Education, pensions and geriatric medical care are mostly foreseeable events where the large majority of the population all receives a similar service. You could fund those through mandatory savings or social insurance, where people's political willingness to pay is directly connected to the amount of the service they get, with progressively funded services for the poor to back the system up. At present people vote for free owls hoping the bill will be sent to Mr Moneybags or the magic money tree.
PB is full of Brexiters urging the young to emigrate. The same ones who seem incensed that I myself escaped to New York.
I don’t talk about my circumstances much but for years I was paying six figures in tax before I managed to get out.
The US is quite dreadful in many respects, but at least I no longer feel like I am working simply to keep elderly bigots in their overvalued properties.
Congratulations on your success, genuinely. However, do you consider you paid too much tax in the U.K., and if so who do you think should have been paying rather than you?
Yes, in the end I think I paid too much, *given the way the government used the money to prop up the wealthiest*.
I “came from nothing”, so punitive taxes on income versus almost nothing on wealth feels like a personal insult.
I understand that view and have a fair amount of sympathy for taxing wealth, but I still go back to who you think should pay the tax more than someone earning as well as you. I also understand that as relatively young and healthy as you are you may feel that your taxes are being wasted, but that’s the joy of tax. Unlike Margot in the Good Life, you don’t get to choose which bits you pay and which you don’t.
Progressive taxation means the wealthiest pay more. I think you tend left of centre, so I’m slightly surprised by you not signing up for that, but I guess we all have different ideas of what is fair, and what not. Have you lived in the states long enough to appreciate the differences?
I am not holding up the US at all, save that it helps my family get ahead at the moment. I’m aware that it is a disgracefully unequal society.
My point is that wealth in the UK should be taxed properly. Instead, the asset-rich are featherbedded. During QE this became grossly inequitable, and indeed inefficient, and we see the end result in the poorly state of the British economy.
The changes to the windfall tax are going to fuck the North Sea independents. Not just the headline increase by a further 10 percentage pts but the reduction in the investment allowance from 80% to 29%. At a time when the independents already find it tough to finance themselves and we are supposedly desperate to improve energy security (away from the likes of horrid people like Qatar) and fix our balance of payments.
Good one boys. Well done.
The reduction of the investment allowance is madness.
I think there will be some quite unfavourable headlines following this budget. Let's hope Sunak's premiership ends nice and fast. With it Hunt's career in frontline politics. Cheerio. It's been average.
The polling after the doomsday budget will be interesting
Can it get even worse for the Tories? I say Yes
Yes, but perhaps not quickly.
The inital headlines might not be too bad- there's not much that screams "Hunt is coming to take all your money". In fact, it's not obvious that there's much headline at all.
The catch is that the next year or two are going to feel pretty grim; lots of not-enough-money to grind through. Always winter, not much Christmas. "Have yourself a very little Christmas", as my younger was singing earlier.
And it's hard to imagine the government's reputation recovering from that, even if there's time before the next election, which there might well not be.
NEW Some of the language used by Jeremy Hunt such as “unearned income” to describe dividends has infuriated some Conservative MPs. This is the language of the Labour party, one told me. More in my analysis on the Autumn statement in today's Chopper's Politics Newsletter.
NEW Some of the language used by Jeremy Hunt such as “unearned income” to describe dividends has infuriated some Conservative MPs. This is the language of the Labour party, one told me. More in my analysis on the Autumn statement in today's Chopper's Politics Newsletter.
Two losers ! What a hideous ticket . Lake is a vile piece of work so should fit in well with Trump.
She was one of the only GOP candidates to fully commit to the election stealing narrative. Laxalt in Nevada had started his campaign with "Stop the Steal" rhetoric but ended with a whimpering "We have had a secure election"
I see that the current Masto - Laxalt gap is 8000 votes. So I was 2k over in my proclamation. I apologise unreservedly to the board.
PB is full of Brexiters urging the young to emigrate. The same ones who seem incensed that I myself escaped to New York.
I don’t talk about my circumstances much but for years I was paying six figures in tax before I managed to get out.
The US is quite dreadful in many respects, but at least I no longer feel like I am working simply to keep elderly bigots in their overvalued properties.
Congratulations on your success, genuinely. However, do you consider you paid too much tax in the U.K., and if so who do you think should have been paying rather than you?
Yes, in the end I think I paid too much, *given the way the government used the money to prop up the wealthiest*.
I “came from nothing”, so punitive taxes on income versus almost nothing on wealth feels like a personal insult.
Same.
With respect, you have/had professional middle class parents. My dad left school at 14 and is barely literate.
I know, I think reflects well on the UK that my grandfather moved to the UK with nothing and his son and grandson are part of the middle classes, we've had no barriers to that.
Shocking that you aren't upper class by now, mind. I recall some silly old PBer blarting on about being uber posh, despite so much evidence to the contrary.
The changes to the windfall tax are going to fuck the North Sea independents. Not just the headline increase by a further 10 percentage pts but the reduction in the investment allowance from 80% to 29%. At a time when the independents already find it tough to finance themselves and we are supposedly desperate to improve energy security (away from the likes of horrid people like Qatar) and fix our balance of payments.
Good one boys. Well done.
The reduction of the investment allowance is madness.
I think there will be some quite unfavourable headlines following this budget. Let's hope Sunak's premiership ends nice and fast. With it Hunt's career in frontline politics. Cheerio. It's been average.
The polling after the doomsday budget will be interesting
Can it get even worse for the Tories? I say Yes
Yes, but perhaps not quickly.
The inital headlines might not be too bad- there's not much that screams "Hunt is coming to take all your money". In fact, it's not obvious that there's much headline at all.
The catch is that the next year or two are going to feel pretty grim; lots of not-enough-money to grind through. Always winter, not much Christmas. "Have yourself a very little Christmas", as my younger was singing earlier.
And it's hard to imagine the government's reputation recovering from that, even if there's time before the next election, which there might well not be.
Who do you think will pat hunt on back or wail the loudest on tonight’s front pages - mirror & guardian vs Mail and Telegraph?
Two losers ! What a hideous ticket . Lake is a vile piece of work so should fit in well with Trump.
She was one of the only GOP candidates to fully commit to the election stealing narrative. Laxalt in Nevada had started his campaign with "Stop the Steal" rhetoric but ended with a whimpering "We have had a secure election"
I see that the current Masto - Laxalt gap is 8000 votes. So I was 2k over in my proclamation. I apologise unreservedly to the board.
Just checked the latest figures and it's narrowed slightly to 50.3% to 49.7%. I know the race has already been called.
Can't quite see where she finds another 17,000 votes in all honesty.
Santa Cruz County (Democrat stronghold) still has 12% of votes to count but the others are effectively done.
RCP has the House at 218 for the GOP and 210 for the Democrats. Looking at the numbers in the remaining seven races, the Democrats should win three and the Republicans one. CA3, CA13 and CA22 all have Republican leads but with a lot of votes still to count so it could, I suppose vary from 222-213 to 219-216. Either way, a wafer thin majority for the Republicans but solid enough if they can keep the caucus together.
I note the Politico poll for the Republican nomination has Trump leading DeSantis 47-33 which shows the task the Florida Governor faces to dig up the deep roots planted by Trump (forgive the gardening analogy). It will be interesting, when they debate, to see the policy nuances between the two main candidates.
I remember that campaign. If I recall correctly it was at the dawn of the internet. I had no idea what the adverts were about, or for. Nowadays I’d Google it and know in seconds. Progress, I guess.
I'm disappointed that HS2 NE is still deleted, and that the Housing Market is left unreformed.
A lot of fiscal drag. Good to see some reform of top rate taxes. Hopefully the £100-£125k marginal rate will be next.
I did not hear anything on defence spending. Aha - I see 2% GDP will be maintained. That may be code for an effective reduction, depending how it is counted.
I wonder if a typical energy bill will be anywhere near pro-rata £3000 by the time we get to April.
Brave, but sensible, to go for a revaluation for business rates. A time bomb? Last time it was like stuck pigs squealing to heaven for those not paying wrt their disproportionate property price increases.
Sensible to raise Min Wage (I think to the highest net in Western Europe), and benefits / basic pensions by inflation rate.
Local Council finances look to be under threat. I missed whether these would be restricted to +5% on Council Tax this year. Those are also crying out for a re-valuation or reform.
To me (others will differ) Reeves' speech was a vacuum - about 95% pre-recorded rhetoric.
Big suspicion is, what good news there is got announced in speech, first impressions matter so they are shaping the first impressions. More controversial things like the Defence Budget cut you flagged, hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly.
On Topic. And as we were saying “what good news there is got announced in speech, controversial things hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly”
And so it begins
This was in the March Budget too (it's a bigger increase now because it's linked to RPI which is higher than previously forecast but it's not a change in policy, it was in there already).
About time too. There are finite amounts of fossil fuels in the ground, and burning them is destroying our environment, so anything that will dissuade their use and encourage the use of cleaner alternatives is to be commended. And it brings in a few bob too.
You're thinking too short term. Coal, oil and gas are - so long as the sun keeps shining - all renewable sources.
I don't think that's right. I think all the fossil fuel deposits were laid down before the more recent evolution of fungi and bacteria that would now break down organic deposits before they could be converted to fossil fuels.
Fascinating.
That had never occurred to me.
Surprised me at first too, but then, when I thought about it, I realised that the energy stored in fossil fuels is available to any organism that can evolve to access it from the organic matter before it becomes fossil fuels, and then it makes a lot more sense.
From that point of view the existence of fossil fuels at all is a fortuitous accident that provided a cheap energy source for our technological development.
So, had the fungi and bacteria been around at the time - and chewed through all the organic matter - what would the effect have been on the climate?
Would it have been the same as if we were to now burn all the fossil fuels in existence? (Theoretically, obviously. I assume only a tiny fraction of the earths fossil fuels have been/could be profitably extracted and burned)
Don't the funghi and bacteria release CH4 as they chew through the organic material?
Unfortunately, I don’t understand at least half of the words that they’re using. But I think it disagrees with @LostPassword
Me being an idiot and not studying any science beyond GCSE means that I have absolutely no idea who is right. But I do feel like I’m learning something. Maybe.
I'm disappointed that HS2 NE is still deleted, and that the Housing Market is left unreformed.
A lot of fiscal drag. Good to see some reform of top rate taxes. Hopefully the £100-£125k marginal rate will be next.
I did not hear anything on defence spending. Aha - I see 2% GDP will be maintained. That may be code for an effective reduction, depending how it is counted.
I wonder if a typical energy bill will be anywhere near pro-rata £3000 by the time we get to April.
Brave, but sensible, to go for a revaluation for business rates. A time bomb? Last time it was like stuck pigs squealing to heaven for those not paying wrt their disproportionate property price increases.
Sensible to raise Min Wage (I think to the highest net in Western Europe), and benefits / basic pensions by inflation rate.
Local Council finances look to be under threat. I missed whether these would be restricted to +5% on Council Tax this year. Those are also crying out for a re-valuation or reform.
To me (others will differ) Reeves' speech was a vacuum - about 95% pre-recorded rhetoric.
Big suspicion is, what good news there is got announced in speech, first impressions matter so they are shaping the first impressions. More controversial things like the Defence Budget cut you flagged, hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly.
On Topic. And as we were saying “what good news there is got announced in speech, controversial things hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly”
And so it begins
This was in the March Budget too (it's a bigger increase now because it's linked to RPI which is higher than previously forecast but it's not a change in policy, it was in there already).
About time too. There are finite amounts of fossil fuels in the ground, and burning them is destroying our environment, so anything that will dissuade their use and encourage the use of cleaner alternatives is to be commended. And it brings in a few bob too.
You're thinking too short term. Coal, oil and gas are - so long as the sun keeps shining - all renewable sources.
I don't think that's right. I think all the fossil fuel deposits were laid down before the more recent evolution of fungi and bacteria that would now break down organic deposits before they could be converted to fossil fuels.
Fascinating.
That had never occurred to me.
Surprised me at first too, but then, when I thought about it, I realised that the energy stored in fossil fuels is available to any organism that can evolve to access it from the organic matter before it becomes fossil fuels, and then it makes a lot more sense.
From that point of view the existence of fossil fuels at all is a fortuitous accident that provided a cheap energy source for our technological development.
So, had the fungi and bacteria been around at the time - and chewed through all the organic matter - what would the effect have been on the climate?
Would it have been the same as if we were to now burn all the fossil fuels in existence? (Theoretically, obviously. I assume only a tiny fraction of the earths fossil fuels have been/could be profitably extracted and burned)
Well, yes, if bacteria/fungi had released the carbon before it became fossil fuels then we would expect the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to have stayed a lot higher, the most obvious consequence of which would be no ice ages and higher sea levels.
Broadly speaking we would get to the same point by burning all fossil fuels now, but by a different route.
That’s blown my mind.
My next question (feel free to ignore me if you’re busy - I can do my own research!) is;
How would that counter-factual (a world with no fossil fuels and much higher concentrations of CO2) have interacted with human evolution?
Would humans even exist, anywhere on earth?
If you go earlier than the Carboniferous there was a time when there was too little CO2, and the earth nearly ended up as a giant snowball stuck in a permanent ice age. There were _just_ sufficient volcanoes to get us out of it - but there probably wouldn't be today.
So, if anyone invents a carbon fixing machine, don't leave it on for too long...
I'm disappointed that HS2 NE is still deleted, and that the Housing Market is left unreformed.
A lot of fiscal drag. Good to see some reform of top rate taxes. Hopefully the £100-£125k marginal rate will be next.
I did not hear anything on defence spending. Aha - I see 2% GDP will be maintained. That may be code for an effective reduction, depending how it is counted.
I wonder if a typical energy bill will be anywhere near pro-rata £3000 by the time we get to April.
Brave, but sensible, to go for a revaluation for business rates. A time bomb? Last time it was like stuck pigs squealing to heaven for those not paying wrt their disproportionate property price increases.
Sensible to raise Min Wage (I think to the highest net in Western Europe), and benefits / basic pensions by inflation rate.
Local Council finances look to be under threat. I missed whether these would be restricted to +5% on Council Tax this year. Those are also crying out for a re-valuation or reform.
To me (others will differ) Reeves' speech was a vacuum - about 95% pre-recorded rhetoric.
Big suspicion is, what good news there is got announced in speech, first impressions matter so they are shaping the first impressions. More controversial things like the Defence Budget cut you flagged, hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly.
On Topic. And as we were saying “what good news there is got announced in speech, controversial things hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly”
And so it begins
This was in the March Budget too (it's a bigger increase now because it's linked to RPI which is higher than previously forecast but it's not a change in policy, it was in there already).
About time too. There are finite amounts of fossil fuels in the ground, and burning them is destroying our environment, so anything that will dissuade their use and encourage the use of cleaner alternatives is to be commended. And it brings in a few bob too.
You're thinking too short term. Coal, oil and gas are - so long as the sun keeps shining - all renewable sources.
I don't think that's right. I think all the fossil fuel deposits were laid down before the more recent evolution of fungi and bacteria that would now break down organic deposits before they could be converted to fossil fuels.
Fascinating.
That had never occurred to me.
Surprised me at first too, but then, when I thought about it, I realised that the energy stored in fossil fuels is available to any organism that can evolve to access it from the organic matter before it becomes fossil fuels, and then it makes a lot more sense.
From that point of view the existence of fossil fuels at all is a fortuitous accident that provided a cheap energy source for our technological development.
So, had the fungi and bacteria been around at the time - and chewed through all the organic matter - what would the effect have been on the climate?
Would it have been the same as if we were to now burn all the fossil fuels in existence? (Theoretically, obviously. I assume only a tiny fraction of the earths fossil fuels have been/could be profitably extracted and burned)
Well, yes, if bacteria/fungi had released the carbon before it became fossil fuels then we would expect the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to have stayed a lot higher, the most obvious consequence of which would be no ice ages and higher sea levels.
Broadly speaking we would get to the same point by burning all fossil fuels now, but by a different route.
That’s blown my mind.
My next question (feel free to ignore me if you’re busy - I can do my own research!) is;
How would that counter-factual (a world with no fossil fuels and much higher concentrations of CO2) have interacted with human evolution?
Would humans even exist?
Presumably, most of the earth would be uninhabitable for humans as we have currently evolved, except, perhaps, in Northern Russia / Greenland / Canada?
Or would we have evolved to cope with the higher temperatures? Would the concentrations of CO2 been too high?
1500ppm C02 is not that high on an absolute scale - it's above the 1000ppm level and would make you or me feel dopey but I'm sure metabolism would adapt.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
I'm disappointed that HS2 NE is still deleted, and that the Housing Market is left unreformed.
A lot of fiscal drag. Good to see some reform of top rate taxes. Hopefully the £100-£125k marginal rate will be next.
I did not hear anything on defence spending. Aha - I see 2% GDP will be maintained. That may be code for an effective reduction, depending how it is counted.
I wonder if a typical energy bill will be anywhere near pro-rata £3000 by the time we get to April.
Brave, but sensible, to go for a revaluation for business rates. A time bomb? Last time it was like stuck pigs squealing to heaven for those not paying wrt their disproportionate property price increases.
Sensible to raise Min Wage (I think to the highest net in Western Europe), and benefits / basic pensions by inflation rate.
Local Council finances look to be under threat. I missed whether these would be restricted to +5% on Council Tax this year. Those are also crying out for a re-valuation or reform.
To me (others will differ) Reeves' speech was a vacuum - about 95% pre-recorded rhetoric.
Big suspicion is, what good news there is got announced in speech, first impressions matter so they are shaping the first impressions. More controversial things like the Defence Budget cut you flagged, hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly.
On Topic. And as we were saying “what good news there is got announced in speech, controversial things hidden away in the budget wording, or not even clearly there, it needs someone to ask the right question to have the way forward explained publicly”
And so it begins
This was in the March Budget too (it's a bigger increase now because it's linked to RPI which is higher than previously forecast but it's not a change in policy, it was in there already).
About time too. There are finite amounts of fossil fuels in the ground, and burning them is destroying our environment, so anything that will dissuade their use and encourage the use of cleaner alternatives is to be commended. And it brings in a few bob too.
You're thinking too short term. Coal, oil and gas are - so long as the sun keeps shining - all renewable sources.
I don't think that's right. I think all the fossil fuel deposits were laid down before the more recent evolution of fungi and bacteria that would now break down organic deposits before they could be converted to fossil fuels.
Fascinating.
That had never occurred to me.
Surprised me at first too, but then, when I thought about it, I realised that the energy stored in fossil fuels is available to any organism that can evolve to access it from the organic matter before it becomes fossil fuels, and then it makes a lot more sense.
From that point of view the existence of fossil fuels at all is a fortuitous accident that provided a cheap energy source for our technological development.
So, had the fungi and bacteria been around at the time - and chewed through all the organic matter - what would the effect have been on the climate?
Would it have been the same as if we were to now burn all the fossil fuels in existence? (Theoretically, obviously. I assume only a tiny fraction of the earths fossil fuels have been/could be profitably extracted and burned)
Don't the funghi and bacteria release CH4 as they chew through the organic material?
I thought that mainly happened in reducing/anaerobic conditions? In normal soils it will be mostly CO2.
CH4 eventually gets oxidised in the upper atmosphere to CO2 in any case, so you need a continuous supply to keep it there.
NEW Some of the language used by Jeremy Hunt such as “unearned income” to describe dividends has infuriated some Conservative MPs. This is the language of the Labour party, one told me. More in my analysis on the Autumn statement in today's Chopper's Politics Newsletter.
All income ultimately derives from labour, one way or another.
Oh no it doesn’t.
Please explain.
Wealth seems to be just stored labour after all.
Some income derives from the ownership of land. Why does land belong to someone and not someone else… well, I guess if you go back far enough, it’s a result of labour in the sense that someone’s ancestor hit someone else’s ancestor with an axe… But in some cases, land ownership just ended up with someone and then it became valuable.
All sorts of assets rise in value not because of labour but because of other factors.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"colonised half the world" "taught them all English" "invented the jet engine"
all arguable. (Re point 3, only in the sense that the Germans did it as well, independently.)
Edit: of course, you are probably being ironic. But it's very hard to tell sometimes these days.
NEW Some of the language used by Jeremy Hunt such as “unearned income” to describe dividends has infuriated some Conservative MPs. This is the language of the Labour party, one told me. More in my analysis on the Autumn statement in today's Chopper's Politics Newsletter.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"colonised half the world" "taught them all English" "invented the jet engine"
all arguable. (Re point 3, only in the sense that the Germans did it as well, independently.)
Edit: of course, you are probably being ironic. But it's very hard to tell sometimes these days.
On point 3: I think 'we' did invent the jet engine. Whittle's patent was in German libraries, and von Ohain had studied it before coming up with his design.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
Would you put any limits on immigration if you were in charge?
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"colonised half the world" "taught them all English" "invented the jet engine"
all arguable. (Re point 3, only in the sense that the Germans did it as well, independently.)
Edit: of course, you are probably being ironic. But it's very hard to tell sometimes these days.
On point 3: I think 'we' did invent the jet engine. Whittle's patent was in German libraries, and von Ohain had studied it before coming up with his design.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
So you would put no control at all on immigration? Which is where we were inside the EU, in effect
If you do that, all that happens is you get governments which are further and further to the right, as the locals get evermore desperate
You’re smart enough to know this is stupid and counterproductive. Brexit happened because we had vast amounts of immigration
Ergo, you have to control it. Then it’s just a question of how and at what level
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"colonised half the world" "taught them all English" "invented the jet engine"
all arguable. (Re point 3, only in the sense that the Germans did it as well, independently.)
Edit: of course, you are probably being ironic. But it's very hard to tell sometimes these days.
Exaggeration for humorous effect. Making the point that we have never been people to hide from the world and mind our own business, that we have gone out of our way to make our culture easy to penetrate for outsiders, and we have done more than most to lower the technological boundaries to international migration. So I just find it weird that people are so up in arms about immigration. Of course its their right to have whatever opinion they want. But I'm not going to agree with them.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
PB is full of Brexiters urging the young to emigrate. The same ones who seem incensed that I myself escaped to New York.
I don’t talk about my circumstances much but for years I was paying six figures in tax before I managed to get out.
The US is quite dreadful in many respects, but at least I no longer feel like I am working simply to keep elderly bigots in their overvalued properties.
Congratulations on your success, genuinely. However, do you consider you paid too much tax in the U.K., and if so who do you think should have been paying rather than you?
Yes, in the end I think I paid too much, *given the way the government used the money to prop up the wealthiest*.
I “came from nothing”, so punitive taxes on income versus almost nothing on wealth feels like a personal insult.
Same.
With respect, you have/had professional middle class parents. My dad left school at 14 and is barely literate.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Normally, VP picks are announced only after the nomination has been secured. So, if it is to Lake, we'll probably not know for 18 months, or even longer.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"colonised half the world" "taught them all English" "invented the jet engine"
all arguable. (Re point 3, only in the sense that the Germans did it as well, independently.)
Edit: of course, you are probably being ironic. But it's very hard to tell sometimes these days.
On point 3: I think 'we' did invent the jet engine. Whittle's patent was in German libraries, and von Ohain had studied it before coming up with his design.
Ah, thanks - that's pretty good evidence!
Here's an utterly useless question that I did not know the answer to until a few years back: Why are many Rolls Royce jet engines known by 'RB' letters (e.g. RB211) and not 'RR'?
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
We all know which country you want to have interfering in British affairs. Clue, cathedrals and pizza restaurants. (Yes, the Windsors! I jest.)
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Normally, VP picks are announced only after the nomination has been secured. So, if it is to Lake, we'll probably not know for 18 months, or even longer.
Unless Trump flounces from the GOP and just announces his own party.
Though the idea Kari Lake is plausible is laughable. She's a loon.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Normally, VP picks are announced only after the nomination has been secured. So, if it is to Lake, we'll probably not know for 18 months, or even longer.
Just checked the latest figures and it's narrowed slightly to 50.3% to 49.7%. I know the race has already been called.
Can't quite see where she finds another 17,000 votes in all honesty.
Santa Cruz County (Democrat stronghold) still has 12% of votes to count but the others are effectively done.
RCP has the House at 218 for the GOP and 210 for the Democrats. Looking at the numbers in the remaining seven races, the Democrats should win three and the Republicans one. CA3, CA13 and CA22 all have Republican leads but with a lot of votes still to count so it could, I suppose vary from 222-213 to 219-216. Either way, a wafer thin majority for the Republicans but solid enough if they can keep the caucus together.
I note the Politico poll for the Republican nomination has Trump leading DeSantis 47-33 which shows the task the Florida Governor faces to dig up the deep roots planted by Trump (forgive the gardening analogy). It will be interesting, when they debate, to see the policy nuances between the two main candidates.
AP (as reported in NYT) has "called" all but six house races: > four where Republican currently leading: CA03, CA13, CA22 and CO03 > two where Democrats now ahead: AK At Large and CA47
My own semi-ill-educated guess, is that the current winners are elected in the end.
Including "Landslide" Lauren Boebert (unfortunately). BUT also including David Valadao, one of the 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach You Know Who after 1/6.
His is the only one of the ten whose re-election OR otherwise is still in doubt.
> Four of 10 choose not to run in 2022: Gonzalez (OH), Katko (NY), Kinzinger (IL), Scott (SC)
> Two of 10 were defeated in primary AND new Republican nominee won: Cheney (WY) and Rice (SC)
> Two of 10 were defeated in primary and a DEMOCRAT won flipping the seat: Herrera Beutler (WA) and Meijer (MI)
> One of 10 was renominated AND re-elected: Newhouse (WA)
PB is full of Brexiters urging the young to emigrate. The same ones who seem incensed that I myself escaped to New York.
I don’t talk about my circumstances much but for years I was paying six figures in tax before I managed to get out.
The US is quite dreadful in many respects, but at least I no longer feel like I am working simply to keep elderly bigots in their overvalued properties.
Congratulations on your success, genuinely. However, do you consider you paid too much tax in the U.K., and if so who do you think should have been paying rather than you?
Yes, in the end I think I paid too much, *given the way the government used the money to prop up the wealthiest*.
I “came from nothing”, so punitive taxes on income versus almost nothing on wealth feels like a personal insult.
Same.
With respect, you have/had professional middle class parents. My dad left school at 14 and is barely literate.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
Trump's steel tariffs on the UK and backing of Russia were far more damaging than anything Biden is doing.
Grannie and grandad can clean their own arse ! Having told social care workers from the EU to go fxck themselves they should realize actions have consequences.
There are still 1.38 million UK unemployed most of whom are quite capable of doing basic social care work like that
If they are still unemployed when theres so many vacancies many of them may well be unemployable.
Nobody is completely unemployable unless severely disabled or a dangerous criminal in prison, certainly not to do basic social care like helping pensioners feed themselves, go to the toilet, get out of bed etc
I think the job is trickier than you think, temperamentally it is not something just anyone can do for a start, as monkeys notes. I've had many family members work in that industry. Helping people go to the toilet and feed themselves is not something you want some surly, barely employable person to undertake.
Edit: I mean, do you want to be looked after by someone literally unemployable at anything else?
Believe me, I have seen social care workers in action at very close quarters and the idea that it is a non skilled job that anyone on the dole with a couple of day's training can just drop into is an utter fantasy.
Well it certainly isn't a very high skilled job isn't it, you don't need a degree for it or even a vocational qualification beyond that you can learn on the job ...
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
In a few years 14% per cent of adults will be paying the 40% income tax rate. It was just above 6% when the Tories took office. (IFS graph) pic.twitter.com/3MsdVu1mE8
Surely that is a meaningless stat? Nobody with a brain cares about what tax rate they pay on part of their income, they instead care about how much tax they pay in total. So you have to consider allowances (which have gone up a lot), bands (which have changed), other income (lots of people get credits of various sorts), and all the other forms of direct taxation (like NI), and then look at how people's gross versus net pay has changed.
Yes - here in Spain the basic tax rates are similar to the UK but the Personal allowance for a single adult is barely €6K and average incomes in my area are barely €13k. Yes many things here are cheaper than the UK but not by that much and that's why many locals are not always overly fond of relatively rich retirees from UK and the rest of Europe... Oh and inheritance tax apart from the immediate family is around 25% without an allowance and includes only the main spousal property. It's pretty brutal!
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
We all know which country you want to have interfering in British affairs. Clue, cathedrals and pizza restaurants. (Yes, the Windsors! I jest.)
I would quite like Britain to interfere in British affairs one day.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"I'm sorry Mr. Working Class Lad from a Council Estate. If you didn't want unaffordable housing prices from population growth, your pay and conditions undercut from poor immigrants, and a big social divide in your town from a new community that sticks to itself, you should have intervened 100 years before your birth with the upper middle class actions in Asia."
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
Trump's steel tariffs on the UK and backing of Russia were far more damaging than anything Biden is doing.
I had forgotten his tariffs to be fair. Whisky tariffs too - though oddly only on single malts.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Why is unfortunate? They both seem deeply unpleasant personally, but we don't need to ask them to tea. For Britain, it seems a better option than Biden, who I see is interfering in NI again in his more lucid moments. All part of life's rich tapestry.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
So you would put no control at all on immigration? Which is where we were inside the EU, in effect
If you do that, all that happens is you get governments which are further and further to the right, as the locals get evermore desperate
You’re smart enough to know this is stupid and counterproductive. Brexit happened because we had vast amounts of immigration
Ergo, you have to control it. Then it’s just a question of how and at what level
I agree it can't be a free for all, no country would do that. And I accept that while I would personally have limits in order to prevent a race to the bottom in low skilled wages, we'd probably have to have even more restrictions than I personally favour as I'm fully aware that I'm more liberal on these things than most people are. I thought EU freedom of movement was good because it struck a decent balance between freedom and limits, most notably in restricting it to countries with broadly similar levels of income and culture, and it was completely reciprocal. Obviously lots of people felt differently. I still think that fundamentally migration is a natural part of human existence and that this obsession with borders and nationhood is a bit of a dead end. I hope that one day in the distant future we will live in a world without borders. Again, I'm aware that this is a minority view.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"I'm sorry Mr. Working Class Lad from a Council Estate. If you didn't want unaffordable housing prices from population growth, your pay and conditions undercut from poor immigrants, and a big social divide in your town from a new community that sticks to itself, you should have intervened 100 years before your birth with the upper middle class actions in Asia."
Mr WCL would be paying Belgian tax rates if it weren't for immigrant workers propping up the British pensioner regime.
A Trump Lake ticket makes total sense for both of them
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
Normally, VP picks are announced only after the nomination has been secured. So, if it is to Lake, we'll probably not know for 18 months, or even longer.
Is that a rule or just a custom?
It's custom, because you want to keep your options open to cover emerging exposed flanks.
Grannie and grandad can clean their own arse ! Having told social care workers from the EU to go fxck themselves they should realize actions have consequences.
There are still 1.38 million UK unemployed most of whom are quite capable of doing basic social care work like that
If they are still unemployed when theres so many vacancies many of them may well be unemployable.
Nobody is completely unemployable unless severely disabled or a dangerous criminal in prison, certainly not to do basic social care like helping pensioners feed themselves, go to the toilet, get out of bed etc
I think the job is trickier than you think, temperamentally it is not something just anyone can do for a start, as monkeys notes. I've had many family members work in that industry. Helping people go to the toilet and feed themselves is not something you want some surly, barely employable person to undertake.
Edit: I mean, do you want to be looked after by someone literally unemployable at anything else?
Believe me, I have seen social care workers in action at very close quarters and the idea that it is a non skilled job that anyone on the dole with a couple of day's training can just drop into is an utter fantasy.
Well it certainly isn't a very high skilled job isn't it, you don't need a degree for it or even a vocational qualification beyond that you can learn on the job ...
Very few jobs that require you to actually have a degree actually make use of said degree.
And in my field, the people who never went to Uni are usually way better than those who have a degree (although this does depend on which IT sector you work in).
Just saw a tweet that suggests that the Tories are nearly in *single digits* for graduates under 50.
What a way to run a country.
What would be the true level of the typical 'graduate under 50 I wonder' - leaving out the 40-50 group I'd guess about 10.. but I was always a glass half full kind of teacher...
The government’s voter ID scheme has been released. Turns out there are few anomalies.
Is there a difference in the process by which both are obtained?
Answering my own question, the 60+ one requires proof of your passport, whereas the 18+ one only requires you to upload a photo. It's easy to see why one is accepted and one is not.
As an aside, I see there was a petition to Sadiq Khan asking for the restriction on using 60+Oyster cards before 9am to be lifted.
I have to say, as a working man over 60 in possession of one of said cards, I'm not a supporter of said petition. I work and can afford to pay my fare in the morning (I get the journey home free) and I don't see why I shouldn't.
I do wish TfL and the British Transport Police got tough with fare evasion - public execution of fare dodgers may be a shade draconian I admit but flogging might well be quite a vote winner.
The government’s voter ID scheme has been released. Turns out there are few anomalies.
I suspect there's a reason for that:
The 60+ Oystercard brings with it free travel, and therefore they are careful to ensure that it is only those entitled to it who get it. (Although I would note than an EU citizen here with right to remain gets a 60+ Oystercard that is indistinguishable from a Brit's.)
Anyone can go pay for an Oystercard and say their name is Ronald Macdonald.
Nevertheless, the impact is that old people find voting easy as they will carry acceptable ID on them, while young people find it much harder.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"I'm sorry Mr. Working Class Lad from a Council Estate. If you didn't want unaffordable housing prices from population growth, your pay and conditions undercut from poor immigrants, and a big social divide in your town from a new community that sticks to itself, you should have intervened 100 years before your birth with the upper middle class actions in Asia."
Mr WCL would be paying Belgian tax rates if it weren't for immigrant workers propping up the British pensioner regime.
Depends on the immigrant group. Indian doctors, German engineers and French bankers, for sure. But poor immigrants are net costs to the taxpayer over a lifetime. That's why people want control over immigration, so they can let in the net adds and filter the rest. Big business, on the other hand, wants as much cheap labour as possible.
The government’s voter ID scheme has been released. Turns out there are few anomalies.
Is there a difference in the process by which both are obtained?
Answering my own question, the 60+ one requires proof of your passport, whereas the 18+ one only requires you to upload a photo. It's easy to see why one is accepted and one is not.
Let's be entirely honest, the "why" is because it is expected to benefit the Tories, unless you have evidence for the Great Albanian Oyster 18+ Vote Swindle.
As an aside, I see there was a petition to Sadiq Khan asking for the restriction on sing 60+Oyster cards before 9am to be lifted.
I have to say, as a working man over 60 in possession of one of said cards, I'm not a supporter of said petition. I work and can afford to pay my fare in the morning (I get the journey home free) and I don't see why I shouldn't.
I do wish TfL and the British Transport Police got tough with fare evasion - public execution of fare dodgers may be a shade draconian I admit but public flogging might well be quite a vote winner though I imagine the cancel culture, snowflake, woke conservatives will object.
I support public execution for fare dodgers as well at those people who try and blag a first class seat with a standard ticket.
Required for 60+ Details from your valid, machine-readable passport or your valid UK driving licence (full or provisional) A colour image of your valid, machine-readable passport. This must be in .png or .jpg format and be less than 6MB. The image must show your photo, personal details and passport number
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
Sweden didn't colonise much, and they've got plenty of immigrants.
Required for 60+ Details from your valid, machine-readable passport or your valid UK driving licence (full or provisional) A colour image of your valid, machine-readable passport. This must be in .png or .jpg format and be less than 6MB. The image must show your photo, personal details and passport number
Is that required for Oyster 18+?
Such nuance is beyond the twitter character limit.
The government’s voter ID scheme has been released. Turns out there are few anomalies.
Is there a difference in the process by which both are obtained?
Answering my own question, the 60+ one requires proof of your passport, whereas the 18+ one only requires you to upload a photo. It's easy to see why one is accepted and one is not.
So in this instance it's a case where something is not as stupid as it looks, but will still aggravate the faultlines the Tories have been developing with their laser focus on the grey vote.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
So you would put no control at all on immigration? Which is where we were inside the EU, in effect
If you do that, all that happens is you get governments which are further and further to the right, as the locals get evermore desperate
You’re smart enough to know this is stupid and counterproductive. Brexit happened because we had vast amounts of immigration
Ergo, you have to control it. Then it’s just a question of how and at what level
I agree it can't be a free for all, no country would do that. And I accept that while I would personally have limits in order to prevent a race to the bottom in low skilled wages, we'd probably have to have even more restrictions than I personally favour as I'm fully aware that I'm more liberal on these things than most people are. I thought EU freedom of movement was good because it struck a decent balance between freedom and limits, most notably in restricting it to countries with broadly similar levels of income and culture, and it was completely reciprocal. Obviously lots of people felt differently. I still think that fundamentally migration is a natural part of human existence and that this obsession with borders and nationhood is a bit of a dead end. I hope that one day in the distant future we will live in a world without borders. Again, I'm aware that this is a minority view.
The income level of Bulgaria is a third of that of the UK. How is that "broadly similar"? They are closer to African levels of income than British ones.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
So you would put no control at all on immigration? Which is where we were inside the EU, in effect
If you do that, all that happens is you get governments which are further and further to the right, as the locals get evermore desperate
You’re smart enough to know this is stupid and counterproductive. Brexit happened because we had vast amounts of immigration
Ergo, you have to control it. Then it’s just a question of how and at what level
I agree it can't be a free for all, no country would do that. And I accept that while I would personally have limits in order to prevent a race to the bottom in low skilled wages, we'd probably have to have even more restrictions than I personally favour as I'm fully aware that I'm more liberal on these things than most people are. I thought EU freedom of movement was good because it struck a decent balance between freedom and limits, most notably in restricting it to countries with broadly similar levels of income and culture, and it was completely reciprocal. Obviously lots of people felt differently. I still think that fundamentally migration is a natural part of human existence and that this obsession with borders and nationhood is a bit of a dead end. I hope that one day in the distant future we will live in a world without borders. Again, I'm aware that this is a minority view.
The income level of Bulgaria is a third of that of the UK. How is that "broadly similar"? They are closer to African levels of income than British ones.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
"I'm sorry Mr. Working Class Lad from a Council Estate. If you didn't want unaffordable housing prices from population growth, your pay and conditions undercut from poor immigrants, and a big social divide in your town from a new community that sticks to itself, you should have intervened 100 years before your birth with the upper middle class actions in Asia."
Mr WCL would be paying Belgian tax rates if it weren't for immigrant workers propping up the British pensioner regime.
Depends on the immigrant group. Indian doctors, German engineers and French bankers, for sure. But poor immigrants are net costs to the taxpayer over a lifetime. That's why people want control over immigration, so they can let in the net adds and filter the rest. Big business, on the other hand, wants as much cheap labour as possible.
Well, almost everyone is a net cost to the taxpayer over a lifetime, including the average doctor, engineer and banker, depending on how many kids they have. (Albeit PB comments seems to contain a disproportionate share of six-figure folks.)
Required for 60+ Details from your valid, machine-readable passport or your valid UK driving licence (full or provisional) A colour image of your valid, machine-readable passport. This must be in .png or .jpg format and be less than 6MB. The image must show your photo, personal details and passport number
Is that required for Oyster 18+?
Such nuance is beyond the twitter character limit.
Read the ERS link I posted, there's more options for older voters than there is for younger voters, do you think that's acceptable?
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
Sweden didn't colonise much, and they've got plenty of immigrants.
Required for 60+ Details from your valid, machine-readable passport or your valid UK driving licence (full or provisional) A colour image of your valid, machine-readable passport. This must be in .png or .jpg format and be less than 6MB. The image must show your photo, personal details and passport number
Is that required for Oyster 18+?
Such nuance is beyond the twitter character limit.
Read the ERS link I posted, there's more options for older voters than there is for younger voters, do you think that's acceptable?
In most cases it is proxy for another form of ID that they would have had to use to get that ID card. A passport, in the case of the 60+ oyster card.
Required for 60+ Details from your valid, machine-readable passport or your valid UK driving licence (full or provisional) A colour image of your valid, machine-readable passport. This must be in .png or .jpg format and be less than 6MB. The image must show your photo, personal details and passport number
Is that required for Oyster 18+?
Such nuance is beyond the twitter character limit.
It's already caused outrage in this character limit free space
It does read like an attempt to disproportionately skew the vote toward older people, which is a disgrace.
I have two thoughts on this. (1) Ludicrous that one form of Oyster card is valid and one not. Even if it’s not deliberately done to favour older voters, it sure gives that impression. (2) What’s an Oyster card?*
* Ok, I know what one is, but, like the vast majority of the country, don’t live in fecking London, you self obsessed wankers…
Call it an omen, a UFO (or UAP), or just an interesting meteorological phenomenon, but at sunrise to day in Seattle, I saw in the east, above the outline of the Cascade Mountains, a HUGE band of dark, indeed black, clouds, covering maybe half of the otherwise clear morning sky in that direction.
With very straight lines for clouds, so that the whole thing strongly resembled a massive black bird. OR a gigantic letter "V" tagging the sky like a divine (one hopes!) grafitto.
IF this was an omen, then here's my psychic interpretation: the American Eagle (bald like me!) crowing over the Victory just achieved (mostly) by concerned, active American voters of BOTH major political parties.
The current iteration of the Tory Party needs to FOAD.
You voted for Sunak, did you not?
As the least worst option, your candidate fucked up the economy for a generation, and will keep the party out for a similar generation.
Truss supporters, like Brexit supporters, really should reflect on the unflushable turds they've given the country.
No, the economic turds were built up by your mate the Chancellor from 2020 to 2022 and his predecessors over the 10 years before that. The fact that with one quick squeeze of his bowels his successor finally blocked the toilet for 3 weeks this Autumn is neither here nor there.
Truss and Kwarteng enacted virtually no measures of lasting effect apart from the NI reduction, which is just about the only thing of their legacy to survive after today. What they did do though was to remove the rose tinted spectacles from the markets' eyes, so that they're finally taking a more critical look and recognising the UK economy as the basket case it's become over the long term.
The UK economy has been a Ponzi scheme for 20 years. Relying on ever greater amounts of immigration (which led to perpetually high property prices) and fat taxes from the City. This was completely unsustainable because
1. All that immigration has deeply unpleasant or radical or contradictory consequences. Brexit was just one of them
2. High property prices are just another way to fuck the young, who then consider voting Corbyn, SNP, etc
3. The taxes from the City took a big hit from the GFC and yada yada yada
And now the markets have realised this and Ouch
We will no doubt survive, and eventually find a new economic model. But the pain of the necessary reset is going to be intense
Immigration isn't a Ponzi scheme, it's simply a natural consequence of different demographics and different economic situations in different parts of the world and the technology existing to make migration relatively cheap. It has always been like this - we act like it's a new thing because the phenomenon of other people coming to the UK is relatively recent (not that recent of course, large scale immigration started soon after ww2, more than 70 years ago) but we were exporting large numbers of people to the rest of the world from the 17th century onwards. When Britons emigrated to the Americas or Australia or Africa was that a Ponzi scheme? Arguably the entire human civilisation, which is devouring the world's resources at an unsustainable pace, is a Ponzi scheme, but there's nothing especially unsustainable about post war immigration patterns in the UK. People might not like it, of course, that's an entirely different question.
Total bollocks
Immigration into the UK in recent decades has been completely unprecedented in scale and proportion
1 in 6 people in the UK is now foreign born. This has consequences. And one of them was Brexit. It’s not why I voted for it, but many did. As Remainers keep reminding us. And yet it was the Remainers that opened the borders
Here's a list of foreign born people I know.
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS) My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns) My brother's partner Two of my children My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist) Most of my colleagues Loads of the parents I know from school Loads of my neighbours Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
So you would put no control at all on immigration? Which is where we were inside the EU, in effect
If you do that, all that happens is you get governments which are further and further to the right, as the locals get evermore desperate
You’re smart enough to know this is stupid and counterproductive. Brexit happened because we had vast amounts of immigration
Ergo, you have to control it. Then it’s just a question of how and at what level
I agree it can't be a free for all, no country would do that. And I accept that while I would personally have limits in order to prevent a race to the bottom in low skilled wages, we'd probably have to have even more restrictions than I personally favour as I'm fully aware that I'm more liberal on these things than most people are. I thought EU freedom of movement was good because it struck a decent balance between freedom and limits, most notably in restricting it to countries with broadly similar levels of income and culture, and it was completely reciprocal. Obviously lots of people felt differently. I still think that fundamentally migration is a natural part of human existence and that this obsession with borders and nationhood is a bit of a dead end. I hope that one day in the distant future we will live in a world without borders. Again, I'm aware that this is a minority view.
The income level of Bulgaria is a third of that of the UK. How is that "broadly similar"? They are closer to African levels of income than British ones.
Sofia is the only place I've seen someone drive their own Rolls Royce.
When the hotel manager (a mutual acquaintance given the time I was working there) pointed out that it wasn't the done thing - the owner started to employ a driver.
Comments
My point is that wealth in the UK should be taxed properly. Instead, the asset-rich are featherbedded. During QE this became grossly inequitable, and indeed inefficient, and we see the end result in the poorly state of the British economy.
The inital headlines might not be too bad- there's not much that screams "Hunt is coming to take all your money". In fact, it's not obvious that there's much headline at all.
The catch is that the next year or two are going to feel pretty grim; lots of not-enough-money to grind through. Always winter, not much Christmas. "Have yourself a very little Christmas", as my younger was singing earlier.
And it's hard to imagine the government's reputation recovering from that, even if there's time before the next election, which there might well not be.
It’s fiscally pretty neutral for the next two years, and there are protective measures for the worst off.
The backloading beyond 2024 is a poisonous legacy for Labour and likely won’t happen.
The biggest issues at a glance seem to be the oil industry stuff and a general failure to slay any sacred cows.
Wealth seems to be just stored labour after all.
I see that the current Masto - Laxalt gap is 8000 votes. So I was 2k over in my proclamation. I apologise unreservedly to the board.
I recall some silly old PBer blarting on about being uber posh, despite so much evidence to the contrary.
Santa Cruz County (Democrat stronghold) still has 12% of votes to count but the others are effectively done.
RCP has the House at 218 for the GOP and 210 for the Democrats. Looking at the numbers in the remaining seven races, the Democrats should win three and the Republicans one. CA3, CA13 and CA22 all have Republican leads but with a lot of votes still to count so it could, I suppose vary from 222-213 to 219-216. Either way, a wafer thin majority for the Republicans but solid enough if they can keep the caucus together.
I note the Politico poll for the Republican nomination has Trump leading DeSantis 47-33 which shows the task the Florida Governor faces to dig up the deep roots planted by Trump (forgive the gardening analogy). It will be interesting, when they debate, to see the policy nuances between the two main candidates.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/nationalist-ire-over-orange-future-1.105761
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-future-s-not-so-bright-as-orange-gets-the-red-light-in-ulster-1328424.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4780611/
Unfortunately, I don’t understand at least half of the words that they’re using. But I think it disagrees with @LostPassword
Me being an idiot and not studying any science beyond GCSE means that I have absolutely no idea who is right. But I do feel like I’m learning something. Maybe.
So, if anyone invents a carbon fixing machine, don't leave it on for too long...
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-ideal-level-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-human-life
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1712062114
My wife's parents (father worked for decades as a doctor in the NHS)
My wife's brothers (both doctors, one a GP in a poor part of Leeds, the other looks after sick newborns)
My brother's partner
Two of my children
My boss (started a multi billion dollar hedge fund, employs a lot of people in the UK, is a major philanthropist)
Most of my colleagues
Loads of the parents I know from school
Loads of my neighbours
Loads of my friends
Meanwhile, I have lived abroad in two different countries for eight years altogether.
I just don't see what the problem is with people moving about. It's the world we live in. If we didn't want people moving here we shouldn't have colonised half the world, taught them all English and invented the jet engine.
Most of us can't actually see Calais.
It revives her nearly dead-on-arrival political career
It softens Trump with a telegenic, articulate
and plausible woman who can probably sell Trumpism better than him
I wouldn’t write them entirely off. Unfortunately
CH4 eventually gets oxidised in the upper atmosphere to CO2 in any case, so you need a continuous supply to keep it there.
All sorts of assets rise in value not because of labour but because of other factors.
"taught them all English"
"invented the jet engine"
all arguable. (Re point 3, only in the sense that the Germans did it as well, independently.)
Edit: of course, you are probably being ironic. But it's very hard to tell sometimes these days.
What a way to run a country.
Hobbs lead 16,890. Recount if lead under 0.5% - which is 12,740.
Cortez-Masto lead just under 9k.
If you do that, all that happens is you get governments which are further and further to the right, as the locals get evermore desperate
You’re smart enough to know this is stupid and counterproductive. Brexit happened because we had vast amounts of immigration
Ergo, you have to control it. Then it’s just a question of how and at what level
Which it won't be, because most of our problems are more fundamental than anything a government can solve.
Though the idea Kari Lake is plausible is laughable. She's a loon.
> four where Republican currently leading: CA03, CA13, CA22 and CO03
> two where Democrats now ahead: AK At Large and CA47
My own semi-ill-educated guess, is that the current winners are elected in the end.
Including "Landslide" Lauren Boebert (unfortunately). BUT also including David Valadao, one of the 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach You Know Who after 1/6.
His is the only one of the ten whose re-election OR otherwise is still in doubt.
> Four of 10 choose not to run in 2022: Gonzalez (OH), Katko (NY), Kinzinger (IL), Scott (SC)
> Two of 10 were defeated in primary AND new Republican nominee won: Cheney (WY) and Rice (SC)
> Two of 10 were defeated in primary and a DEMOCRAT won flipping the seat: Herrera Beutler (WA) and Meijer (MI)
> One of 10 was renominated AND re-elected: Newhouse (WA)
DeSantis 3.4
Biden 5.7
Trump 6.2
Nomination:
DeSantis 2.34
Trump 3.05
Implies Trump almost bang on 50:50 to win Presidency if he gets nominated - which seems high.
Whereas DeSantis 69% chance of winning if gets nominated.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voter-id-list-gives-few-options-for-younger-voters/
I thought EU freedom of movement was good because it struck a decent balance between freedom and limits, most notably in restricting it to countries with broadly similar levels of income and culture, and it was completely reciprocal. Obviously lots of people felt differently.
I still think that fundamentally migration is a natural part of human existence and that this obsession with borders and nationhood is a bit of a dead end. I hope that one day in the distant future we will live in a world without borders. Again, I'm aware that this is a minority view.
Very few jobs that require you to actually have a degree actually make use of said degree.
And in my field, the people who never went to Uni are usually way better than those who have a degree (although this does depend on which IT sector you work in).
I have to say, as a working man over 60 in possession of one of said cards, I'm not a supporter of said petition. I work and can afford to pay my fare in the morning (I get the journey home free) and I don't see why I shouldn't.
I do wish TfL and the British Transport Police got tough with fare evasion - public execution of fare dodgers may be a shade draconian I admit but flogging might well be quite a vote winner.
The 60+ Oystercard brings with it free travel, and therefore they are careful to ensure that it is only those entitled to it who get it. (Although I would note than an EU citizen here with right to remain gets a 60+ Oystercard that is indistinguishable from a Brit's.)
Anyone can go pay for an Oystercard and say their name is Ronald Macdonald.
Nevertheless, the impact is that old people find voting easy as they will carry acceptable ID on them, while young people find it much harder.
Details from your valid, machine-readable passport or your valid UK driving licence (full or provisional)
A colour image of your valid, machine-readable passport. This must be in .png or .jpg format and be less than 6MB. The image must show your photo, personal details and passport number
Is that required for Oyster 18+?
Oops - post deleted my error!
(1) Ludicrous that one form of Oyster card is valid and one not. Even if it’s not deliberately done to favour older voters, it sure gives that impression.
(2) What’s an Oyster card?*
* Ok, I know what one is, but, like the vast majority of the country, don’t live in fecking London, you self obsessed wankers…
With very straight lines for clouds, so that the whole thing strongly resembled a massive black bird. OR a gigantic letter "V" tagging the sky like a divine (one hopes!) grafitto.
IF this was an omen, then here's my psychic interpretation: the American Eagle (bald like me!) crowing over the Victory just achieved (mostly) by concerned, active American voters of BOTH major political parties.
When the hotel manager (a mutual acquaintance given the time I was working there) pointed out that it wasn't the done thing - the owner started to employ a driver.