That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Well, he's certainly offered voluntary service overseas to 100ks of Russian blokes. Actually, scrub that, it's not voluntary and by Vlad's lights Ukraine is not overseas.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
I don't see how they last til 2024. I think laying that is the best bet around in UK politics.
If Truss stays she will be completely restricted in her actions by her Tory opponents. She won't be able to do very much of what she wants to do, and has little inclination to carry on Boris' programmes. Sooner or later she will call an election to have some chance of a manifesto that is aligned to her.
If she goes, her supporters will block whatever a new PM does as illegitimate and against the wishes of the party members.
I am expecting a general election middle of next year.
Losing the whip to this leader may be seen by many Tory MPs as being a net positive to their longer term prospects.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
I can't see it working that way. My hunch is that when he goes it is going to be brutal and dramatic and he will take down the whole structure of government and civil order with it. I think this is the problem of not having a 'succession plan'. He should in the natural order of things quit in 2008 or 2012 and Russian history may have unfolded differently. But all this makes an apocalyptic nuclear attack more likely.
Actually, I fear he is going to escalate again. Full mobilisation and a declaration of war, with a VERY overt waving of his nuclear wanger, perhaps accompanied by a “test”
He doesn’t have many choices other than this - his alternative is accept a humiliating defeat and.. sue for peace? What?
There is another off-ramp for him. Blame it all on the generals. Says they encouraged him into it and their corruption/incompetence has caused the defeat. On the second part of that he isn't wrong. He then rounds up the generals and deals with them. He controls the media and therefore controls the narrative.
Tiny little bit of celebration for me. A mere two days before it starts I've finally had it confirmed I've been accepted on the the Early Modern London module of my Renaissance Studies MA. I hope it lives up to the syllabus because it looks amazing.
New: ministers expected to raise state pension age to 68 for millions... 2035 being openly speculated by ministers... announcment expected before Christmas in bid to shore up markets and long term bonds further
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Her entire agenda makes more sense if you realise it should be branded "Remove anything that inconveniences Tory donors"
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Not inconceivable now that this government may actually fall this autumn if the Sunakites split from party over this whipping operation.
It’s rather sad to see the very worst expectations of the Sunakites, and their friends in the media, come true almost immediately.
I’d been a supporter of Michael Gove, despite all the criticism of him over the past decade and a half, until this week.
I’m now half expecting another version of the ‘Independent group for change’ as Parliament reconvenes, with an election to follow a vote of confidence in the autumn.
It looks now like Russia is losing the entire Ukrainian war
As @DavidL says, this makes the next few week the moment of maximum peril. With every day that passes, without Putin doing something insane, we can breathe easier
A long time to go yet, however. Or: it will feel long
It will for you. For most of us we have other things in our lives. Teaching has started on semester 1 for me. Lots of happy students. I turn 50 on saturday so get togethers with family and friends. Assuming Putin doesn't nuke Warminster in the interim, of course.
Congratulations. A bit early perhaps but nonetheless sincere.
Know what you mean about other things in our lives!
Grandson Two has returned to university and, he says, is enjoying it. Granddaughters Two and Three have started their sixth form lives and seem to be very happy. Grandson One and his wife are looking forward to the arrival of Great-Grandson One!
And Mrs C and I are looking forward to the spinal surgeons working on my neck at the end of the month and perhaps giving me back some mobility! And the use of my hands!
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Which is mad. Because if there is sanctity in individual choice, why don't I have the choice to join a union? And how would the state stop me? That requires a heavy handed state response if you're going to make collective organisation and assembly illegal.
Also libertarianism was originally a left wing ideology about the freedom of people, it was a right wing american who stole it to make laissez-faire capitalism sound more freedomy.
Actually, I fear he is going to escalate again. Full mobilisation and a declaration of war, with a VERY overt waving of his nuclear wanger, perhaps accompanied by a “test”
He doesn’t have many choices other than this - his alternative is accept a humiliating defeat and.. sue for peace? What?
There is another off-ramp for him. Blame it all on the generals. Says they encouraged him into it and their corruption/incompetence has caused the defeat. On the second part of that he isn't wrong. He then rounds up the generals and deals with them. He controls the media and therefore controls the narrative.
That is likely his best chance of survival. Throwing a nuke into the mix is possible, but already demonstrates he has lost. The alternative is to sack generals, snarl and rave at how they have failed Russia, withdraw and start a campaign of internal repression. Continue in coming years to air grievances and claim the Ukrainians are occupying Russian territory. Continue to play brinkmanship and suggest you might launch a war to reclaim “your” territory at any moment. A new Cold War, essentially.
Putin might not survive such a tactic, but it’s got to be much better chance of sustaining his leadership than lobbing nukes at Ukraine.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
Cargo cult redux. Boris expelled rebels, so that's what to do.
It doesn't work here, because the only threat of losing the whip is not standing as a Conservative next time. And why would any ambitious politician want to do that, unless they are in a very very safe seat?
It looks now like Russia is losing the entire Ukrainian war
As @DavidL says, this makes the next few week the moment of maximum peril. With every day that passes, without Putin doing something insane, we can breathe easier
A long time to go yet, however. Or: it will feel long
It will for you. For most of us we have other things in our lives. Teaching has started on semester 1 for me. Lots of happy students. I turn 50 on saturday so get togethers with family and friends. Assuming Putin doesn't nuke Warminster in the interim, of course.
Congratulations. A bit early perhaps but nonetheless sincere.
Know what you mean about other things in our lives!
Grandson Two has returned to university and, he says, is enjoying it. Granddaughters Two and Three have started their sixth form lives and seem to be very happy. Grandson One and his wife are looking forward to the arrival of Great-Grandson One!
And Mrs C and I are looking forward to the spinal surgeons working on my neck at the end of the month and perhaps giving me back some mobility! And the use of my hands!
All the best OKC! I hope your problems with your hands have not impeded your contributions here, which I always enjoy.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
I don't see how they last til 2024. I think laying that is the best bet around in UK politics.
If Truss stays she will be completely restricted in her actions by her Tory opponents. She won't be able to do very much of what she wants to do, and has little inclination to carry on Boris' programmes. Sooner or later she will call an election to have some chance of a manifesto that is aligned to her.
If she goes, her supporters will block whatever a new PM does as illegitimate and against the wishes of the party members.
I am expecting a general election middle of next year.
Losing the whip to this leader may be seen by many Tory MPs as being a net positive to their longer term prospects.
We are in unprecedented times but experience suggests otherwise.
Destroying the Pound, destroying education, letting the rich off and a giant fuck you to people that work by keeping the triple lock and putting my pension age up.
We won’t forget this.
I despise Truss but you can hardly blame her for the collapse of education. That happened before she became PM and was the result of a series of major policy failures driven largely by civil servants in the DfE.
If I were to make a brief and incomplete list of them, it would start with the uneven split into grammars and secondary moderns at an inappropriately young age, followed by full grammarisation in the guise of comprehensivisation, moving through Callaghan's 'conversation' which was basically 'we're civil servants and brilliant so fuck all teachers,' continue with botched exam reform and the ludicrously overstuffed and prescriptive National Curriculum in the 1980s, go through Blunkett's incoherent micromanaging in the 1990s, have a side order of the PFI disasters that culminated in BSF under Loda Balls, continue with Gove's disastrous academisation programme and failed exam reform, continues with the implosion of OFSTED under a failed accountant, takes in the chaos of Covid which was not for some reason mitigated by the drinking culture at the DfE and culminates with the decision back in the early summer to massively cut real terms funding at a time when most schools are already in deficit.
Of these the only one Truss could realistically be blamed for is botched exam reform. And she does not bear sole responsibility for that. Spielman, Gove, Gibb, Cummings and Wormald all bear a large share of the blame.
Just remember that education is a disaster because the policies are not about educating children, they're about advancing the power of the DfE and the profile of ministers. And yes, that includes Truss, but it's not only her.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Not inconceivable now that this government may actually fall this autumn if the Sunakites split from party over this whipping operation.
It’s rather sad to see the very worst expectations of the Sunakites, and their friends in the media, come true almost immediately.
I’d been a supporter of Michael Gove, despite all the criticism of him over the past decade and a half, until this week.
I’m now half expecting another version of the ‘Independent group for change’ as Parliament reconvenes, with an election to follow a vote of confidence in the autumn.
The Independent Group For Independent Change UK Dot Org happened because the dissident MPs didn't see either main party as palatable.
That's not the case now. Disaffected centrist Tories can jump ship straight to Labour (or possibly the LibDems in a few southern seats). Disaffected Sunakites will sit and wait it out, as Tories like that always have done.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Why would there be no unions...would your libertarians ban them ?
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
London was exactly the same yesterday. The sun was shining, Selfridges was rammed with shoppers (the Menswear section has a new oyster bar), Marylebone was charmingly busy, Regent’s Park getting ready for Frieze
Armageddon and Depression felt light years away. But they are not
Moon Rabbit insists they are anti Tory but seems to spend their whole time telling us how great the Tories are. It’s only themself they’re kidding
Anyone can post a view of what the Truss government argument is for their policy thinking, to kick that around a to see if we all agree not with it, but that it is at least that all right, without being Team Truss or voting for the Two Nation nonsense of it. I don’t want to be cheeky, but it’s a step up than merely throwing “40% poll lead” spaghetti at the wall over and over again.
It may be escaping you horse, but this isn’t just the last alliance of elves and men against the evil of Sauron going on here - Kwarteng and Truss are criticising decades of what they call the policies of declineism - the podium at this conference is rich with challenge to orthodox thinking. We are on the same page in hating the resulting Two Nation policies, but only one of us is engaging with the philosophy and motivation of the opponent.
It is a 3 stage problem.
I think the first stage is that they are bright enough to have identified a real problem - and one that many on all sides of the debate have identified for many years so I don't give them too much credit for it. We are in decline and we are all part of a very long term but undeniable ponzi scheme. We cannot simply carry on as we are because you cannot tax your way of an ever increasing public spending and demographic crisis
They also have a solution. Stage 2. This solution, which is not the only possible one but is valid none the less - cutting the size of the state and making people more responsible for their own well being - could work if it is done carefully and thoughtfully and by taking the public along with you through education and open debate of the issues and the possible solutions. That relies on politicians being honest and also ensuring that the basic principles of fairness and a proper safety net are retained. It also relies on picking the right moment to start it.
But the last stage - now this is where they show their true colours and simply go mad. They are so inept and so drunk with their own power that they have managed to do just about every single thing wrong. Wrong timing, wrong policies, wrong winners and certainly wrong losers. No preparation, no explanation and no remorse when it all goes wrong. They are just, basically, fecking useless.
It doesn't change the fact that the analysis and the possible solution (amongst others) were all sound. But they are so totally incompetent and arrogant that that all counts for nothing.
The trouble is that when they are long gone the problems will still remain and I don't really see any other UK politicians facing up to that fact in the next decade and making any meaningful attempts to deal with it. I would like to think I am wrong on this and that Starmer or Gove or Badenock or some other politician yet to emerge will grasp the issues and make a meaningful attempt to solve them. But I am not holding my breath.
you are saying this moment is in fact 1975, not 1995 - an orthodoxy, a consensus, is rightly being challenged here, if/when managed well it actually represents the future, and shapes the future?
Indeed. But I also don't think the solutions that were developed from 1979 onwards are necessarily going to be the ones that work this time.
To a large extent Thatcher had it easy. So much of the UK economy was nationalised that privatising it was, for a significant majority of the public, fairly uncontroversial. That easy solution no longer exists.
The past decade and a half had been mostly Labour years and so it was also relatively easy to place the blame elsewhere. The Tories cannot do that now. Only Labour can and I am not sure they are in the right place ideologically to challenge the orthodoxy.
And, of course, there was a ready source of income in the form of North Sea Oil to help pay for the transition. Again, that large reserve does not exist today.
Everything fell right for a paradigm shift in the late 70s. I am not sure anything is right for a similar shift today. Nor, if I am honest, do I know what that shift should necessarily be. All I know is that something has to give and either we control it or it will happen anyway in a form we might not like at all.
The biggest single issue facing governments of all shades and hues is the issue of an ageing population, because that puts pressure on government spending (pensions and health care), diverting workers into looking after the elderly, while at the same time meaning a smaller proportion of people are of working age.
The first step to solving this is to make sure that *everyone* is saving for their own retirement all the time - which probably means a system like the Australian compulsory saving scheme.
The issue is that - while this is absolutely the right thing in the long-term - it means one generation of workers will simultaneously be paying for yesterday's unfunded promises, and saving for their own retirement. And that is a very hard sell.
To what extent will ageing population - a demographic time bomb to pay for - build in permanent high inflation making under 2% target laughable?
This is something I wonder about.
If *everyone* is saving for their own retirement, it doesn't achieve anything unless those savings are used to increase productivity in the wider economy.
Without that, there's just more money about and fewer people to provide the services that it could buy.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Not inconceivable now that this government may actually fall this autumn if the Sunakites split from party over this whipping operation.
It’s rather sad to see the very worst expectations of the Sunakites, and their friends in the media, come true almost immediately.
I’d been a supporter of Michael Gove, despite all the criticism of him over the past decade and a half, until this week.
I’m now half expecting another version of the ‘Independent group for change’ as Parliament reconvenes, with an election to follow a vote of confidence in the autumn.
It seems the Tory Party is becoming ungovernable and needs a time in opposition.
It's a good job that's an option given there are so many applicants for every place she can just fire and strikers and replace them with her choices, a la Reagan and the traffic controllers.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
Cargo cult redux. Boris expelled rebels, so that's what to do.
It doesn't work here, because the only threat of losing the whip is not standing as a Conservative next time. And why would any ambitious politician want to do that, unless they are in a very very safe seat?
It might have to be very safe! One set of figures last week, fed into electoral calculus, showed some massive majorities falling. Priti Patel was out for one!
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Which is why Libertarianism is about as successful as Communism.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
I don't see how they last til 2024. I think laying that is the best bet around in UK politics.
If Truss stays she will be completely restricted in her actions by her Tory opponents. She won't be able to do very much of what she wants to do, and has little inclination to carry on Boris' programmes. Sooner or later she will call an election to have some chance of a manifesto that is aligned to her.
If she goes, her supporters will block whatever a new PM does as illegitimate and against the wishes of the party members.
I am expecting a general election middle of next year.
Backable 4.6 betfair.
Indeed, prefer laying 2024 or later at 1.3 to keep the immediate implosion on side. They will either have learnt how to play nicely together or done extremely well with favourable world events to reach 2024. Neither seem likely to me.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
The Generals will have to realise soon that Putin's survival strategy involves casting them as scapegoats for his failures.
Their problem is that the chaotic nature of the Russian armed forces, with lots of different uncoordinated armed groups - the Chechens, Wagner, etc - make it much harder to perform a coup without it leading to civil war.
Tiny little bit of celebration for me. A mere two days before it starts I've finally had it confirmed I've been accepted on the the Early Modern London module of my Renaissance Studies MA. I hope it lives up to the syllabus because it looks amazing.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
I can't see it working that way. My hunch is that when he goes it is going to be brutal and dramatic and he will take down the whole structure of government and civil order with it. I think this is the problem of not having a 'succession plan'. He should in the natural order of things quit in 2008 or 2012 and Russian history may have unfolded differently. But all this makes an apocalyptic nuclear attack more likely.
My remaining hope, is that the generals intervene. They understand how MAD works, they know the actual serviceability state of the WMDs, and there are a lot of people between the man issuing the command, and the man actually pressing the real button - all of whom have families and friends.
I imagine that the back-channels between the nuclear powers are working overtime this week. Oh to be a fly on the wall in Xi Jinping’s office right now. Xi and Modi made their point to Putin the other week, but I’m not sure he was listening…
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
France has nuclear energy, how do you spend so much time there and bang on about it so much and not know that?
The petrol price seems about the same, its back into the 1.50s here too. The exchange rate isn't the same, but I think France has lower fuel duty.
David David was on R4 this morning spouting the same guff. If they don't move now, they'll face the impossible choice if changing leaders with no time for the replacement to turn things around, or sticking with a PM who, they'll come to realise, is going to lead them to electoral annihilation.
Bad investors make the same mistake of not cutting their losses early, in the vain hope things might improve.
The Tory MPs are going to have to catch a falling knife.
I can't even contemplate watching Truss's speech. Too damn painful.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Not inconceivable now that this government may actually fall this autumn if the Sunakites split from party over this whipping operation.
It’s rather sad to see the very worst expectations of the Sunakites, and their friends in the media, come true almost immediately.
I’d been a supporter of Michael Gove, despite all the criticism of him over the past decade and a half, until this week.
I’m now half expecting another version of the ‘Independent group for change’ as Parliament reconvenes, with an election to follow a vote of confidence in the autumn.
It seems the Tory Party is becoming ungovernable and needs a time in opposition.
Has been the case since about 2016, just voters exceedingly slow on the uptake and Labour put in a muppet as their opposition.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
Cargo cult redux. Boris expelled rebels, so that's what to do.
It doesn't work here, because the only threat of losing the whip is not standing as a Conservative next time. And why would any ambitious politician want to do that, unless they are in a very very safe seat?
Wouldn't now be the time to expect defections? Starmer astutely said Labour are now the Party of the centre and against this bunch of zealots and ideologues it looks like they are
It looks now like Russia is losing the entire Ukrainian war
As @DavidL says, this makes the next few week the moment of maximum peril. With every day that passes, without Putin doing something insane, we can breathe easier
A long time to go yet, however. Or: it will feel long
It will for you. For most of us we have other things in our lives. Teaching has started on semester 1 for me. Lots of happy students. I turn 50 on saturday so get togethers with family and friends. Assuming Putin doesn't nuke Warminster in the interim, of course.
Congratulations. A bit early perhaps but nonetheless sincere.
Know what you mean about other things in our lives!
Grandson Two has returned to university and, he says, is enjoying it. Granddaughters Two and Three have started their sixth form lives and seem to be very happy. Grandson One and his wife are looking forward to the arrival of Great-Grandson One!
And Mrs C and I are looking forward to the spinal surgeons working on my neck at the end of the month and perhaps giving me back some mobility! And the use of my hands!
All the best OKC! I hope your problems with your hands have not impeded your contributions here, which I always enjoy.
Thank you. I am nowadays, mostly anyway, dictating my contributions. Sadly they usually require editing, which can be tedious!
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
Idi Amin went into exile in Libya, then Iraq and finally Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the Saudis could offer him a comfortable and safe retreat?
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
How else do individuals deal with pay or conditions disputes when you have multi million pound organisations? The point is there is a power differential, and the only way to make it slightly more equal between employer and employee is workers banding together and acting in tandem. Unions are only as militant as their members - everything goes to a vote and those votes have increasingly high thresholds - if I remember correctly the Postal Workers strike atm literally had more votes than Truss did to be PM.
And if the option is quitting and facing joblessness, homelessness and starvation, that's not really a choice - we understand it isn't a free choice if you threaten someone with a gun into acting, so if you threaten workers with immiseration, how is that any better?
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Ridiculous idea anyway. Boris was clearly seeking an election and anyone with the whip removed would be screwed. And those backing him would likely see a reward as he would win that election probably.
Truss doesn't have a carrot to go with the stick - expelling them may mean they dont come back, and while she has a majority, she cannot afford that.
It looks now like Russia is losing the entire Ukrainian war
As @DavidL says, this makes the next few week the moment of maximum peril. With every day that passes, without Putin doing something insane, we can breathe easier
A long time to go yet, however. Or: it will feel long
It will for you. For most of us we have other things in our lives. Teaching has started on semester 1 for me. Lots of happy students. I turn 50 on saturday so get togethers with family and friends. Assuming Putin doesn't nuke Warminster in the interim, of course.
Congratulations. A bit early perhaps but nonetheless sincere.
Know what you mean about other things in our lives!
Grandson Two has returned to university and, he says, is enjoying it. Granddaughters Two and Three have started their sixth form lives and seem to be very happy. Grandson One and his wife are looking forward to the arrival of Great-Grandson One!
And Mrs C and I are looking forward to the spinal surgeons working on my neck at the end of the month and perhaps giving me back some mobility! And the use of my hands!
All the best OKC! I hope your problems with your hands have not impeded your contributions here, which I always enjoy.
Thank you. I am nowadays, mostly anyway, dictating my contributions. Sadly they usually require editing, which can be tedious!
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Why would there be no unions...would your libertarians ban them ?
HYUFD has no idea what libertarianism is or what it stands for. He uses it as an insult against anyone who doesn't agree with his ultra-statist, might is right ideology. In another time he would be wearing a black shirt and talking about jailing communists and anarchists.
It's going to move to a Counter-terrorist operation
Which allows them to ignore the Geneva convention in certain areas I think
But that’s not enough for him. He needs something that will change the facts on the ground ASAP
Wagner is trying to get round the back of Adveeka.
Apparently the Russians claimed to have seized Pisky (near Avdiivka), again, yesterday. They first claimed to have taken the place a month ago.
One idea doing the rounds is that Wagner are going through the motions in the vicinity of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, so that they can report forward progress to the Kremlin and avoid being redeployed to fight against the Ukrainian offensives.
Part of the Russian's dysfunction is that they're not just lying to us, they're continually lying to each other too.
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Not inconceivable now that this government may actually fall this autumn if the Sunakites split from party over this whipping operation.
It’s rather sad to see the very worst expectations of the Sunakites, and their friends in the media, come true almost immediately.
I’d been a supporter of Michael Gove, despite all the criticism of him over the past decade and a half, until this week.
I’m now half expecting another version of the ‘Independent group for change’ as Parliament reconvenes, with an election to follow a vote of confidence in the autumn.
It seems the Tory Party is becoming ungovernable and needs a time in opposition.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
Destroying the Pound, destroying education, letting the rich off and a giant fuck you to people that work by keeping the triple lock and putting my pension age up.
We won’t forget this.
You need to think yet again on this one.
When change is coming, there are competing philosophies who can hold power and shape the change to their values, they will hold different bottom lines, such as a one nation or two nation approach.
I’m saying it’s very important to think like this right now, when your opponents positioning themselves to own the change. Wallowing around on comfy opinion poll leads isn’t politics, if that’s the sum of your posts here, then don’t bother to waste our time.
You may think you are on a high tide with a fair wind, but if you don’t engage with opponents presenting solutions to problems, you may find yourself in a place where PB Tories and Opinion Polls knocking Truss today will say they like the ideas - and Labour is in the wilderness for eighteen years whilst their opponents wield the blade and make the change.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
I can't see it working that way. My hunch is that when he goes it is going to be brutal and dramatic and he will take down the whole structure of government and civil order with it. I think this is the problem of not having a 'succession plan'. He should in the natural order of things quit in 2008 or 2012 and Russian history may have unfolded differently. But all this makes an apocalyptic nuclear attack more likely.
Anybody who thinks VVP can be neatly retired and replaced does not understand the 'Power Vertical'. It would likely be very messy to put it mildly.
He's still got a few cards to play. (Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand... Cool Hand Luke)
Force the RuAF to stop sitting out the SMO (no idea why Surovikin has not been fired) and do some Operation Linebacker shit in the west of Ukraine. Get Bat'ka to reinstate the Mosul-Minsk flights and turn on the refugee flood again. False flag terrorism ops in Moscow/SPb (VVP loves shit like that) to gird the national loins.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Why would there be no unions...would your libertarians ban them ?
HYUFD has no idea what libertarianism is or what it stands for. He uses it as an insult against anyone who doesn't agree with his ultra-statist, might is right ideology. In another time he would be wearing a black shirt and talking about jailing communists and anarchists.
Whilst I disagree with HYUFD typically, his description of how libertarians act is in keeping with what we see in the world - those right wing self styled libertarians in the US don't want unions to exist, demanding that only individuals can negotiate contracts and that minimum wage shouldn't be a thing.
I don't know of a right wing libertarian system that isn't openly hostile to the very existence of unions.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
That freedom includes the ability of like minded workers to band together and agree to withdraw their labour unless certain conditions are met by the employer.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
Idi Amin went into exile in Libya, then Iraq and finally Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the Saudis could offer him a comfortable and safe retreat?
Somewhere in the Middle East will give him a haven, if he wants it. He was playing games with the Saudis a couple of years ago though, over oil prices during the pandemic.
Johnson did at least have an idea of a new Conservative majority, in which he bore the loss of some previous Tory seats with equanimity because he would win some new ones. He lost office due to his personal conduct. The current government seems to have decided to support his personal conduct while opposing his political approach. A quite extraordinary combination.
The new voters the party is seeking do not want the policy of economic liberalism that Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are advancing. And those old voters still hanging in there are astonished at the idea that money for tax cuts can just be borrowed.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
How else do individuals deal with pay or conditions disputes when you have multi million pound organisations? The point is there is a power differential, and the only way to make it slightly more equal between employer and employee is workers banding together and acting in tandem. Unions are only as militant as their members - everything goes to a vote and those votes have increasingly high thresholds - if I remember correctly the Postal Workers strike atm literally had more votes than Truss did to be PM.
And if the option is quitting and facing joblessness, homelessness and starvation, that's not really a choice - we understand it isn't a free choice if you threaten someone with a gun into acting, so if you threaten workers with immiseration, how is that any better?
The town where I live now, as many in Essex, featured in the Peasants Revolt. The workers combining together to get a better deal from those "At the top of the tree ".
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
That freedom includes the ability of like minded workers to band together and agree to withdraw their labour unless certain conditions are met by the employer.
Listening to HYUFD on what libertarianism means is like listening to Jeremy Corbyn on NATO.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
It's going to move to a Counter-terrorist operation
Which allows them to ignore the Geneva convention in certain areas I think
But that’s not enough for him. He needs something that will change the facts on the ground ASAP
Wagner is trying to get round the back of Adveeka.
Apparently the Russians claimed to have seized Pisky (near Avdiivka), again, yesterday. They first claimed to have taken the place a month ago.
One idea doing the rounds is that Wagner are going through the motions in the vicinity of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, so that they can report forward progress to the Kremlin and avoid being redeployed to fight against the Ukrainian offensives.
Part of the Russian's dysfunction is that they're not just lying to us, they're continually lying to each other too.
This was kinda admitted - finally - on Russian TV, last night
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Why would there be no unions...would your libertarians ban them ?
HYUFD has no idea what libertarianism is or what it stands for. He uses it as an insult against anyone who doesn't agree with his ultra-statist, might is right ideology. In another time he would be wearing a black shirt and talking about jailing communists and anarchists.
Whilst I disagree with HYUFD typically, his description of how libertarians act is in keeping with what we see in the world - those right wing self styled libertarians in the US don't want unions to exist, demanding that only individuals can negotiate contracts and that minimum wage shouldn't be a thing.
I don't know of a right wing libertarian system that isn't openly hostile to the very existence of unions.
I don't know of a single democracy anywhere in the world where unions don't exist.
Libertarianism means people should voluntarily be able to join unions if they want.
What there shouldn't be is compulsion. People shouldn't be forbidden from joining a union if they want to, nor should they be compelled by a closed shop to join one they don't want to join. It should be their choice.
🇬🇧 🇺🇦 Training of junior commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has begun in Great Britain - basic level training of junior commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has begun on the territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Which is why Libertarianism is about as successful as Communism.
You really shouldn't listen to HYUFD's guff about libertarianism. If you are interested (and I genuinely accept you may well not be bothered) then a moment's research will show that libertarians are very supportive of unions. They come under 'the right to free assembly and association'. They oppose compulsory membership and political levies and also oppose people having to go on strike if they don't want to. But the right to organise and to withhold labour in any and all circumstances is fundamental to the philosophy.
This is why HYUFD is again wrong to consider Truss a libertarian. Forcing people to work against their will is complete anathema to the ideology.
Although it is from an American perspective the whole thing is covered well here:
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
That's why they don't strike!
'most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education.'
Just as doctors don't. I've known doctors who were lazy and complacent but I've never known one who actively tried to harm patients (although they do exist, of course, as the likes of Messrs Shipman and Meadow demonstrate).
But - more importantly - you are displaying a lack of logic. The public elect and control the government. If, therefore, the government takes actions that leads to a strike in public services that is something derived of the people who elected them, and it is open to them to change their vote to stop it happening.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
I can't see it working that way. My hunch is that when he goes it is going to be brutal and dramatic and he will take down the whole structure of government and civil order with it. I think this is the problem of not having a 'succession plan'. He should in the natural order of things quit in 2008 or 2012 and Russian history may have unfolded differently. But all this makes an apocalyptic nuclear attack more likely.
Anybody who thinks VVP can be neatly retired and replaced does not understand the 'Power Vertical'. It would likely be very messy to put it mildly.
He's still got a few cards to play. (Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand... Cool Hand Luke)
Force the RuAF to stop sitting out the SMO (no idea why Surovikin has not been fired) and do some Operation Linebacker shit in the west of Ukraine. Get Bat'ka to reinstate the Mosul-Minsk flights and turn on the refugee flood again. False flag terrorism ops in Moscow/SPb (VVP loves shit like that) to gird the national loins.
It is certainly possible that the fall of Putin will cause a domino effect which could see the further disintegration of Russia. In a similar way that Tito kept Yugoslavia together, so too is there a risk that further regions will want to secede if the central government is seen as weak or failing.
That is another reason why Putin actually has a chance of staying in power despite defeat in the SMO. He is one of the few people who can keep the ship afloat.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Why would there be no unions...would your libertarians ban them ?
HYUFD has no idea what libertarianism is or what it stands for. He uses it as an insult against anyone who doesn't agree with his ultra-statist, might is right ideology. In another time he would be wearing a black shirt and talking about jailing communists and anarchists.
Whilst I disagree with HYUFD typically, his description of how libertarians act is in keeping with what we see in the world - those right wing self styled libertarians in the US don't want unions to exist, demanding that only individuals can negotiate contracts and that minimum wage shouldn't be a thing.
I don't know of a right wing libertarian system that isn't openly hostile to the very existence of unions.
HY has utterly transformed his position and I am both respectful and in admiration of this. From justifying any crime under Boris because polls, we now have 'this is wrong, and the polls prove it'.
Apparently there is a moral line, and HY righty recognises that the lunatic Liz is way past it.
Is he actually going to say the W-word, given how freaked out the Russian media and middle-classes were by the conscription of a few hundred thousand last month?
It was the natural progression from his announced annexation, that the Ukranians and NATO were now attacking Russian soil, but it’s a big rolling of the dice and hoping for two sixes.
He’s a day late and a dollar short, if he thinks he can now prevent a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. He’s not no tanks, no winter uniforms, no morale among those troops already in Ukraine, limited ability to train the new recruits, little manufacturing capability thanks to sanctions…
At what point do the remaining generals act as the men in grey suits, and send him to an island somewhere to live out his remaining days in relative peace?
I can't see it working that way. My hunch is that when he goes it is going to be brutal and dramatic and he will take down the whole structure of government and civil order with it. I think this is the problem of not having a 'succession plan'. He should in the natural order of things quit in 2008 or 2012 and Russian history may have unfolded differently. But all this makes an apocalyptic nuclear attack more likely.
Anybody who thinks VVP can be neatly retired and replaced does not understand the 'Power Vertical'. It would likely be very messy to put it mildly.
He's still got a few cards to play. (Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand... Cool Hand Luke)
Force the RuAF to stop sitting out the SMO (no idea why Surovikin has not been fired) and do some Operation Linebacker shit in the west of Ukraine. Get Bat'ka to reinstate the Mosul-Minsk flights and turn on the refugee flood again. False flag terrorism ops in Moscow/SPb (VVP loves shit like that) to gird the national loins.
"Force the RuAF to stop sitting out the SMO (no idea why Surovikin has not been fired) and do some Operation Linebacker shit in the west of Ukraine."
There's a good chance that the RuAF are 'sitting it out' because they realise that an 'Operation Linebacker' style operation is a good way of losing many of your bomber aircraft in what is a very SAM-heavy environment.
The RuAF spent decades building brilliant airframes, but not so much effort on the rest of the equation - the sensors and tech that makes the airframe into a warfighter. And they're suffering for that mistake now.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
If you're not a party to the dispute, you're not directly affected by the dispute.
If you're a customer of the firm whose staff are on strike etc, then you are a party to the dispute.
A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.
Quite blustery warm and wet. The tail end of hurricane Ian?
I think the remnants of hurricane Ian are still over the US.
We are currently dealing with the damage caused by hurricane Liz but fortunately that one seems to be fizzling out fast.
That b****** gave me one day of poor weather in Carolina, three days of bad weather in Virginia, and another three days of almost ceaseless rain here in Philadelphia, after a truly horrendous drive between the two. It’s predicted to rain over my journey to New York later, but possibly that’s the end of it. Whether the remnants will hop across the channel to give you a few wet days, I don’t know - that’s quite a common pattern. Hopefully it will move east quicker than the ship, and it would have a head start.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
In a truly libertarian world there would be no unions at all and no minimum wage, wages would be purely determined by the free market
Why would there be no unions...would your libertarians ban them ?
HYUFD has no idea what libertarianism is or what it stands for. He uses it as an insult against anyone who doesn't agree with his ultra-statist, might is right ideology. In another time he would be wearing a black shirt and talking about jailing communists and anarchists.
Whilst I disagree with HYUFD typically, his description of how libertarians act is in keeping with what we see in the world - those right wing self styled libertarians in the US don't want unions to exist, demanding that only individuals can negotiate contracts and that minimum wage shouldn't be a thing.
I don't know of a right wing libertarian system that isn't openly hostile to the very existence of unions.
Wrong. I have already just answered this point with links. HYUFD is completely wrong on this as he is on almost every other topic on which he opines. You really should do your own research.
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
London was exactly the same yesterday. The sun was shining, Selfridges was rammed with shoppers (the Menswear section has a new oyster bar), Marylebone was charmingly busy, Regent’s Park getting ready for Frieze
Armageddon and Depression felt light years away. But they are not
Can you have Armageddon and an (economic) depression at the same time? An economic depression suggests at least some economic activity. I recommend you watch the seminal 1984 BBC TV movie "Threads" that is available on Britbox (although given your apparent nervous disposition maybe not a good idea - read the Wiki synopsis at least). The last half of it shows that "depression" does not adequately come close to describing a post-Armageddon economy.
🇬🇧 🇺🇦 Training of junior commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has begun in Great Britain - basic level training of junior commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has begun on the territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
Senior Tory figures are preparing to enforce “brutal” party discipline on rebel MPs when they return to Parliament.
In a hardline drive inspired by Boris’s expulsion of Brexit critics, the whip will be removed for votes against mini-Budget.
How on earth does that even begin to work?!
Their most experienced Whip is Pincher. He’s gone (?) and “brutal” party discipline didn’t sort anything for Johnson. The 2019 GE did that.
I don't see how they last til 2024. I think laying that is the best bet around in UK politics.
If Truss stays she will be completely restricted in her actions by her Tory opponents. She won't be able to do very much of what she wants to do, and has little inclination to carry on Boris' programmes. Sooner or later she will call an election to have some chance of a manifesto that is aligned to her.
If she goes, her supporters will block whatever a new PM does as illegitimate and against the wishes of the party members.
I am expecting a general election middle of next year.
Backable 4.6 betfair.
Indeed, prefer laying 2024 or later at 1.3 to keep the immediate implosion on side. They will either have learnt how to play nicely together or done extremely well with favourable world events to reach 2024. Neither seem likely to me.
Johnson did at least have an idea of a new Conservative majority, in which he bore the loss of some previous Tory seats with equanimity because he would win some new ones. He lost office due to his personal conduct. The current government seems to have decided to support his personal conduct while opposing his political approach. A quite extraordinary combination.
The new voters the party is seeking do not want the policy of economic liberalism that Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are advancing. And those old voters still hanging in there are astonished at the idea that money for tax cuts can just be borrowed.
Yes, and not just money borrowed to pay for tax cuts to the rich. A "the markets are wrong / socialists / idiots" commentary on the reaction which has imperilled mortgages and pensions. And "just get a better job" as the sneering reaction to anyone unhappy.
Nadine Dorries was morally and politically right - and that's an appalling thing to type - when she said there is no mandate for this. None.
New: ministers expected to raise state pension age to 68 for millions... 2035 being openly speculated by ministers... announcment expected before Christmas in bid to shore up markets and long term bonds further
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
Do you think prison officers and the police should have the right to strike?
I think any profession where a lot of training is required (like driving a train) should have restrictions on strike action. It's actually quite difficult to get a job as a train driver and the unions like it that way.
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
London was exactly the same yesterday. The sun was shining, Selfridges was rammed with shoppers (the Menswear section has a new oyster bar), Marylebone was charmingly busy, Regent’s Park getting ready for Frieze
Armageddon and Depression felt light years away. But they are not
Can you have Armageddon and an (economic) depression at the same time? An economic depression suggests at least some economic activity. I recommend you watch the seminal 1984 BBC TV movie "Threads" that is available on Britbox (although given your apparent nervous disposition maybe not a good idea - read the Wiki synopsis at least). The last half of it shows that "depression" does not adequately come close to describing a post-Armageddon economy.
I watched Threads about a week ago and spoke of it at length on here
One of the bleakest movies I’ve ever seen. Also a great work of televisual art
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
Because it is illegal to strike in a way that benefits people but harms companies? For example, the suggestion of bus strikes where drivers still drive buses but refuse to take payment - something done is Australia and Japan - would be considered theft here and leave people up to prosecution.
It's also important to not that the vast majority of workers are ordinary members of the public, and that if you want the fruits of people's labour, then you have to treat those people well. It is the height of entitlement to argue that somehow you are owed the fruits of their labour regardless of the conditions of their work.
A bit reductio ad absurdum but: "Look, slavery is bad, but if slaves all revolt, don't they understand I won't be able to buy cotton shirts, and that's really important to me"
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
London was exactly the same yesterday. The sun was shining, Selfridges was rammed with shoppers (the Menswear section has a new oyster bar), Marylebone was charmingly busy, Regent’s Park getting ready for Frieze
Armageddon and Depression felt light years away. But they are not
Can you have Armageddon and an (economic) depression at the same time? An economic depression suggests at least some economic activity. I recommend you watch the seminal 1984 BBC TV movie "Threads" that is available on Britbox (although given your apparent nervous disposition maybe not a good idea - read the Wiki synopsis at least). The last half of it shows that "depression" does not adequately come close to describing a post-Armageddon economy.
Oh don't mention Threads to Leon. He watched it a few days ago and has been in a blue funk ever since. We only manage to get him to sleep at night by dosing his warm milk with a tot of whisky.
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
London was exactly the same yesterday. The sun was shining, Selfridges was rammed with shoppers (the Menswear section has a new oyster bar), Marylebone was charmingly busy, Regent’s Park getting ready for Frieze
Armageddon and Depression felt light years away. But they are not
Can you have Armageddon and an (economic) depression at the same time? An economic depression suggests at least some economic activity. I recommend you watch the seminal 1984 BBC TV movie "Threads" that is available on Britbox (although given your apparent nervous disposition maybe not a good idea - read the Wiki synopsis at least). The last half of it shows that "depression" does not adequately come close to describing a post-Armageddon economy.
I watched Threads about a week ago and spoke of it at length on here
One of the bleakest movies I’ve ever seen. Also a great work of televisual art
New: ministers expected to raise state pension age to 68 for millions... 2035 being openly speculated by ministers... announcment expected before Christmas in bid to shore up markets and long term bonds further
David David was on R4 this morning spouting the same guff. If they don't move now, they'll face the impossible choice if changing leaders with no time for the replacement to turn things around, or sticking with a PM who, they'll come to realise, is going to lead them to electoral annihilation.
Bad investors make the same mistake of not cutting their losses early, in the vain hope things might improve.
The Tory MPs are going to have to catch a falling knife.
I can't even contemplate watching Truss's speech. Too damn painful.
If they manage to catch the falling knife they'll only use it to stab each other in the back.
We're at the rats in a sack phase now.
We need an election so we can have a government that can get to grips with the crisis we're facing.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
Do you think prison officers and the police should have the right to strike?
I think any profession where a lot of training is required (like driving a train) should have restrictions on strike action. It's actually quite difficult to get a job as a train driver and the unions like it that way.
Yes.
Although TBF if the police went on strike there would be very little difference round here given how lazy and ineffectual they are.
Edit - incidentally, since almost all jobs above stacking supermarket shelves require 'quite a lot of training' by your logic there should never be any strikes.
New: ministers expected to raise state pension age to 68 for millions... 2035 being openly speculated by ministers... announcment expected before Christmas in bid to shore up markets and long term bonds further
Comments
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Actually, scrub that, it's not voluntary and by Vlad's lights Ukraine is not overseas.
Small wins!
Like taxes
All Britons
Favourable: 11% (-3 from 21-22 Sep)
Unfavourable: 65% (+31)
Don't know: 24% (-30)
Con voters:
Favourable: 23% (-4)
Unfavourable: 58% (+36)
Don't know: 19% (-32)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/05/liz-truss-already-less-popular-boris-johnson-ever- https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577581562622869504/photo/1
I’d been a supporter of Michael Gove, despite all the criticism of him over the past decade and a half, until this week.
I’m now half expecting another version of the ‘Independent group for change’ as Parliament reconvenes, with an election to follow a vote of confidence in the autumn.
All Britons
Favourable: 14% (-12 from 21-22 Sep)
Unfavourable: 73% (+16)
Con voters:
Favourable: 30% (-25)
Unfavourable: 60% (+28)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/05/liz-truss-already-less-popular-boris-johnson-ever- https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577581557367332866/photo/1
Liz Truss: -59 net favourability (1-2 Oct)
Boris Johnson worst score: -53 (July 2022)
Jeremy Corbyn worst score: -55 (June 2019)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/05/liz-truss-already-less-popular-boris-johnson-ever- https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577581545682046976/photo/1
Know what you mean about other things in our lives!
Grandson Two has returned to university and, he says, is enjoying it. Granddaughters Two and Three have started their sixth form lives and seem to be very happy.
Grandson One and his wife are looking forward to the arrival of Great-Grandson One!
And Mrs C and I are looking forward to the spinal surgeons working on my neck at the end of the month and perhaps giving me back some mobility! And the use of my hands!
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/05/liz-truss-already-less-popular-boris-johnson-ever- https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577581551356985346/photo/1
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
Also libertarianism was originally a left wing ideology about the freedom of people, it was a right wing american who stole it to make laissez-faire capitalism sound more freedomy.
Putin might not survive such a tactic, but it’s got to be much better chance of sustaining his leadership than lobbing nukes at Ukraine.
It doesn't work here, because the only threat of losing the whip is not standing as a Conservative next time. And why would any ambitious politician want to do that, unless they are in a very very safe seat?
If I were to make a brief and incomplete list of them, it would start with the uneven split into grammars and secondary moderns at an inappropriately young age, followed by full grammarisation in the guise of comprehensivisation, moving through Callaghan's 'conversation' which was basically 'we're civil servants and brilliant so fuck all teachers,' continue with botched exam reform and the ludicrously overstuffed and prescriptive National Curriculum in the 1980s, go through Blunkett's incoherent micromanaging in the 1990s, have a side order of the PFI disasters that culminated in BSF under Loda Balls, continue with Gove's disastrous academisation programme and failed exam reform, continues with the implosion of OFSTED under a failed accountant, takes in the chaos of Covid which was not for some reason mitigated by the drinking culture at the DfE and culminates with the decision back in the early summer to massively cut real terms funding at a time when most schools are already in deficit.
Of these the only one Truss could realistically be blamed for is botched exam reform. And she does not bear sole responsibility for that. Spielman, Gove, Gibb, Cummings and Wormald all bear a large share of the blame.
Just remember that education is a disaster because the policies are not about educating children, they're about advancing the power of the DfE and the profile of ministers. And yes, that includes Truss, but it's not only her.
That's not the case now. Disaffected centrist Tories can jump ship straight to Labour (or possibly the LibDems in a few southern seats). Disaffected Sunakites will sit and wait it out, as Tories like that always have done.
Armageddon and Depression felt light years away. But they are not
If *everyone* is saving for their own retirement, it doesn't achieve anything unless those savings are used to increase productivity in the wider economy.
Without that, there's just more money about and fewer people to provide the services that it could buy.
Oh.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
“Speaking of the threat of nuclear war, Mr Goncharenko says: "I see that the chances and the threat of using tactical nuclear weapons is rising."
He adds: "Every time Putin chooses the worst possible outcome, and if he continues down this track, it will be a catastrophe.
"Sooner or later we will have a big nuclear war, it is a threat to the whole of humankind."”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/04/sooner-later-will-nuclear-war-ukrainian-mp-discusses-mad-man/
Their problem is that the chaotic nature of the Russian armed forces, with lots of different uncoordinated armed groups - the Chechens, Wagner, etc - make it much harder to perform a coup without it leading to civil war.
I imagine that the back-channels between the nuclear powers are working overtime this week. Oh to be a fly on the wall in Xi Jinping’s office right now. Xi and Modi made their point to Putin the other week, but I’m not sure he was listening…
The petrol price seems about the same, its back into the 1.50s here too. The exchange rate isn't the same, but I think France has lower fuel duty.
I can't even contemplate watching Truss's speech. Too damn painful.
Starmer's figures amongst Conservative voters are
Well 32%;
Badly 54%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating
And if the option is quitting and facing joblessness, homelessness and starvation, that's not really a choice - we understand it isn't a free choice if you threaten someone with a gun into acting, so if you threaten workers with immiseration, how is that any better?
Truss doesn't have a carrot to go with the stick - expelling them may mean they dont come back, and while she has a majority, she cannot afford that.
One idea doing the rounds is that Wagner are going through the motions in the vicinity of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, so that they can report forward progress to the Kremlin and avoid being redeployed to fight against the Ukrainian offensives.
Part of the Russian's dysfunction is that they're not just lying to us, they're continually lying to each other too.
Telegraph leader says what needs to be said this morning, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/10/04/tories-owe-liz-truss-full-support/ but as in 2019, an election might be required to sort out the mess.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
When change is coming, there are competing philosophies who can hold power and shape the change to their values, they will hold different bottom lines, such as a one nation or two nation approach.
I’m saying it’s very important to think like this right now, when your opponents positioning themselves to own the change. Wallowing around on comfy opinion poll leads isn’t politics, if that’s the sum of your posts here, then don’t bother to waste our time.
You may think you are on a high tide with a fair wind, but if you don’t engage with opponents presenting solutions to problems, you may find yourself in a place where PB Tories and Opinion Polls knocking Truss today will say they like the ideas - and Labour is in the wilderness for eighteen years whilst their opponents wield the blade and make the change.
He's still got a few cards to play. (Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand... Cool Hand Luke)
Force the RuAF to stop sitting out the SMO (no idea why Surovikin has not been fired) and do some Operation Linebacker shit in the west of Ukraine.
Get Bat'ka to reinstate the Mosul-Minsk flights and turn on the refugee flood again.
False flag terrorism ops in Moscow/SPb (VVP loves shit like that) to gird the national loins.
I don't know of a right wing libertarian system that isn't openly hostile to the very existence of unions.
The new voters the party is seeking do not want the policy of economic liberalism that Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are advancing. And those old voters still hanging in there are astonished at the idea that money for tax cuts can just be borrowed.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
Libertarianism means people should voluntarily be able to join unions if they want.
What there shouldn't be is compulsion. People shouldn't be forbidden from joining a union if they want to, nor should they be compelled by a closed shop to join one they don't want to join. It should be their choice.
Badly is down 21% from August... (it was 75%)
https://twitter.com/generalstaffua/status/1577568237608476672?s=46&t=QYvwVcLFk-FmJaFI6Yay1A
This is why HYUFD is again wrong to consider Truss a libertarian. Forcing people to work against their will is complete anathema to the ideology.
Although it is from an American perspective the whole thing is covered well here:
https://www.libertarianism.org/topics/labor-unions
'most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education.'
Just as doctors don't. I've known doctors who were lazy and complacent but I've never known one who actively tried to harm patients (although they do exist, of course, as the likes of Messrs Shipman and Meadow demonstrate).
But - more importantly - you are displaying a lack of logic. The public elect and control the government. If, therefore, the government takes actions that leads to a strike in public services that is something derived of the people who elected them, and it is open to them to change their vote to stop it happening.
That is another reason why Putin actually has a chance of staying in power despite defeat in the SMO. He is one of the few people who can keep the ship afloat.
Apparently there is a moral line, and HY righty recognises that the lunatic Liz is way past it.
There's a good chance that the RuAF are 'sitting it out' because they realise that an 'Operation Linebacker' style operation is a good way of losing many of your bomber aircraft in what is a very SAM-heavy environment.
The RuAF spent decades building brilliant airframes, but not so much effort on the rest of the equation - the sensors and tech that makes the airframe into a warfighter. And they're suffering for that mistake now.
If you're a customer of the firm whose staff are on strike etc, then you are a party to the dispute.
Nadine Dorries was morally and politically right - and that's an appalling thing to type - when she said there is no mandate for this. None.
Tim Stanley:-
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-conservatives-know-they-are-beat
I think any profession where a lot of training is required (like driving a train) should have restrictions on strike action. It's actually quite difficult to get a job as a train driver and the unions like it that way.
One of the bleakest movies I’ve ever seen. Also a great work of televisual art
It's also important to not that the vast majority of workers are ordinary members of the public, and that if you want the fruits of people's labour, then you have to treat those people well. It is the height of entitlement to argue that somehow you are owed the fruits of their labour regardless of the conditions of their work.
A bit reductio ad absurdum but: "Look, slavery is bad, but if slaves all revolt, don't they understand I won't be able to buy cotton shirts, and that's really important to me"
We're at the rats in a sack phase now.
We need an election so we can have a government that can get to grips with the crisis we're facing.
Although TBF if the police went on strike there would be very little difference round here given how lazy and ineffectual they are.
Edit - incidentally, since almost all jobs above stacking supermarket shelves require 'quite a lot of training' by your logic there should never be any strikes.