Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Very silly. And pinning the blame in entirely the wrong place - this mess is really (just another part of) Johnson’s toxic legacy, and he is lucky that having the brief interlude of Loopy Liz has distracted from the shambolic state of affairs that he left behind. But however idiotic was Truss’s budget, you can’t create a mess like this in a day.
Astonishing that after everything anyone in their right mind still thinks they can have their tax cut. But are these people really in their right mind?
Good morning
As I am tagged in this I utterly reject this idiotic Truss like attitude and it only confirms the right of the conservative party have a desire to self combust
What IS correct about that piece though is the astonishing size of Gov't debt (the initial premise of the piece).
I have to say that even as a leftie I am very uncomfortable at the rates of taxation being levelled on middle income people. The state has swelled to extraordinary levels but so has wastage: unforgivable levels of unaccountable spaffing by the Conservatives: from bounce back loans to croney backroom deals and an abject failure to tax non-doms and international firms, as well as energy companies. Instead hard working individuals are footing the bill for the Conservative Party's profligacy. It's disgusting.
The triple lock is also ridiculous and this is essentially robbing hard working people to save tory seats at the election.
The energy windfall tax has been greatly extended and as far as the triple lock is concerned all political parties support it so while it should go Starmers election in 2024 will see it retained
Merrick Garland seems to have picked the right person for the job.
https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1593783449952944128 I was described by Steve Bannon (and, sigh, many others) as a pit bull. Jack Smith makes me look like a golden retriever puppy. So tenacious and fearless. And apolitical and ethical.
This is an automatic recount written into Colorado statue. Colorado elections are rock solid and if historical precedent of recounts in the state holds, it is unlikely to change more than a handful of votes…. This campaign has never been about false hope. We ran knowing we could win. And we came close, so close.
So rather than continue with a narrative that the recount could alter the fact that we came up 554 votes short, we are choosing to move forward with honesty & humility.
My wife has just voted in the Malaysia General Election. Polling Stations are open for 12 hours between 0800 and 1800 (so most results will be known by midnight). There were 100 people queuing at 0830 when we got there and it took her an hour to register her vote.
Accepted forms of identification for voters in Malaysia are national identification cards, passports, driving licences and temporary identification documents. (Everyone over the age of 18 is automatically entitled to vote and there is no need to register as in the UK). Voters are required to leave their mobile phones at the presiding officer's table before they head to the marking station to mark their ballots. They then collect their phones as they exit the polling station. (The ban on mobile phones is because it could affect voter secrecy and allow information to be used for bribes).
You are not to wear clothing or bring items with political party symbols or candidates' names and to prevent people from voting more than once, Malaysia requires voters to dip their left index fingers in indelible ink before they receive their voting slips.
The election is expected to be close with the opposition coalition likely to get the most votes but not seats. (That's the way FPTP elections work here). I expect a coalition of the "Blues" to form the next government, just as in the last. Flag manufacturers must have made a fortune in the last month as the roads are festooned with a multitude of coloured banners advertising the parties and candidates. (Local State elections are being held at the same time in many places).
What did she think of PN's chances after 'Jewish-Christian conspiracy' diatribe? The anti-semitism in Malaysia never ceases to shock me..
I remember browsing the hotel shop when I was staying in Kuala Lumpur some years ago, and being taken aback to see that they were selling copies of The Protocols of Zion.
This is an automatic recount written into Colorado statue. Colorado elections are rock solid and if historical precedent of recounts in the state holds, it is unlikely to change more than a handful of votes…. This campaign has never been about false hope. We ran knowing we could win. And we came close, so close.
So rather than continue with a narrative that the recount could alter the fact that we came up 554 votes short, we are choosing to move forward with honesty & humility.
Not quite the response we’d have had from the losing candidate, should it have been 554 votes the other way.
Just kissed a Tory - have now resigned as Labour member
The Tories are in such a dire situation that I think you could argue that kissing them counts as an act of charity right now.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
Just kissed a Tory - have now resigned as Labour member
The Tories are in such a dire situation that I think you could argue that kissing them counts as an act of charity right now.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
The trick is to be a good kisser. I kissed a Tory, but she’s not a Tory any more.
- You can vote in person or remotely (postal votes and proxy votes). One major Party (the Conservatives) does best on the postal votes and proxy votes (partly because of the skew to the elderly of their voters).
- Vote fraud is not non-existent in this country, but is almost always in the postal votes area, where it is possible to set up postal vote farms. This is not widespread, but is a potential issue, concentrated in some areas rather than others. The scale is small, but could flip a few seats in those specific areas. Vote fraud in person (personation) is all-but-nonexistent.
- ID could be used to protect against the latter (the all-but-nonexistent in-person vote fraud) but do nothing against the actual concern of postal voting. It does have the drawback that some demographics (the younger ones, the poorer ones, and the older ones) may not have ID ready and available.
- We will therefore ensure that the older ones have loads of possibilities for ID and make it as easy as possible for them. We won't worry about the younger ones and the poorer ones there. The fact that the Conservative vote skews elderly and away from the younger and poorer demographics is a pure coincidence, of course. As is the fact that they benefit most from postal voting and have done nothing in that area (where there is actually a potential concern).
Just kissed a Tory - have now resigned as Labour member
The Tories are in such a dire situation that I think you could argue that kissing them counts as an act of charity right now.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
The trick is to be a good kisser. I kissed a Tory, but she’s not a Tory any more.
Just kissed a Tory - have now resigned as Labour member
The Tories are in such a dire situation that I think you could argue that kissing them counts as an act of charity right now.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
The trick is to be a good kisser. I kissed a Tory, but she’s not a Tory any more.
Just kissed a Tory - have now resigned as Labour member
The Tories are in such a dire situation that I think you could argue that kissing them counts as an act of charity right now.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
The trick is to be a good kisser. I kissed a Tory, but she’s not a Tory any more.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
- You can vote in person or remotely (postal votes and proxy votes). One major Party (the Conservatives) does best on the postal votes and proxy votes (partly because of the skew to the elderly of their voters).
- Vote fraud is not non-existent in this country, but is almost always in the postal votes area, where it is possible to set up postal vote farms. This is not widespread, but is a potential issue, concentrated in some areas rather than others. The scale is small, but could flip a few seats in those specific areas. Vote fraud in person (personation) is all-but-nonexistent.
- ID could be used to protect against the latter (the all-but-nonexistent in-person vote fraud) but do nothing against the actual concern of postal voting. It does have the drawback that some demographics (the younger ones, the poorer ones, and the older ones) may not have ID ready and available.
- We will therefore ensure that the older ones have loads of possibilities for ID and make it as easy as possible for them. We won't worry about the younger ones and the poorer ones there. The fact that the Conservative vote skews elderly and away from the younger and poorer demographics is a pure coincidence, of course. As is the fact that they benefit most from postal voting and have done nothing in that area (where there is actually a potential concern).
Yeah, I can see why this stinks.
100% agree. See my post of the other day where I detailed my experience of both frauds in a particular dodgy ward. One is easy to do and in numbers, the other very difficult to perform other than in single digits of votes and with a high probability of getting caught. We are clamping down on the wrong fraud.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
It's a brilliant euphemism, because it sounds so rational.
Tell me what services the state should stop providing to who. Tell me which salaries or benefits you are going to freeze or cut and by how much. Then we can think about the consequences and whether or not it's a good (or least bad) idea.
Everything else is the sort of fantasy thinking that has got us into this mess.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Very silly. And pinning the blame in entirely the wrong place - this mess is really (just another part of) Johnson’s toxic legacy, and he is lucky that having the brief interlude of Loopy Liz has distracted from the shambolic state of affairs that he left behind. But however idiotic was Truss’s budget, you can’t create a mess like this in a day.
Astonishing that after everything anyone in their right mind still thinks they can have their tax cut. But are these people really in their right mind?
Let's not be harsh. They might actually own a time machine which will allow us to "take real spending back to the eve of lockdown".
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
The problem with HS2 is the amount of time it's taking to start the bloody thing.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Very silly. And pinning the blame in entirely the wrong place - this mess is really (just another part of) Johnson’s toxic legacy, and he is lucky that having the brief interlude of Loopy Liz has distracted from the shambolic state of affairs that he left behind. But however idiotic was Truss’s budget, you can’t create a mess like this in a day.
Astonishing that after everything anyone in their right mind still thinks they can have their tax cut. But are these people really in their right mind?
Let's not be harsh. They might actually own a time machine which will allow us to "take real spending back to the eve of lockdown".
It's a sign of slow thinking. It shows their tardisness.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Very silly. And pinning the blame in entirely the wrong place - this mess is really (just another part of) Johnson’s toxic legacy, and he is lucky that having the brief interlude of Loopy Liz has distracted from the shambolic state of affairs that he left behind. But however idiotic was Truss’s budget, you can’t create a mess like this in a day.
Astonishing that after everything anyone in their right mind still thinks they can have their tax cut. But are these people really in their right mind?
Let's not be harsh. They might actually own a time machine which will allow us to "take real spending back to the eve of lockdown".
It's a sign of slow thinking. It shows their tardisness.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Very silly. And pinning the blame in entirely the wrong place - this mess is really (just another part of) Johnson’s toxic legacy, and he is lucky that having the brief interlude of Loopy Liz has distracted from the shambolic state of affairs that he left behind. But however idiotic was Truss’s budget, you can’t create a mess like this in a day.
Astonishing that after everything anyone in their right mind still thinks they can have their tax cut. But are these people really in their right mind?
Let's not be harsh. They might actually own a time machine which will allow us to "take real spending back to the eve of lockdown".
It's a sign of slow thinking. It shows their tardisness.
When it comes to puns, you sir are The Master.
Well, that's ironic given 'Y Doethur' translates as 'The Doctor.'
Although that is, in fact, a pun on my actual title and name
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
You're just advanced for you age... you've become an old fogey 20 years earlier than most.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Oh my God! An independent business choosing for itself what to sell to customers? It’s capitalism gone mad! If only the Conservatives would save us from this!
The big problem for those opposed to HS2 is that there is a chronic need for more capacity on the West Coast main line. Its main problem is its name which sounds like a vanity project.
How curious, but good to see. Brown knows his stuff.
Sunak moving to the centre and also gaining an ally in the Independence issue
Are you sure? I would be astounded to discover Mr Brown hasn't been more Tory than Tory when it comes to Scottish Independence for the last few decades (and quality of financial management, too, come to think of it). What was all that Better Together stuff about then??
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Very silly. And pinning the blame in entirely the wrong place - this mess is really (just another part of) Johnson’s toxic legacy, and he is lucky that having the brief interlude of Loopy Liz has distracted from the shambolic state of affairs that he left behind. But however idiotic was Truss’s budget, you can’t create a mess like this in a day.
Astonishing that after everything anyone in their right mind still thinks they can have their tax cut. But are these people really in their right mind?
Let's not be harsh. They might actually own a time machine which will allow us to "take real spending back to the eve of lockdown".
It's a sign of slow thinking. It shows their tardisness.
I would take an interest in the matter myself - not least the question of paying the bank to look after my money.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
Just kissed a Tory - have now resigned as Labour member
The Tories are in such a dire situation that I think you could argue that kissing them counts as an act of charity right now.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
The trick is to be a good kisser. I kissed a Tory, but she’s not a Tory any more.
Now a frog ?
Toad is, I believe, the correct species, more precisely Bufo bufo (Linnaeus, 1758). Quite appropriate as like Barty they are very attached to their motor-cars and the freedom of the road.
The big problem for those opposed to HS2 is that there is a chronic need for more capacity on the West Coast main line. Its main problem is its name which sounds like a vanity project.
So much work is already underway on HS2 [near where I live for instance] that it would be ridiculous to cancel it. Some politicians don't seem to understand that, perhaps because they don't live near it and don't visit those areas.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
The big problem for those opposed to HS2 is that there is a chronic need for more capacity on the West Coast main line. Its main problem is its name which sounds like a vanity project.
The name describes what it is - and while the west coast line needs it so does the east coast where both the east coast and midland mainline could do with extra trains
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Surely the sign of a genuine activist, is being prepared to make such gestures and protests when they have been explicitly prohibited and carry genuine consequences?
Jumping on the favourite woke cause of the day, is easy when most are cheering you on. It’s difficult when it gets you in trouble, so let’s see how many footballers actually have the balls to protest at the World Cup.
The big problem for those opposed to HS2 is that there is a chronic need for more capacity on the West Coast main line. Its main problem is its name which sounds like a vanity project.
So much work is already underway on HS2 [near where I live for instance] that it would be ridiculous to cancel it. Some politicians don't seem to understand that, perhaps because they don't live near it and don't visit those areas.
People get het up about the supposed speed increases from HS2 ( a scant few minutes). But I was under the impression that some of the benefits are freeing up more line capacity for freight etc. Besides, all those working on the line are getting paid, then taxed and spending the money into the economy. That’s a good thing.
The big problem for those opposed to HS2 is that there is a chronic need for more capacity on the West Coast main line. Its main problem is its name which sounds like a vanity project.
The name describes what it is - and while the west coast line needs it so does the east coast where both the east coast and midland mainline could do with extra trains
While under the infamous IRP if it were ever implemented - which it can't be for various reasons - it would significantly reduce the number of trains on both.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Oh my God! An independent business choosing for itself what to sell to customers? It’s capitalism gone mad! If only the Conservatives would save us from this!
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
Not sure that Tories should be opining on what the public really wants atm..
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
We pioneered railways in this country and I don't see why there should be more pride in a new one for the 21st century linking England better together and forging our future. The same people would be really proud of Stephenson or Brunel.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
But it's *in addition* to your existing bookshops, not a replacement for one. I'm not upset if, for instance, a fox-hunting pinks shop (for which I would have no use) opens in my town, as I would instantly brush it off - no loss to me.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
So, just to be clear, by Wokery, you mean a business choosing what to sell? And you see this as what, a threat to society?
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
What's funny is at no point will they ever realise what's happened or why.
No-one will ever say anything to them - too much risk of looking like or being accused of being a dinosaur/bigot/neanderthal.. etc - so they will simply soldier blithely on baffled as to why their takings are so low, and everyone is still going everywhere else.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
Go in there and ask them to order you a copy of Heinz Knocke's 'I Flew for the Fuhrer'. That will educate them in the commercial realities of the situation. Be the change you want to see in the world.
The big problem for those opposed to HS2 is that there is a chronic need for more capacity on the West Coast main line. Its main problem is its name which sounds like a vanity project.
So much work is already underway on HS2 [near where I live for instance] that it would be ridiculous to cancel it. Some politicians don't seem to understand that, perhaps because they don't live near it and don't visit those areas.
People get het up about the supposed speed increases from HS2 ( a scant few minutes). But I was under the impression that some of the benefits are freeing up more line capacity for freight etc. Besides, all those working on the line are getting paid, then taxed and spending the money into the economy. That’s a good thing.
At the moment there are roughly 16 trains per hour (tph) on the WCML which is mostly four tracked. This is because it is a curious mixture of fast, semi-fast, stopping and freight trains. It is the busiest and most congested mixed-rail line in the whole of Europe.
HS2 on its own has a theoretical capacity of 14tph. All running at the same speed, so it's easy to have consistent distances between them. I suspect in practice it will be about 10-11 trains per hour, but that's still a pretty impressive record set against a mixed-use line with twice the number of tracks.*
This also means the WCML now doesn't have so many fast expresses thundering up and down it - every one of those removed frees up roughly two pathways for slower services, partly due to pathing and partly due to the increased capacity at stations (Curzon Street may be a 500 yard walk/tram ride from New Street, but opening it will triple the latter's capacity, which is sorely needed).
Estimated increase in traffic - from 16 to 32tph.
I've seen estimates suggesting the overall number of tph will go from 16 to 52. That strikes me as optimistic but it's not ridiculous to think it will be over 40 in total.
More than a doubling of capacity, with only a 50% increase in track space, with far less disruption and far more cheaply than trying to upgrade an existing line.
If I'm honest, this is not only a no-brainer but the big mistake was not building it 25 years ago instead of getting sidetracked by widening the WCML. Which not only took far longer but was more costly than building a high speed line would have been.
*It will actually be quite a bit faster than the WCML as well - about half an hour shaved off the time to Birmingham, more to Manchester - because if you build a new line, why not make it high speed? (Whether it needs to be quite as fast as it's being planned to be is another question.)
I see Fifa are going for the aggressive form of whataboutery nonsense in their defence of Qatar.
First they bend over on the issue of selling beer, something in the past they have been very rigid on, and now this.
I guess when bought they stay bought. I mean, by their logic as no nation is a saint no one can ever criticise poor actions of others...oh I get the appeal for Fifa now.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
Persuade the secondhand bookshop to sell coffee too. Problem sorted, demise of the right-on (surely, left-on?) bookshop hastened.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
We pioneered railways in this country and I don't see why there should be more pride in a new one for the 21st century linking England better together and forging our future. The same people would be really proud of Stephenson or Brunel.
But, not everyone thinks like me.
Have you ever read an account of the building of what is now the WCML? E.g. Rolt's biography of the Stephensons.
Almost all the same arguments were advanced against it then, with much the same level of integrity, as are advanced against HS2 now.
It's one reason (along with the Kilsby Tunnel fiasco) why it took so long and was so expensive to build.
But even that wasn't new. Shelmore Great Bank, a huge embankment carrying the Shropshire Union canal across a valley that took six years to build and is still a bloody nuisance to work a boat over in a high wind, only had to be built in the first place because the local landowner objected to the canal running through his pheasant preserve!
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
Go in there and ask them to order you a copy of Heinz Knocke's 'I Flew for the Fuhrer'. That will educate them in the commercial realities of the situation. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Ha, I’ve actually read that! From memory old Heinz was a bit overly enthusiastic about reliving the good old days with the Alte Kameraden post 1945.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record... se standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
I do enjoy Conservatives acknowledging in retrospect that Corbyn was a moderate sort of fellow.
I was perusing their literary offer just last week, and there was a total absence of anything meaningful on Hegelian dialectics. And not only did they not stock the Anarchists' Cookbook, they refused to order it for me. I shall not darken their door again.
I am also boycotting Dorothy Perkins, as they have no clothes appropriate for me.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
37% really isn't that high by historical standards. Was a lot higher under Blair and Brown. And the aging society makes it inevitably go up. Once again we get to the underlying issue of too low a fertility rate.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
Go in there and ask them to order you a copy of Heinz Knocke's 'I Flew for the Fuhrer'. That will educate them in the commercial realities of the situation. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Ha, I’ve actually read that! From memory old Heinz was a bit overly enthusiastic about reliving the good old days with the Alte Kameraden post 1945.
Knocke is the only simultaneous Ace (5+ kills) and Reverse Ace (survived being shot down 5+ times).
I read it at school and recall being greatly amused at his description of Goering. 'I can come to no other conclusion than that the Reichsmarschall was wearing cosmetics.'
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
Go in there and ask them to order you a copy of Heinz Knocke's 'I Flew for the Fuhrer'. That will educate them in the commercial realities of the situation. Be the change you want to see in the world.
If they have any sense, they'll order it, get it delivered the next day and take the commission. Seriously. How about asking them to order some other books in? If they refuse to do that, they really are stupidly woke and are taking an awfully big gamble with their business.
But otherwise... best of luck to them. Most small towns would kill for a small indy bookshop-cum-cafe hangout. Even one that wasn't perfectly attuned to their preferences. Probably not enough to pay full price for books and stop using amazon, but you get the idea.
Different people want different things, and that's what makes life interesting. And as generations change, places change. It's uncomfortable, especially when things change from what I find congenial. That's always an undercurrent in society and politics, and the UK is suffering a fairly nasty bout of it at the moment, as the original boomers rage against the dying of their light.
If they really did racially abuse these girls then they should be expelled. That's what would happen at my kids' schools, but I suppose as always these people are held to different standards from the rest of us. We have these institutions whose entire purpose is to breed an entitled, out of touch elite and then wonder why we keep being ruled by an entitled, out of touch elite.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
What's funny is at no point will they ever realise what's happened or why.
No-one will ever say anything to them - too much risk of looking like or being accused of being a dinosaur/bigot/neanderthal.. etc - so they will simply soldier blithely on baffled as to why their takings are so low, and everyone is still going everywhere else.
I wonder if your town is gradually becoming more woke as trendy graduates priced out of London move there, as on the South Coast?
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
Not sure that Tories should be opining on what the public really wants atm..
OK, let's rely on actual poll results then - the people want Tories with an 80 seat majority and Scotland wants to stay in the UK....
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
Not sure that Tories should be opining on what the public really wants atm..
OK, let's rely on actual poll results then - the people want Tories with an 80 seat majority and Scotland wants to stay in the UK....
Actual poll results show the SNP winning every election in Scotland since 2014.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
I'm opposed to it on the grounds of the eyewatering bill. I remember it being controversial many years ago when the costs were far lower, the benefits far clearer, and the Government far richer. Yet it sails through every obstacle. It's absolutely clear that we could have food riots and they would still wave it through using some threadbare pretext.
@Lawton_Times Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Maybe I'm unusual but I find myself getting annoyed if footballers do nothing and if they do something.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
They’ve become activists, particularly since COVID. Twenty years ago, football was politics free. Thierry Henry got into trouble for honouring the birth of his friend’s baby. But times have changed.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
Yes, I think that's right.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Just take some wicked glee when it closes down in February, crushing all their dreams...
Not sure that Tories should be opining on what the public really wants atm..
OK, let's rely on actual poll results then - the people want Tories with an 80 seat majority and Scotland wants to stay in the UK....
And cowardly Tories are fouling their breeks at the prospect of reruns of both.
If they really did racially abuse these girls then they should be expelled. That's what would happen at my kids' schools, but I suppose as always these people are held to different standards from the rest of us. We have these institutions whose entire purpose is to breed an entitled, out of touch elite and then wonder why we keep being ruled by an entitled, out of touch elite.
I'm all for bashing Eton for this and many other things, but would someone really be expelled for even racial abuse, as a first offence? A suspension and other sanction seems more likely than immediate expulsion.
It is true that the first snow of the year has been in the last couple of days, across large areas of Ukraine. It’s also true, that it’s a lot more difficult to hide vehicles when everything around is white, and anything that moves leaves a trail behind it.
Let’s hope that is indeed recent footage. The most pessimistic estimate, from Oryx, says there’s 1,500 Russian tanks down in the last nine months, the most optimistic estimate from the Ukranians is 2,900 Russian tanks down - out of around 3,300 in total.
There were only around 3,300 tanks in Russia at the start of this conflict, so even the most optimistic (for the Russians!) estimate has nearly half of them lost. If the Ukranians are right, there’s only 500 tanks left! There was a 1967 T-62 caputed a couple of weeks ago, although not sure what the Ukranians would want with such a relic.
Another issue on which the Tories have lost the public. Though I’ve been assured on here that no one wanted Singapore-on-Thames, Brillo seems confident it was a Brexiteer thing.
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
It doesn't sound my sort of place either (spiritualism??). But I'm quite keen on the aspect of capitalist free marketeering that says that anyone can sell anything that's legal if they want to. I understand your disappointment that it's not tailored to your preferences, but not your indignation that they have the effrontery to take a different view.
What I think you're saying is that you'd like bookshops to have no particular agenda at all, in the same way that lots of us would like newspapers just to tell us the facts without bias (nice in theory, difficult in practice). But while there's a clear public interest in honest reporting, is there really a public interest in requiring bookshops to follow one policy or another?
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
I suspect "most people" don't buy many books at all, and of the remainder, most of those will buy online, and of the rest, at the big chains like Waterstones. Running an independent bookshop must be a pretty precarious business model these days, and my guess is that to be successful you've pretty much got to either (1) take the "the business is a coffee shop that sells books on the side" approach or (2) have a niche and lean heavily into it. I don't think a small independent generalist has much chance at all.
Now it may well be that this specific shop has mismatched their niche and their location, but at least if they get word out online they can draw their customer base from a wider area than just local passing trade. And they might be able to do some worthwhile online sales too, if they are any good at curation and recommendations for books in their niche.
It is true that the first snow of the year has been in the last couple of days, across large areas of Ukraine. It’s also true, that it’s a lot more difficult to hide vehicles when everything around is white, and anything that moves leaves a trail behind it.
Let’s hope that is indeed recent footage. The most pessimistic estimate, from Oryx, says there’s 1,500 Russian tanks down in the last nine months, the most optimistic estimate from the Ukranians is 2,900 Russian tanks down - out of around 3,300 in total.
There were only around 3,300 tanks in Russia at the start of this conflict, so even the most optimistic (for the Russians!) estimate has nearly half of them lost. If the Ukranians are right, there’s only 500 tanks left! There was a 1967 T-62 caputed a couple of weeks ago, although not sure what the Ukranians would want with such a relic.
If even the pessimistic number is correct I feel like they must be threatening to shoot people if they don't get in the damn things, as it's practically a death sentence to even be near them.
If they really did racially abuse these girls then they should be expelled. That's what would happen at my kids' schools, but I suppose as always these people are held to different standards from the rest of us. We have these institutions whose entire purpose is to breed an entitled, out of touch elite and then wonder why we keep being ruled by an entitled, out of touch elite.
I'm all for bashing Eton for this and many other things, but would someone really be expelled for even racial abuse, as a first offence? A suspension and other sanction seems more likely than immediate expulsion.
‘If you didn’t want us to do a boorish racism why did you get Farage in’ might have some validity as a defence.
I was perusing their literary offer just last week, and there was a total absence of anything meaningful on Hegelian dialectics. And not only did they not stock the Anarchists' Cookbook, they refused to order it for me. I shall not darken their door again.
I am also boycotting Dorothy Perkins, as they have no clothes appropriate for me.
As Schopenhauer never tired of pointing out, WH Smith don't stock anything meaningful on Hegelian dialectics because nothing meaningful is to be had. He was a verbally profligate fraud.
However Smiths are weak on Schopenhauer and Kant as well.
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
I suspect "most people" don't buy many books at all, and of the remainder, most of those will buy online, and of the rest, at the big chains like Waterstones. Running an independent bookshop must be a pretty precarious business model these days, and my guess is that to be successful you've pretty much got to either (1) take the "the business is a coffee shop that sells books on the side" approach or (2) have a niche and lean heavily into it. I don't think a small independent generalist has much chance at all.
Now it may well be that this specific shop has mismatched their niche and their location, but at least if they get word out online they can draw their customer base from a wider area than just local passing trade. And they might be able to do some worthwhile online sales too, if they are any good at curation and recommendations for books in their niche.
Yes, whilst restricting your range (and thus limiting some potential customers) might not seem the right approach (and may not be for that area), specialisation to provide a unique offer would make sense as a strategy.
If people want to reduce taxes you are going to have to move towards a privatised health system and reform the pensions system. I don't see any other way.
I see Fifa are going for the aggressive form of whataboutery nonsense in their defence of Qatar.
First they bend over on the issue of selling beer, something in the past they have been very rigid on, and now this.
I guess when bought they stay bought. I mean, by their logic as no nation is a saint no one can ever criticise poor actions of others...oh I get the appeal for Fifa now.
For once I don’t think ‘it’ll be alright on the night’ applies. This is going to be a disaster all round.
One can only hope it takes down FIFA as collateral.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
Frankly this Government’s actions are far more extreme than Jeremy Corbyn promised in 2019. Tax as a proportion of GDP was 32.9 per cent then, and 37 per cent by 2027 is far higher increase than Corbyn ever proposed. Public spending was £884billion in 2019; it will be £1,100billion next year. Inflation was 1.5 per cent in 2019, now it is 11.1 per cent. Some record...
No one is saying that given the mess they have created a recovery strategy is easy. It is not. While unfunded tax cuts are not credible, what would have been credible would have been to pare back spending to pre-pandemic levels in real terms. Taking spending back to 2019 levels is hardly a big ask...
So, what to do? Besides cancelling HS2 and other similar vanity projects, which is an easy win, over £100billion of public spending normalisation should be the simple starter. This merely takes real spending back to the eve of lockdown. Hardly a big ask and something to build on.
This could have funded tax cuts focused on a genuine growth strategy. Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels and instead of tax rising to 37 per cent of GDP it could have fallen back to 33 per cent. Again, this is very modest: simply the pre-lockdown level and far higher than under even Tony Blair.
I don't normally tag people in posts, but I would urge @Big_G_NorthWales to have a read of this article and realise that Sunak and Hunt are anything but the safe option he seems to believe that they are, and those standing against the statement deserve support, not his bizarre wish to see them replaced by Labour MPs.
Reshape the state merely back to 2019 levels is one of the least intelligent statements I've read on here in the past few weeks, and that's saying something.
The sign of an idiot on this is when they say "HS2 for a start" - it's usually also HS2 for an end, because - for reasons that baffle me - HS2 is seen as a bit Remainery, wet, establishment and sappy.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
HS2 is a weird one. Those opposed to it, are *really* opposed to it, in many cases for quite misguided reasons about its existence.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
We pioneered railways in this country and I don't see why there should be more pride in a new one for the 21st century linking England better together and forging our future. The same people would be really proud of Stephenson or Brunel.
But, not everyone thinks like me.
It's really really expensive (a lot more expensive than initially claimed it would be, to what should be no one'e surprise) and loads of people don't use railways, so a lot of grumpy opposition was inevitable.
If people want to reduce taxes you are going to have to move towards a privatised health system and reform the pensions system. I don't see any other way.
Grow the economy faster than “health care inflation” and population growth, combined?
That’s how we got to the stage of being able to afford the NHS in the first place.
If people want to reduce taxes you are going to have to move towards a privatised health system and reform the pensions system. I don't see any other way.
Grow the economy faster than “health care inflation” and population growth, combined?
That’s how we got to the stage of being able to afford the NHS in the first place.
No one has any ideas on how to do that other than wish really hard though.
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
I suspect "most people" don't buy many books at all, and of the remainder, most of those will buy online, and of the rest, at the big chains like Waterstones. Running an independent bookshop must be a pretty precarious business model these days, and my guess is that to be successful you've pretty much got to either (1) take the "the business is a coffee shop that sells books on the side" approach or (2) have a niche and lean heavily into it. I don't think a small independent generalist has much chance at all.
Now it may well be that this specific shop has mismatched their niche and their location, but at least if they get word out online they can draw their customer base from a wider area than just local passing trade. And they might be able to do some worthwhile online sales too, if they are any good at curation and recommendations for books in their niche.
And the big thing is that anyone launching a new business right now, especially one depending on discretionary spending, deserves respect for the courage, if nothing else.
Apparently, some people regard spending on books, coffee and cake in that light- crazy, huh?
Talking of which, time to go and recycle some money into the local economy. It sounds better saying that than "eat some doughnuts".
If they really did racially abuse these girls then they should be expelled. That's what would happen at my kids' schools, but I suppose as always these people are held to different standards from the rest of us. We have these institutions whose entire purpose is to breed an entitled, out of touch elite and then wonder why we keep being ruled by an entitled, out of touch elite.
I'm all for bashing Eton for this and many other things, but would someone really be expelled for even racial abuse, as a first offence? A suspension and other sanction seems more likely than immediate expulsion.
At our school you can be permanently excluded for a serious breach of the behaviour policy. We don't know enough about this incident to say what happened but it certainly sounds like it might have been in that kind if category, and again we don't know the full facts but it sounds like the kids just got a slap on the wrist. Eton should provide a full account of the incident. Since they educate most of the people who run the country there is a clear public interest in knowing exactly what they're doing, and I'm sure that if they were a state school they would have to provide full disclosure (without providing the children's details, obviously).
Both arguments seem fine re the independent bookshop. Of course the owners can sell what they choose. Of course @Casino_Royale can choose never to darken their door again. There is the question of false prospectus. If said shop markets itself as an indepentent bookshop, with no indication of slant, you can expect people to be annoyed. In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff. I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
It doesn't sound my sort of place either (spiritualism??). But I'm quite keen on the aspect of capitalist free marketeering that says that anyone can sell anything that's legal if they want to. I understand your disappointment that it's not tailored to your preferences, but not your indignation that they have the effrontery to take a different view.
What I think you're saying is that you'd like bookshops to have no particular agenda at all, in the same way that lots of us would like newspapers just to tell us the facts without bias (nice in theory, difficult in practice). But while there's a clear public interest in honest reporting, is there really a public interest in requiring bookshops to follow one policy or another?
Yeah the spiritualism would put me right off. They should definitely have a railways section, I think that's an oversight as if I recall correctly Casino's home town is home to a fantastic preservation railway.
Exactly. Clearly @bondegezou would love to toss himself off silly in their to achingly right-on titles, and I suspect @kinabalu would absolutely love it, but most people do not.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
I suspect "most people" don't buy many books at all, and of the remainder, most of those will buy online, and of the rest, at the big chains like Waterstones. Running an independent bookshop must be a pretty precarious business model these days, and my guess is that to be successful you've pretty much got to either (1) take the "the business is a coffee shop that sells books on the side" approach or (2) have a niche and lean heavily into it. I don't think a small independent generalist has much chance at all.
Now it may well be that this specific shop has mismatched their niche and their location, but at least if they get word out online they can draw their customer base from a wider area than just local passing trade. And they might be able to do some worthwhile online sales too, if they are any good at curation and recommendations for books in their niche.
We’ve got two independent book shops in Sidmouth, but no off licence. That said, me and my wife, both 58, are among the younger inhabitants!
If people want to reduce taxes you are going to have to move towards a privatised health system and reform the pensions system. I don't see any other way.
Grow the economy faster than “health care inflation” and population growth, combined?
That’s how we got to the stage of being able to afford the NHS in the first place.
No one has any ideas on how to do that other than wish really hard though.
Start with Heathcare Inflation - which seems to be like military equipment inflation. More each year for the same capability.
From stuff I read up on, concerning testing during lockdown, NHS medical testing, at the backend, is poorly automated and rather put of date in many areas. Which is why results often take a great deal of time to come back. Which can’t be ideal, medically. I’ll bet that costs more money in wrong/delayed treatment. So *invest* there as a start.
Comments
As I am tagged in this I utterly reject this idiotic Truss like attitude and it only confirms the right of the conservative party have a desire to self combust
https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1593783449952944128
I was described by Steve Bannon (and, sigh, many others) as a pit bull. Jack Smith makes me look like a golden retriever puppy. So tenacious and fearless. And apolitical and ethical.
https://twitter.com/AdamForColorado/status/1593738010339684352
I want to address the recount briefly and my decision to concede.
This is an automatic recount written into Colorado statue. Colorado elections are rock solid and if historical precedent of recounts in the state holds, it is unlikely to change more than a handful of votes….
This campaign has never been about false hope. We ran knowing we could win. And we came close, so close.
So rather than continue with a narrative that the recount could alter the fact that we came up 554 votes short, we are choosing to move forward with honesty & humility.
I'm not sure that I've ever kissed a Tory but this is more a reflection of my cripplingly monogamous romantic history than any kind of prohibition on my part.
- You can vote in person or remotely (postal votes and proxy votes). One major Party (the Conservatives) does best on the postal votes and proxy votes (partly because of the skew to the elderly of their voters).
- Vote fraud is not non-existent in this country, but is almost always in the postal votes area, where it is possible to set up postal vote farms. This is not widespread, but is a potential issue, concentrated in some areas rather than others. The scale is small, but could flip a few seats in those specific areas. Vote fraud in person (personation) is all-but-nonexistent.
- ID could be used to protect against the latter (the all-but-nonexistent in-person vote fraud) but do nothing against the actual concern of postal voting. It does have the drawback that some demographics (the younger ones, the poorer ones, and the older ones) may not have ID ready and available.
- We will therefore ensure that the older ones have loads of possibilities for ID and make it as easy as possible for them. We won't worry about the younger ones and the poorer ones there. The fact that the Conservative vote skews elderly and away from the younger and poorer demographics is a pure coincidence, of course. As is the fact that they benefit most from postal voting and have done nothing in that area (where there is actually a potential concern).
Yeah, I can see why this stinks.
Matt Lawton
@Lawton_Times
Storm brewing about the anti-discrimination armbands here at the World Cup. Fifa trying to introduce their own, presumably to replace ‘One Love’ armband to be worn by England and other teams. Not until quarter finals does Fifa armband reference anti-discrimination.
Huge if true. Harry Kane and the rest of the England team will lose all credibility if they give in to this.
Tell me what services the state should stop providing to who. Tell me which salaries or benefits you are going to freeze or cut and by how much. Then we can think about the consequences and whether or not it's a good (or least bad) idea.
Everything else is the sort of fantasy thinking that has got us into this mess.
I think it must be that I don't like football.
I remember an older Leaver getting furious with me at a Vote Leave event when he, weirdly, asked me out the blue if I supported HS2, and I said yes.
You cannot take a knee, wear rainbow laces and do adverts arguing for social justice and then meekly shut up when you’re told not to do so when playing in a Middle Ages Hell hole.
In other news a left-wing Guardianista wokey bookshop opened in my town this week, which I didn't realise until I went in last night and couldn't find anything on history, military history, railways, espionage or geography but plenty on race, gender, spirituality and sexuality. I thought it would be as advertised: a nice independent bookshop with a cafe, which I could enjoy. But it wasn't.
I'm still annoyed about it. Thought about saying something but of course I just walked out after 90 seconds and simply won't go in there again.
What a shame.
Although that is, in fact, a pun on my actual title and name
Mr. Bondegezou, not liking a shop that doesn't sell what you want is pretty reasonable. Not sure why you're perturbed.
F1: remains to be seen if I'll remember to offer a tip or two. Losing all my records has rather diminished my interest in a late bet. We shall see.
@politicsrea
There was a red wave, albeit a bizarrely inefficient one."
https://twitter.com/politicsrea/status/1593770332749529093
If I go into a sweet shop and there's no chocolate, I wouldn't be impressed.
They should have called it “Capacity 2030”, or part of “the plan to get a million lorries off the roads”.
Don’t start me on the Heathrow runway, which should have been open decades ago.
In Salisbury their used to be a Christian bookshop, which our School choose for book prizes (you were given a token). Lots of religion, but at least some other stuff.
I wish the proprietors of the woke book shop well, but hope they have done their market research…
Jumping on the favourite woke cause of the day, is easy when most are cheering you on. It’s difficult when it gets you in trouble, so let’s see how many footballers actually have the balls to protest at the World Cup.
I give it a year.
It's a small town an option for me to sit in a bookshop with a new bookshop and have a coffee is no longer available.
What will I do? Go to Waterstones or the secondhand bookshop (which sells all the stuff I like) instead, but have my coffees elsewhere.
Not the end of the world. But another example of how this Wokery we're kept being told doesn't exist very much does in the real world.
But, not everyone thinks like me.
No-one will ever say anything to them - too much risk of looking like or being accused of being a dinosaur/bigot/neanderthal.. etc - so they will simply soldier blithely on baffled as to why their takings are so low, and everyone is still going everywhere else.
HS2 on its own has a theoretical capacity of 14tph. All running at the same speed, so it's easy to have consistent distances between them. I suspect in practice it will be about 10-11 trains per hour, but that's still a pretty impressive record set against a mixed-use line with twice the number of tracks.*
This also means the WCML now doesn't have so many fast expresses thundering up and down it - every one of those removed frees up roughly two pathways for slower services, partly due to pathing and partly due to the increased capacity at stations (Curzon Street may be a 500 yard walk/tram ride from New Street, but opening it will triple the latter's capacity, which is sorely needed).
Estimated increase in traffic - from 16 to 32tph.
I've seen estimates suggesting the overall number of tph will go from 16 to 52. That strikes me as optimistic but it's not ridiculous to think it will be over 40 in total.
More than a doubling of capacity, with only a 50% increase in track space, with far less disruption and far more cheaply than trying to upgrade an existing line.
If I'm honest, this is not only a no-brainer but the big mistake was not building it 25 years ago instead of getting sidetracked by widening the WCML. Which not only took far longer but was more costly than building a high speed line would have been.
*It will actually be quite a bit faster than the WCML as well - about half an hour shaved off the time to Birmingham, more to Manchester - because if you build a new line, why not make it high speed? (Whether it needs to be quite as fast as it's being planned to be is another question.)
First they bend over on the issue of selling beer, something in the past they have been very rigid on, and now this.
I guess when bought they stay bought. I mean, by their logic as no nation is a saint no one can ever criticise poor actions of
others...oh I get the appeal for Fifa now.
Almost all the same arguments were advanced against it then, with much the same level of integrity, as are advanced against HS2 now.
It's one reason (along with the Kilsby Tunnel fiasco) why it took so long and was so expensive to build.
But even that wasn't new. Shelmore Great Bank, a huge embankment carrying the Shropshire Union canal across a valley that took six years to build and is still a bloody nuisance to work a boat over in a high wind, only had to be built in the first place because the local landowner objected to the canal running through his pheasant preserve!
From memory old Heinz was a bit overly enthusiastic about reliving the good old days with the Alte Kameraden post 1945.
I was perusing their literary offer just last week, and there was a total absence of anything meaningful on Hegelian dialectics. And not only did they not stock the Anarchists' Cookbook, they refused to order it for me. I shall not darken their door again.
I am also boycotting Dorothy Perkins, as they have no clothes appropriate for me.
https://twitter.com/StepanGronk/status/1593898802875748352
https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1593751936011948032?s=61&t=oaxC5Wv_lHuLad8LE9Ffcw
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/stewart1.png
I read it at school and recall being greatly amused at his description of Goering. 'I can come to no other conclusion than that the Reichsmarschall was wearing cosmetics.'
But otherwise... best of luck to them. Most small towns would kill for a small indy bookshop-cum-cafe hangout. Even one that wasn't perfectly attuned to their preferences. Probably not enough to pay full price for books and stop using amazon, but you get the idea.
Different people want different things, and that's what makes life interesting. And as generations change, places change. It's uncomfortable, especially when things change from what I find congenial. That's always an undercurrent in society and politics, and the UK is suffering a fairly nasty bout of it at the moment, as the original boomers rage against the dying of their light.
But better that discomfort than the alternative.
We have these institutions whose entire purpose is to breed an entitled, out of touch elite and then wonder why we keep being ruled by an entitled, out of touch elite.
Let’s hope that is indeed recent footage. The most pessimistic estimate, from Oryx, says there’s 1,500 Russian tanks down in the last nine months, the most optimistic estimate from the Ukranians is 2,900 Russian tanks down - out of around 3,300 in total.
There were only around 3,300 tanks in Russia at the start of this conflict, so even the most optimistic (for the Russians!) estimate has nearly half of them lost. If the Ukranians are right, there’s only 500 tanks left! There was a 1967 T-62 caputed a couple of weeks ago, although not sure what the Ukranians would want with such a relic.
https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1593865523460284418?s=61&t=oaxC5Wv_lHuLad8LE9Ffcw
What I think you're saying is that you'd like bookshops to have no particular agenda at all, in the same way that lots of us would like newspapers just to tell us the facts without bias (nice in theory, difficult in practice). But while there's a clear public interest in honest reporting, is there really a public interest in requiring bookshops to follow one policy or another?
Now it may well be that this specific shop has mismatched their niche and their location, but at least if they get word out online they can draw their customer base from a wider area than just local passing trade. And they might be able to do some worthwhile online sales too, if they are any good at curation and recommendations for books in their niche.
However Smiths are weak on Schopenhauer and Kant as well.
One can only hope it takes down FIFA as collateral.
That’s how we got to the stage of being able to afford the NHS in the first place.
Apparently, some people regard spending on books, coffee and cake in that light- crazy, huh?
Talking of which, time to go and recycle some money into the local economy. It sounds better saying that than "eat some doughnuts".
Eton should provide a full account of the incident. Since they educate most of the people who run the country there is a clear public interest in knowing exactly what they're doing, and I'm sure that if they were a state school they would have to provide full disclosure (without providing the children's details, obviously).
https://twitter.com/amosmurphy_/status/1593722179828473857?s=61&t=oaxC5Wv_lHuLad8LE9Ffcw
From stuff I read up on, concerning testing during lockdown, NHS medical testing, at the backend, is poorly automated and rather put of date in many areas. Which is why results often take a great deal of time to come back. Which can’t be ideal, medically. I’ll bet that costs more money in wrong/delayed treatment. So *invest* there as a start.