wing demagogues can.
As a result despite best efforts , the KamiKwasi budget did not result in sowing division and energising a populist movement. The Tories were not motivated by post truth denials, enthusiastically picking up post truth dog-whistles. Instead, we got a hard crunch of reality.
That has to be good thing, if Boris has been in charge he would have found a way to spin it. Instead, we are dealing with hard truths.
It’s better to deal with hard truths, than lies.
Liberal Democrat Hold
Alistair Carmichael
Majority
817
SLD 41%
SNP 38%
SCon 9%
SLab 7%
UKIP 5%
Yepp, you’re probably right. With the proviso that Labour will sweep up most of that Con + UKIP residual vote, earning them a very respectable 3rd place.
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1576092096196329472
Anyone would think WW 3 had broke out... but that is politics for you. If the markets and the papers especially are against you , you are screwed as Truss is, politically speaking.
TLDR; the things you think are beyond the pale morally, are to another person the only moral answer.
The usual conclusion from the book is that we should be more understanding of others’ political positions - more often than we think our opponents genuinely believe in the moral purpose of what they are doing.
In the case of the extremists in government, I feel there is also another conclusion to draw. If you are weird enough, you can find almost any outcome the ‘moral’ one (cf gulags under communism). So one should be deeply suspicious of one’s own moral certainties.
Given what others have posted about Truss in the last few hours, I’m not sure she will be open to that conclusion though.
An approach of everyone else is too dim to understand, but we will make no effort to explain it to you for 8 weeks may not be your typical spin machine, but neither is it any more worthy of praise.
Even if 100% of Scots voted SNP it would not assist the Conservatives one iota. Because, unlike Labour, the SNP will not do coalition or C&S deals with the Conservatives.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20167473.every-scottish-council-tory-labour-deal---see-full-list/
Obviously, the SNP likes being in opposition to a Tory government at Westminster, because it gives their movement energy.